Are waiting lists common where you are?

[Halbanoo]

And, if they're common, what age was your DC when you placed his/her name into the list?

My current rant is that I've had my son (3.5 y.o.) on 4 different wait lists for the better part of 6 months and it looks like there's still no place for him for the September intake. We moved here from overseas last summer and finally started to register him once I clued-in (I'm from the U.S. where you usually just register for preschool in the summer before they begin, no problem whatsoever)

In any case, hopefully DS won't be starting Reception next Sept (yes, I know to register for that one well ahead of time) with zero nursery exposure.

Yes very common. We put his name down when I was 12 weeks preg and went to take a look around before he was born. One of the two places we went to see didn't have space till he was 1(I was going back to work at 7 months). For the preschool age (DS is same age as yours) there are waiting lists and when DH had his work cut down to 4 days which meant that we didn't go to nursery on 1 day, they actually said that if we could choose not to go nursery on a Tuesday they'll give us a discount (Tues apparently v busy days!).

Are you looking for part time or full time place?? If you can be flexible this will help them. Also chase them now because the older preschoolers will leave from now to go to reception so there'll be more spaces.

Yes, I'm completely flexible in terms of a.m./p.m., day(s) of the week, etc, and there's just nothing that has opened up for this coming term.

I'll admit that I am wee bit limited b/c I don't drive, and while there are probably a few other options in other villages (I haven't actually gone as far as researching those, hoping something more local would open up)....Some of the preschool sessions are so short (3 hours) that by the time I'd get home, I'd be off to the bus again to pick up.

what about private nurseries - they often do pre-school sessions
and sometimes people do drop out and don't turn up in september so I would keep in touch with the ones you have your DS on the waiting lists for
and some preschool will now do full days so you could look into those if you have to travel

I didn't realise there were non-private nurseries? My children are in a private one then - and we do full-days (8-6pm). people do drop out and don't turn up in september because alot of people 'overbook' (especially if they are teachers or trying to go part time but don't know their timings till september). do keep in touch with them!!

Preschool sessions are by necessity short as 3 hours is what the government funding covers. If you can afford to pay extra consider daycare nurseries and put him in am and pm. Do you have any Surestart centres locally as they may have more flexible sessions and casual spaces.

drcrab - non private is nurseries attached to a school - or community pre schools - tend to be less flexiable and shorter hours so not that good if you work - although the school nurseires at my DSs school did wrap around care
lizs some preschools now let you combine the 15 hours over say 21/2 days - often charge for lunch