When to look for child care?

[ForTheLoveOfDoughnuts]

Currently 37 weeks pregnant with first baby.
Currently planning to take a year off. When is best to start looking for nursery or child minder?

To be honest with you depending on where you from some nurseries/childminders book up quickly! A lot of parents would of booked in from their 12 week scans to ensure they have a space! So I'd call around now if I was you x

I have worked in day nurseries before where parents who have children in nursery and they find out they are pregnant book them in pretty much as soon as they find out so they are guaranteed a space!! Seems crazy at the time! Very sad when they say it’s from 6 weeks old though! X

I’m 27 weeks pregnant and contacted a nursery last week to ask when I should register and they said they are fully booked for next year already! Looking at childminders now as the only other nursery I really liked the look of don’t do the hours we need

It really depends on availability in your area. When I was looking for my DD there was about a 6 month wait but as pp said some areas it's much longer.

As soon as you've had your pregnancy confirmed by 12 week scan. Lots of babies in Britain but limited nursery spaces.

I spoke to some nurseries and childminders yesterday. I’m 20w.

Childminders tend to be more flexible, so both the childminders I spoke to yesterday couldn’t confirm that they were going to have availability until nearer New Year.

Nurseries are generally well booked up in my area, especially for babies (apologies to PP who seems offended that babies might need to go into care! Some of us don’t have the luxury of taking longer maternity leave 😳). I will need full time care for an 8mth old after Easter.

I’m still going to look at nurseries tomorrow and I have appointments with the two lovely ladies who childmind booked for Jan. But it’s a bit alarming that you need to book up before you even know your baby’s name!! 😬

We started looking around 20 weeks (so last Dec) with a view to baby starting in the autumn and some of the smaller nurseries said they knew now they would only have space for X many new babies due to the numbers going to school etc so if we wanted the place we had to put his name down then and then pay a deposit once he'd arrived. I've got friends who paid deposits before their baby arrived but that felt a little extreme. We are SW London.

Given you're very nearly due you can either do it once you start mat leave if you feel up to it (if you get that far, I didn't as he came at 37+0) or when you're feeling a bit more human post birth. I just emailed the nurseries we were interested in and they all replied the same day and we set up viewing appointments for the following day.

At the nursery I work at we get lots of babies signed up under "Baby *family surname" as spaces go so quickly. But at the nursery I worked at before, which is just down the road and just as good a nursery they could usually take children fairly quickly. I'd look into nurseries whilst pregnant and their availability, even if you just sign up to get notified if they have spaces nearer the time at least you won't be worrying two months before you're due to go back.

Ooof you're all very organised!! I think with my son we looked around places and booked it in about 4/5 months before we needed the place, so we obviously got lucky! I'm pregnant again and I guess I'll ask the nursery if they have a place/reserve it after my 20 wk scan, as it would be a right pain not having a place at the same nursery as my son!

Wow, thank you. I'm definitely going to start looking. It's such a big decision, I don't want to rush or be stuck and have to go with somewhere we aren't keen on,
Thank you