Moving from UK to Toronto with a 14 month old

[howcomes]

Hi there

My husband recently accepted a job in Toronto and we are relocating this summer. I'm a little famililar with Toronto but I could really do with some advice about the best (most family friendly) places to live. At the moment we hope to find either an apartment or a townhouse at either Bloor West village, High Park area, Forest Hill or the Beaches or Danforth (our budget for rent is around 2,500 canadian dollars preferably with utilities included). Could anyone confirm that these are nice areas to bring up a family and also I'd love opinions about living in an apartment with a toddler.

I'll be a SAHM and we won't have a car so I'd like to live somewhere which had some shopping facilities and a park area for DS to play. Can anyone recommend any good equivalents of UK tumble tots etc?

Any advice would be greatfully received!

We moved to Toronto 2 1/2 years ago. I think that all of the areas that you mention are good areas for families. Other areas are Moore Park (around St Clair and Mount Pleasant) right up through Davisville to Eglinton, the area from Eglinton to Lawrence between Avenue Road and Bayview (i.e. centred around Yonge Street). The area around Yonge tends to be the most expensive though because it is on the Yonge-University subway. I think that there are a lot of families in Leaside as well.

Will your husband be working downtown? We have never looked at the Danforth or High Park areas because the commute would be on the Bloor-Danforth line and then the Yonge-University line - the Bloor-Danforth line seems to have the most problems. For the beaches the commute would be on the streetcar which I think can be quite slow unless he is up very early. Although if he currently commutes to London it would probably seem tame in comparison.

No experience of a toddler and an apartment.

A lot of the activities will depend on where you live. There are Ontario Early years centres which have various groups which might be similar to tumbletots. There is also Gymboree. My DD is 10 months so we haven't investigated those kind of things yet. Where we live there is a good community centre within walking distance that runs a lot of classes and there are also a few companies offering various classes.

There seem to be a lot of play parks around everywhere so I think that wherever you are you would be within walking distance of one.

Thanks gemmaraffe, much appreciated