Can someone who works in a nursery explain to me...

[Janedoelondon]

How nurseries manage numbers of children and sort out waiting lists?

I am pregnant with baby number 2 and recently put them down for a nursery to start when they are a year old, only to be told there are no places until September 2026!

I don't understand how this is possible? Unless people book places before they conceive?

Or is it, there is a bottle neck in the pre-school rooms which is impacting on baby places? (I guess when a nursery offers a place they are technically guaranteeing that for 4 years?).

Can anyone shed any insight?!

I’ve worked in nurseries and it really depends how popular the nursery is. Some have waiting lists for years. A lot of nurseries try offer priority to siblings of those who already attend.

Siblings jump the queue. I work in a school nursery so teachers' children do as well. Occasionally there's a special case such as social services asking for a place for a child who needs it for a particular reason. It's perfectly possible to wait a year but slip down the list. You could go to one with no waiting list but it'll be a bad one.
The country needs more good nurseries but there aren't the staff.

There going to be an increase in the number of families wanting places next year due to the extension of the funded places. I imagine they are full due to that.

Parents with children currently at the nursery tend to book spaces as soon as they find out they are pregnant based on their likely maternity plans.

There is also staffing through the nursery to consider so a busy year may mean a staff deployment could change for future year groups. This goes hand in hand with staffing issues, you need one to three for under twos so if you have less qualified staff you may not be able to take so many babies. Babies are less cost effective due to the high ratios too if there are staffing needs for older groups.

The Nursery I was looking at for my DD had I think 12 spaces in the baby room, and they had 7 members of staff pregnant at the time, all of whom planned to take up a space, plus siblings of children already going there - there were only 2 spaces available to newcomers!

It’s probably more a case of them closing the waiting list and not being able to offer you a place until your child is two and they can have more children per adult. Eg in our baby room we had six places, four of these were paid for by a local business for their staff. We would only ever have 2 places which were usually staff, siblings or ss referrals. We always closed the list and said the next intake would be when the child was two where we had 12 places so more for the general public.

School nurseries in my area use the school admissions criteria to allocate places. So siblings, catchment, distance etc.

the nursery I wanted and contacted when I was newly pregnant told me there would be a space in the baby room but not when he turned 2. I had no idea how that could be given most of the children hadn't been conceived yet!

Yes! This is the issue I don't understand. I phoned up and tried to reserve a place when I was 9 weeks pregnant... not even late pregnancy!

"...when I was 9 weeks pregnant."

That's your problem. You left it far too late. You really need to book a place on the second date.

Thanks - this made me chuckle 😁