when did you start looking for childcare

[Bells3032]

I am currently nearly 20 weeks pregnant. Heard redic things about childcare getting booked up. Planning just over a year of maternity.

when did you start looking at childcare/nursery options for your post maternity leave care?

When I was a childminder ( stopped April this year) I found people generally started looking when baby was 3/4 months old. Odd handful left it until month before they were due to return and start panicking as they could not find what they were looking for. I charged a deposit to secure space which was not refundable if you did not take space up or left in first 12 weeks, it was refunded at end of contract so long as family gave 4 weeks notice and did not owe any fees. I also charged in advance every month.

I started looking 6 mths before I was due back.

Living in London where there is a ridiculous shortage of nursery places... I put DC1 name and deposit down before he was even born so 18m before I needed the place.

I've moved away now and got DC2 into a great nursery straight away!

My daughter was born in November - i started looking in January. All the nurseries i looked to start a place in October were full - luckily we did find a place at a great nursery but lots I spoke said people were looking as soon as their dc was born.

I starting looking 6-7 months ahead of when we needed a space. It was too late for some of the most popular nurseries. I’m 34 weeks with #2 and will be adding him to a waiting list when he is born.

I’m 15 weeks and have my childminder. My friend who is due in December viewed her nursery yesterday and is signing up her baby now. We live in Wales.

I started looking when I was about 6 months pregnant, so probably a year ahead of when I thought I would need a nursery place. Even then I couldn't get a full-time place and needed to juggle working days for the first few months back.

This was for a very popular nursery, at the time I had no idea that people planned so far in advance.

I would suggest making some tentative enquiries. A lot depends on the birthdays of children currently at the nursery and when the children in the 'baby room' are due to move to the '2-3 room' for example.

I went and looked at about 8 months pregnant knowing that she would be starting at around 9 months old. They understood not wanting to actually sign up til she'd arrived safely so we dropped the forms and did the deposit when she was a couple of months old.

I don't know if I needed to be so far in advance really but I was glad it was mostly sorted before she arrived, it was easier to look round places without her 😂

It depends on where you are based and what your needs are. I expect nurseries in London get booked up really fast, but go further north and it might not be an issue. The age group you need would also be a factor due to ratios. If your planning for your child to go to nursery whilst under 2 there will be less spaces available than if your child was a toddler (2-3) or in preschool (3-5) as the ratios of children increase for each staff member.
In our case (based in NW) we didn't look until DS was 2.3. We started looking in the middle of July (quite a few to look at), decision made beginning of august, settling in sessions booked for august and he started for 2 full days a week from the beginning of September.

When I was 5 months pregnant and still found it tricky to get a place.

When I was pregnant as I needed a specific nursery. No one there was the slightest bit surprised I was looking so early

At 28 weeks DH put baby down for nursery in central London.

Moved to zone 3 when DS 5mo. Planning return to work at 8mo. Looked as soon as offers accepted - maybe 4mo before RTW? Nurseries could all offer me a place, but I was later told that that was probably as we wanted FT. There was a lot of messing people around near their return date.

We found a childminder the day we exchanged and he started about 2 months later.