easy ways to find nursery

[edinmom]

Hello!
I am going to shift to Edinburgh quite soon and have been scrambling to find a suitable nursery for my 2 yr old - he hasn't been to daycare or nursery yet so I have been trying my best to find him a place he will enjoy. Nursery location will also influence our choices for a location to rent/buy. I don't know if its just me as I have been spending an awful lot of time on finding a nursery and just wanted to check if there is an easier way to do it... for instance, how to go about finding child vacancy info? do I have to call the nurseries one by one or is it available online somewhere? likewise with ratings.. do we have individually check every report or is this presented nicely somewhere where its easy to compare nurseries? I just feel I have been spending too much time on this and would welcome any tips..

To be honest I think you need to actually visit the places as a five star nursery might just not be right for your child. If private nursery there is no short cut that I am aware of. Ringing them to find availability and then visiting would be the way to go. However your budget for housing should also be considered as you may find the perfect nursery and then find property too dear or not to your liking.
I love little voices in bruntsfield (previously known as bruntsfield house) which has gone from strength to strength since new owners took over a few years ago. Some swear by Forbes road but I just didn't feel it myself but in paper it would have looked stronger!

Hello, there is a website, you might have found it already called www.daynurserys.co.uk that I found useful when looking for a nursery. Nothing beat going to see them though, and we chose one in the center of town over one locally as it was smaller, had a homelike feel, and were impressed with the staff

Thank you for your comments . Yes, I did see daynurseries.co.uk website, but I found that they don't always seem to display the right vacancy info or the care inspectorate ratings? But I completely agree wth you guys that visiting the nursery gives a much better idea as sometimes nurseries could look better on paper and vice versa.. its just that there seem to be loads of good nurseries and all the ones I have called so far seem to be full - and I am still going through my shortlisted list; so was just wondering if there was a way to do things quicker...

will add 'little voices' to my list. would you have any idea about the annandale street area? We have found some properties nearby and was wondering about the nurseries/playgroups/schools in that area.

It's a case of phoning and finding out. We had a nursery close down near us and the other nurseries took the overflow from the closed one and its left very few spaces here.

My friend phoned every nursery from her house to work and eventually found one which meant she had to divert to manage to get a place somewhere.

So there is a bright horizons nursery there and also the Edinburgh nursery and heriothill. If going to leith Forbes road also have a nursery there. Don't know much about any of then

We love bright horizons at west end, or friends used bright horizons Annandale top of leith and had a great experience its large than west end one, but she was very happy with it

Excellent! Thanks all.

There's a magazine thingy. It's got them all listed by area with ratings. But you do need to call to ask about spaces.
Let me look for it and I'll be back.

Here you go. I ordered the hard copy and just worked through it when looking to move house.

www.nurseryguideedinburgh.co.uk