Mom native English 🇺🇸, Dad native Portuguese 🇧🇷, community language Swedish 🇸🇪 (and also English to a large extent): what is the latest and also optimal age to put baby in preschool to get sufficient Swedish exposure?
Hi, we’re expecting our first and are wondering whether anyone has thoughts, personal experience, and/or scientific research about the best time to put baby into preschool so their Swedish learning doesn't fall behind too much.
Context: due to Swedish parental leave policies, dad will be home for 1-2 years. Mom works from home with a very flexible schedule, so we intend to spend several months per year (maybe 5-6 months/year) the first few years in the US and Brazil since that is where our families are (for reasons of grandparent bonding, help, and language acquisition, plus better non-summer weather lol).
We will do OPOL English/Portuguese. We speak English with each other but mom also speaks basic (but improving) Portuguese (but understands 80-85% due to speaking advanced/mostly fluent Spanish, which dad also speaks) and both speak Swedish to varying degrees (mom is more fluent than dad). Brazilian grandparents only speak Portuguese, American grandparents mostly only speak English (one speaks intermediate Spanish).
As mentioned, curious to hear any thoughts, personal experience, and/or scientific research you may be aware of. Ty!