Nursery - when do you start looking?

We might be quite rare but we didn’t get our nursery place secured until baby was about 10 months. Some places do have massively high demand because of the funding and intake periods but also it is very area dependent (and also matters if you want nursery vs childminder, if you’ve got an idea of what nursery etc). I’d personally say maybe email out when you’re like 21 weeks / after the gender scan and get some brochures so you can start to get a feel for their responses, if you’ve got one your heart is set on etc x

i think it all depends on your area. it may be worth calling the nursery you’re hoping to take baby to and seeing what their spaces are like. i work in a nursery that’s usually fully booked every year so we sometimes have people around 20 weeks coming in for a look around, but we also have the odd space for a 7 month child to look around and start the following month! definitely recommend just asking whether they usually have any space x

Where I live you need to book after your 12 week scan for a place for when baby is one the wait lists are insane. I’d call round a few and see what their waiting lists look like x

My area is so busy so I booked mine when I was 20 weeks and found out the gender so I could fill in a bit more on the forms but ours said I had to get my forms back in that month, for the following year spot as they were in such high demand x

We did tours when my baby was 12 weeks old - i did it more for something to do and to just get it done. Then when we did they said they had one space left for the days we wanted 😬 so glad we went ! But it really depends on the area. Probably just worth phoning around and asking about waiting lists

I didn’t start looking until baby was here, but we’ve secured ours for 2027 when our little one will be 10 months old, i would look sooner rather then later in my opinion as all the good/better ones might get booked up or only have certain days available which might not suite you!

Consider childminders aswell, as they tend to be cheaper too if you dont get the funding/need more days a week then the allocated hours, we’ve gone for a child minder but for various reasons not just that! That ended up being a bonus x

We're on Suffolk / Norfolk border and started looking around 15 weeks. It's crazy busy here. The nursery we're looking at is already booked up until next year. Thankfully, they're building an extra baby room in time for next year otherwise I'm not sure we'd have got in!

I don't know about Bristol, but it does really depend on the nursery. I have worked in 2 over the years and my first one got booked up in advance and we was always full, the one I'm in now people are applying when pregnant or before they've even conceived and it confuses the nursery staff because we're not lacking spaces the way we did at my old nursery 😅
It could help to have a look around, but a lot can change in a nursery in that time so I'd just keep that in mind x