How do you work out chuldcare when nurseries can't confirm place yet?

[slightlysoupstained]

Spoke to nursery yesterday about place starting in May - seems like they won't be able to confirm till mid April. I understand that they'll be dependent on hearing from other parents, but that doesn't seem very long to make alternative arrangements!

She advised me to start checking out childminders in case, but don't understand why they'd have a place unfilled for 3 months - they couldn't keep it open that long when it's actually just a fallback option? Surely they get narked at people visiting w/o a real intention of taking up a place?

How do people make this work?

I suspect that the nursery is actually "full" (which is why you have been recommended to look for alternative childcare) but the manager knows from experience that some parents choose not to go back to work, put off going back to work, or make alternative arrangements so a place might well come up. And some parents might only make these decisions a few weeks in advance (and I will hold up my hand here - I had a nursery place for DD to start at 6 months, but when she was 5 months old I rang the nursery and "postponed" it for 3 months. Imagine this is fairly standard!)

Poo. Fingers crossed then that something comes up.

I guess I'd better look at childminders then. I'm guessing that the only time of year when nurseries/childminders actually know well in advance they'll have spaces is in September when the oldest kids go off to school?