Parents can take up to a year of maternity leave or Shared Parental leave. While this seems like plenty of time to arrange for childcare once you go back to work, the end of your leave can come around all too quickly and some parents can struggle to find a place for their child in time. When to look for a nursery, or how early you need to start looking are important to have in mind. It’s common for parents to put their child’s name down on a nursery’s waiting list shortly after birth and it’s not unheard of to do so while still pregnant.
What criteria are you looking for in a nursery?
Finding the right nursery for your child, family and budget can take time. The more specific your needs are, the earlier you should start looking.
Things you may be looking for in a nursery are:
Cost
What is your budget? Will you be using any funding schemes to help pay for childcare?
Location
Do you want the nursery to be en-route to your workplace or close to an older sibling’s school? Do you not drive and need it to have good access to public transport links?
Curriculum
Do you prefer a particular early years teaching method, such as Montessori or Forest Schools? Does your child have special educational needs or a disability?
Facilities and size
Is it important to you that the nursery has a large outdoor space with grass/ trees/ a vegetable patch? Do you want a small, family feel to the nursery or a larger setting with more social opportunities and facilities?
Languages spoken
Do you want your child to learn a second language while they’re very young and would like them to go to a fully bilingual nursery? Does your child speak a language other than English at home and you’d prefer if the nursery had a staff member who spoke it too?
Tips on looking for nurseries
Start early
People in high-demand areas are advised to start looking at options much earlier than those who aren’t. For example, nurseries in city centres that are close to workplaces can have more applicants than those in rural areas.
Do your research
Having a few nurseries that you’d be happy to send your child to is a good safety net. Doing more research into potential nurseries and sending enquiries early on could save a lot of stress later if something goes wrong.
You can use filters on the search feature of daynurseries.co.uk to narrow down your search. You can then find options to add potentials to your favourites list, send enquiries and request brochures.
Look around
Photos, brochures and speaking to staff can give you a good idea how a nursery looks and how they will care for your child, but attending in person lets you get a real feel of the place.
Attending open days is a good idea, you can also book tours and many nurseries offer virtual tours. Information about these may be on the daynurseries.co.uk profile or website.
Get on waiting lists
Even if you know the exact nursery you want really early on, they may not have spaces if you enquire too late. It’s a good idea to get onto several waiting lists to maximise your chance of getting a spot.
Things can go wrong, such as no place becoming free at your favourite nursery or even it closing down, so it’s worthwhile keeping your options open.
daynurseries.co.uk has multi-enquiry features to streamline narrowing down your search. When you send an email to a nursery through their profile, you will have a window pop up showing similar nurseries. By clicking ‘Send Email’ on any of these you can send them the same enquiry, saving you having to contact each nursery individually.
It doesn’t usually cost anything to be on a waiting list; you’ll probably need to pay a deposit to reserve an available place.
Stay up to date
Keep in regular contact with your favourite nurseries, this will show you are still interested and keep you in the loop about any changes on their end.
Dan’s experience of finding a nursery
Dan Williams and his partner Jenny thought they had organised a nursery for their daughter Alice in good time, but they hadn’t anticipated the extra challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dan explained: “Jenny was due back in work in April 2022. We wanted a nursery that was in the direction we both travel to work, and refused nurseries that involved crossing a major roundabout nearby as it’s just too busy. Also, we wanted something reasonably priced – it had to be worth my partner going back to work.
“We researched nurseries using daynurseries.co.uk in the summer and got ourselves on a waiting list for the local nursery – paying a reservation fee. Alice had a spot.”
A few months later however, the nursery they had found closed down.
Dan and Jenny started visiting more nurseries.
He said: “A staff member explained that they review the waiting list weekly, and admitted that it’s done on a ‘who wants this place the most’ basis, with parents who contact frequently being considered those who still want the place.
“We felt hard done by, being so organised to begin with it’s such hard luck we were in that position – also feeling guilty that we should have guessed.”
Dan and Jenny ended up relaxing their criteria completely, contacting nearly every nursery in their area.
Dan added: “The multi-enquiry feature on daynurseries.co.uk was really helpful, as were the finance advice videos. It would have been good if the site had let me know about the closure though.
“I also reached out to several childminders, but we are not keen on childminders as we believe that there is safety in more staff and purpose-built facilities.”
Dan and Jenny have now found a great nursery for Alice, but warn other parents not to leave the search too late.
Dan’s advice to other parents
“I guess I couldn’t have predicted Covid, but would say to all parents to check on waiting lists and keep their options open by getting on loads of lists.
“My next-door neighbour had a kid at the weekend and I almost wanted to text them to tell them to get on the waiting list now … but they’ll have their hands full enough.
“Also I don’t know what people would do who don’t have people nearby who can step in – we’re extremely lucky in that respect.”
For an introduction to the different types of childcare, take a look at our video.
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