Childcare no availability until September 2026!

[Sparksi]

I’m pregnant and will be returning to work in autumn 2025. We’ve been looking into childcare options already (nurseries and childminders) just from a curiosity on cost position and have been told from several providers that they have no more space until May-September 2026! There are a couple with space in December 2025 which we may have to go with.

We’re up north in a medium sized suburban area. I’m really surprised by this and hadn’t anticipated having to be so organised… I really just thought I’d be fine to decide after baby is here. I don’t even know if I want to return full time.

Has anyone else been finding this?

That's if they've not closed down by then!

The good ones usually have such a waiting list that people go on the waiting lists before conception or as soon as they find out they are pregnant. The concern with going with a less popular one is whether it will still be going in a couple of years or not.

🫣 what are you supposed to do? Put your name down on multiple lists and hope one remains open?

Yup this is standard. Even if you find somewhere be prepared for them to have shut/not be taking on babies by the time you need them

Yes.

Just seems bonkers. Any child under 20 months in September 2026 won’t have even been conceived yet!

Yup. And you have to pay deposits too.

It's utterly shit

Put your baby down anyway. Waiting lists change all the time. I was told there was a year wait when I put my daughter down. She got in in 6 months.

It can be a bit of a September thing. September is when spaces become free as the oldest ones move up to school. This frees up a whole cohort of spaces.
Places like childminders may get more sporadic spaces becoming available as people drop out etc.
Huge sympathies- I think even if people have heard “oh it’s so busy, get your name down before they’re born” they don’t actually think that’s typical - more that it’s likely to be an extreme outlier. And it’s not like that everywhere but also not unheard of. Good luck!

Thank you. It’s crap, I have experience in the early years sector myself and know how much pressure and demand staff and settings are under… but unfortunately also I’m aware that the quality of them can be so variable. Even the same setting you like one year can be totally different with a change of management, and go really downhill standards wise. Maybe I should become a childminder myself 🤣

Its not new. I couldn't a space for my now 11yo until she was nearly two after moving when she was 6 months old.

However the situation is predicted to get worse when the so called free hours roll out to babies as demand rises.

This.

The statement that there's no space until September 2026 means "assuming all kids currently attending stay until they start reception and that all kids on the waiting list take up the places we offer immediately then there's no space until September 2026.

In reality, people will move house, some families will give notice within the next week or so that they will be moving their child to a different setting for dozens of possible reasons, and many people on the waiting list will decline a place that they are eventually offered because they like the alternative arrangements they made.

How did you manage whilst waiting?

I’s put your name down for all of them and hope a place comes up sooner.

What you will probably find is that other parents have done the same, so places will become available.

It’s a bit of a racket though and makes planning a challenge - a few hundred quid you won’t see again.

I’ve been on one waiting list for two years, I’m being kept on it purely out of interest as to how long it will take.

To join the baby room at our most popular local nursery, my understanding is they must have an older sibling there - and even then you might not get a place.

I couldn't work.
3 months after we got a place DHs job moved abroad!

Thanks, this is a good point. Crazy about your most popular local one though… how did those older siblings get a place in the first instance?

The eldest ones now are the covid generation. Loads of people took their kids out meaning those who had no choice got a place

I had to put my twins "names" down when I was 12 weeks pregnant and that was in 2020 to secure a childminder who I could afford and who was local enough and had the right T&Cs. I had to pay a deposit which even If I then went on to miscarry which for me was a very high possibility due to my previous history it was non refundable which seemed harsh but I had no choice. And I love in a big city