Nursery dictate start month?!

[Loranw]

Hi

I’m after some advice as not sure if I am being unreasonable (baby brain!).

Baby is due June (2020) and I am trying to get organised with work and booking a nursery place nice and early, for a March 2021 start. Viewed a good nursery today, loved it and wanted to book a place. I was told the only options for start dates would be September or January, neither of which are what I want / fit with baby’s age at that time or when I am due back to work. They wouldn’t let me join a waiting list or book a place unless I wanted either of those start dates. I checked this twice as I thought it was odd! I was told to call back in April and IF they have any spaces left, I can have one to start in March.

Is this normal? I feel like I am being given less options because my baby is born at a specific time of year which isn’t fair! I get that the nursery want fee income as soon as possible but baby’s are born all times of the year / mums have different lengths of time off so how is this fair?! I thought I would have more options starting to look early but now I’m just frustrated!

TIA!

They don't do that at the nursery I use, are there any other nurseries you could look at?

Never heard of that before.... very strange!

I had the same with my June born baby. It was a much sought after nursery, and was full, so you had to wait for the older ones to move up to primary school.
I ended up going back 3 days in the January, and luckily mum & MIL looked after her 3 days. She went FT to nursery in the September

It's a private business so they can do what they want I guess but I've never heard of such strict intake policy in nursery.

I’ve never heard of this before! Keep viewing other nurseries. If this is the only place that ticks all the boxes then I guess you’ll have to suck it up and book the January spot.

I guess if it’s a popular nursery then they have to have a way of deciding.
Saying that, it’s odd to look at a nursery before your baby is here, I found that what I was looking for in a nursery changed after I had actually had DD

Some nurseries only start at the beginning of a term. These tend to be nurseries attached to a (private) school but I can imagine it could be any nursery. I would think it has to do with when they have space. Children tend to leave before the start of a new term so that’s likely when they have space. It sounds like they are being realistic that they won’t have space mid term but will in September after the school leavers finish. That’s realistic. You can start later I would think but you may have to pay to hold your space (or else why not give it to someone who needs it earlier?). I know it was quite tricky when I went back to work after I had my 2nd. Nursery could only give us 2 full days to start (in January) and we had to wait til May for a 3rd day to open up. Dh did 4 days and I did 3 at work to cover that gap.

Start in Jan and just put baby in for a day or two a week until March? It's best they start before you go back to work anyway and you still get to spend lots of time with them the rest of the week.

I'm looking at nurseries too and it's not unusual here (very over subscribed). A lot of them like to run proper school years and have their main intake in Sept (even though they take from 3 months).

Ours was sort of similar but not quite as regimented. I said I wanted to start in June - they said they had the 2 of the 3 days I wanted in May so I had to pay for May even when we didn’t use the sessions, or they would have given the place to another family.
Then I had to wait until September to get the third day I needed. I think it happens in popular nurseries with long waiting lists. Have you looked at others?

I would sign up from January if it's your preferred option with some settling in days and work the odd KIT day. Never heard of it though. Seems odd with babies.

Wow! I wouldn't be happy about that. Our nursery have been super flexible. We didn't know when we would want her to start as DH was job hunting and they've let us start when we wanted, part time to start with, ad hoc days etc. If they're being this difficult before you even start I'd be concerned how rigid they'd be once your DC is there.

Like others have said, if the nursery is full it will be for logistical reasons. My DS’s nursery is completely full. Lots of spaces open up in September when the 4 year olds start school, then they move all the 3 year olds up to the pre school room, all the toddlers up to the 3 year olds room, and all the babies up to the toddler room. Places do come up ad hoc at other times of year but they can’t guarantee it very far in advance. When I put my DS’s name on the waiting list to start in January, they told me they wouldn’t be able to confirm if he had a place or not until November. So I put his name down at another nursery as well as a back up. You can always take the place and not actually start sending him yet if you want to secure it.

It’s not exactly dictating, it’s just what they offer!

Thanks for all the messages!

I do see the side of the nursery, just wanted to know if this was ‘normal’...I guess we have just chosen a popular one. I work quite far from where I live so wanted one on the way to work to aid with pick up and drop off (which this one is) rather than driving in to town and then back out at rush hour which is in the opposite direction.

I guess I’ll put our name down for this one for the time we ideally want and also choose the second choice one, which we didn’t like so much / isn’t located as conveniently but is still good.

It's normal if the nursery is popular. The nurseries that my dc1 and dc2 went to had plenty of space so they could be very flexible. Dc4 and dc5 went to a more popular nursery so I had to compromise quite a lot on hours/start times.

Could it be to do with the days you want. When mine were at nursery 20 years ago Tues wed and Thurs were always full as parents worked their hours around those days giving the children time with them over long weekends. Luckily I was looking for Mondays and Thursdays so got a place at short notice

That does seem very rigid. I’d go for the January date if you must have the place as by the time you’ve settled in, you could probably make it work. Annoying though. For mine to had to be on the waiting list while I was pregnant but could pick my starting month. I think you’ve got more flex if you want a September start as places in the bigger rooms will come available when children go to school and filters down from there.

Sounds a bit weird to me... I can understand them stipulating this for 3 year olds who are eligible for funding as this is when the terms run and payments are made. However it's bonkers to apply that to a baby... What are you supposed to do? Pay for a space you don't need to use from January or find alternative care when you go back to work until the new term starts?!

I ran into a similar situation with nurseries for DS last year.
He was a June baby & needed a nursery place from March when I'd go back to work. The one we'd used with DD had closed so we had to look at others. Found a great one & several friends were also going to put their DC in around the same time.
Viewed it, filled in the paperwork, we both agreed a March start date, all done. That was in the summer.
Cue email around Oct saying they'd reviewed their places & now wouldn't have any space until Sept. My two friends were also told the same thing - no space till Sept. Now I get that if you're waiting for children to move on to school to make space; but none of us were told that when we viewed it, it wasn't mentioned at all. Instead we were all told that it would be fine so we all stopped looking at nurseries as we believed it was settled.
Thankfully we were all able to find spaces in other nurseries but not together as we planned & it's really bad form on the part of the nursery. A bad reputation can kill a business like that.

Maybe they have strict criteria as they may well be oversubscribed.
In any case, if it doesn’t suit you then find another nursery.