Struggle to find daycare?

[MotherBear]

Parents struggle to find daycare places
5:00AM Sunday March 16, 2008
By Megan Jones

The childcare shortage is reaching crisis point, with some providers closing waiting lists. Desperate parents are being advised to register their unborn children as soon as they know they are pregnant to secure places in popular centres.

The tipping point is the subsidised childcare scheme introduced last July, which offers 20 hours' free care a week for children aged 3 and over.

One centre on Auckland's North Shore says inquiries have at least doubled since the introduction of the scheme. Murrays Bay Childcare Centre has a two-year waiting list and has closed its doors.

The new scheme has had a "significant" impact on the demand for childcare, says manager Gayle Newby.

More here .

[KiwiHopeful]

Geography is a big problem.

Here is Chch, we could have kept our son in the daycare where we grabbed the last spot ... but when we moved it would have meant a 20-minute drive in each direction (at least).

In our neighborhood, all of the daycares are well beyond full. The YMCA daycare, which is reputed to be the best in the area, no longer takes names, since the waiting list is one of those 2-year-long ones like in the article. The others seemed to have 12 to 18 month waits for full-time.