Norfolk mum started looking for nursery places at 16 weeks pregnant due to demand crisis
Mel Simpson is currently 32 weeks pregnant, and is so concerned about the lack of places in local nursery's that she is looking for places before her baby is even born
Last updated 29th Aug 2025
A Norfolk mum is having to sign her baby up for nursery before she's even born to make sure she gets a space.
Mel Simpson is currently 32 weeks pregnant, and is so concerned about the lack of places in local nursery's that she is set to register her baby before she's even born.
Mel said her concern started when she was around 16 weeks pregnant, after seeing social media posts from other concerned parents about the lack of places, with other Mum's saying online that they were struggling to get their children registered.
Mel spoke with us about the issue, saying: "At 16 weeks, it feels ridiculous to even be thinking about something like that nursery enrolment.
"I think there should be a lot more information out there on how early you should be looking.
"I haven't had any information on this from any professionals, like midwives."
It follows a government announcement, detailing how families across the country are set to benefit from thousands of new nursery places from September, by confirming the first wave of 300 school-based nurseries.
These nursery's will offer an average of 20 places per site and up to 6,000 new places in total, with up to 4,000 set to be available by the end of September
The scheme is done through parents applying for 30 government-funded hours of childcare a week, which the government say will save parents up to £7,500 on average.
Mel went on to say: "Some nursery's have different ways of using their hours, some will say that you can only use your government hours between certain time or set days."
Earlier in the year, the National Day Nursery's Association outlined major problems around staffing, saying how the early years workforce crisis demanded urgent action before further childcare expansion.
The NDNA discovered that seven in ten of the 714 providers who responded to its staffing sustainability survey did not have sufficient staff to operate at maximum capacity. On average, nurseries were found to be carrying 4.2 full-time equivalent (FTE) vacancies per setting.
Ahead of the September 2025 roll-out of increased hours for funded places for children, the Department for Education (DfE) has estimated that 36,000 staff need to be recruited to create the additional 70,000 places needed.
NDNA reported that 54.5% of providers still do not have sufficient staff to deliver the full 30 hours for two-year-olds.
At the same time the situation was worse for spaces in baby rooms, with 57.7% not having enough staff to meet the additional demand from September.
In order to operate at maximum capacity, the average nursery needed 3.3 more members of staff. NDNA’s research found that the average nursery would be able to create 13.1 more places for children if they had enough staff to make this work. Across England thousands more places could be created, exceeding the demand for places which the DfE has identified as necessary.
Government policies were also shown to be making it more difficult for providers to meet demand for places with 81.1% saying that changes to the employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) made it harder for them to employ the number of staff they need and 78.9% said changes to charging guidance had made it more difficult to offer funded places.
Purnima Tanuku CBE, NDNA’s Executive Chair, said:
“Our survey has laid bare the full extent of the staffing crisis that nurseries across England face ahead of the crucial September childcare expansion, with 93% of nurseries saying they still need more level 3 qualified practitioners.
"The Government needs to act quickly to address underfunding and help resolve this recruitment crisis."