Among the robots, teddy bears, and some colorful comic books, 2-year-old toddler Afu was amusing himself. He was trying to take the jacket from a teddy bear, and put it on Bumblebee, a popular member of the Transformers line of robot toys. The queer mixture of jacket and robot made Afu grin, then start to laugh.

Parents queue for their children's admission to the State-run Wangjing kindergarten, Beijing, on April 18, 2007. With camp beds and benches, they stay up for all night, struggling to win the only 30 places of a puppy training class. Photo: CFP

Next to him on the sofa, Wang Yang was looking at her son, but without smiling.

"As parents, we are under increasing financial pressure while my son's growing up," said Wang. After arriving in Beijing from Liaoning Province more than a decade ago, Wang got married in 2003. After years of efforts. Wang and her husband bought an affordable car and a small apartment in the suburbs of the capital.

"We knew the pressure of raising a child in China, but the current situation is still far beyond our imagination," Wang said. A week ago, she paid a 1,000 yuan ($147) deposit to reserve a spot for Afu at a private kindergarten in 2011.

A baby boom coinciding with the lucky Chinese year of the Pig in 2007 and the 2008 Olympic year are putting pressure on recent kindergarten intakes in China's big cities. Demand for places is so high that parents have to choose to go to expensive private kindergartens, and even that, they have to put down a deposit a year before actual enrollment.

"Actually I'm lucky to get the spot for next year. I went to three other kindergartens before I got the last position at this one, because all of them were booked out," said Wang. In her mid-30s, her eyes were already wrinkled by the burden of raising a child.

The deposit will not be returned if Wang changes her mind next year, and she has to pay nearly 2,500 yuan tuition a month. Wang and her husband make roughly 13,000 yuan per month in total, which includes the mortgage and the family's living expenses. They also have to support their four retired parents and have to pray that they don't have to pay for any expensive medical treatment.

Though the tuition fee is a large expense for the family, as nonlocals in Beijing, Wang and her husband have no chance to find a spot in a public kindergarten. Public kindergartens in Beijing are only available for children with a local hukou (residence permit).

For children like Afu, there are alternatives: His parents either have to pay about 100,000 yuan so he can "study at a public school on a temporary basis" or find a place with a kindergarten.