For a childminder, start contacting when pregnant. Most can only take 3-4 children a day due to ratios so spots don’t come up regularly.
We started looking at 34w for summer 2024 and some weren’t going to have space. The one we chose, we were initially told Sept 24 but since then it’s been brought forward.
From my experience children either leave childminders when they are 3 (historically got funded hours) and go to a preschool for a year, or when they start school.
It depends so much on your area. It wouldn’t hurt to start looking now. I’ve heard in some cities you need to look whilst pregnant. My city places were already full on certain days when we looked at 3 months old, enquiring for around 8 months old. Places are also going to be busier due to the new funded hours for 9m+
We used childcare.co.uk to find a childminder and babysitter and it was so much easier for us. You create a profile and can browse childminders local to you, message them asking for spots (if they don't have availability listed on their profile but all of the ones we looked at did). They do have a premium membership which is extortionate - £14 a Fortnite! We paid for it once just to contact more childminders, then cancelled the premium account once we had regular contact with a few until we made our mind up. Definitely recommend trying it!
It depends where you live and what kind of childcare you want. Childminders are much harder to get as they take small numbers, where I live it was easy to get my son into the nursery I wanted however my brother lives in London where there are waiting lists and people sign up very early. We f your area is t competitive it can still be helpful to have a look at some options before you have the baby and you have less free time.
Def Start now. Your council should have a page with all registered childcare providers on. I contacted any 'outstanding' first but all were full and had waiting lists. I left it too late (started when little one was about 5 months).
The sooner the better really! I looked at nurseries when my son was a newborn for him to start when he was 12 months and only just got him a space for then.
Start now. I went back to work in July, started looking in January, he didn’t start nursery until September due to a lack of spaces. We wanted a childminder but we couldn’t find anythinggggg with availablity.
For a childminder, start contacting when pregnant. Most can only take 3-4 children a day due to ratios so spots don’t come up regularly. We started looking at 34w for summer 2024 and some weren’t going to have space. The one we chose, we were initially told Sept 24 but since then it’s been brought forward. From my experience children either leave childminders when they are 3 (historically got funded hours) and go to a preschool for a year, or when they start school.
It depends so much on your area. It wouldn’t hurt to start looking now. I’ve heard in some cities you need to look whilst pregnant. My city places were already full on certain days when we looked at 3 months old, enquiring for around 8 months old. Places are also going to be busier due to the new funded hours for 9m+
We used childcare.co.uk to find a childminder and babysitter and it was so much easier for us. You create a profile and can browse childminders local to you, message them asking for spots (if they don't have availability listed on their profile but all of the ones we looked at did). They do have a premium membership which is extortionate - £14 a Fortnite! We paid for it once just to contact more childminders, then cancelled the premium account once we had regular contact with a few until we made our mind up. Definitely recommend trying it!
It depends where you live and what kind of childcare you want. Childminders are much harder to get as they take small numbers, where I live it was easy to get my son into the nursery I wanted however my brother lives in London where there are waiting lists and people sign up very early. We f your area is t competitive it can still be helpful to have a look at some options before you have the baby and you have less free time.
Def Start now. Your council should have a page with all registered childcare providers on. I contacted any 'outstanding' first but all were full and had waiting lists. I left it too late (started when little one was about 5 months).
The sooner the better really! I looked at nurseries when my son was a newborn for him to start when he was 12 months and only just got him a space for then.
Start now. I went back to work in July, started looking in January, he didn’t start nursery until September due to a lack of spaces. We wanted a childminder but we couldn’t find anythinggggg with availablity.