Hellobee Boards

OMG - so glad I don't live in a place like that! Crazy!

I don't know about after-care, but where I live, some of the most popular preschools are hard to get into. One place you had to register in person at 9am on Monday, and they said people were lining up starting at 6am. Preschools are first come, first serve, and there are a limited number of spaces available. The place where I'm sending my son has online registration, but it began promptly at 9am, and each registration was time stamped, so they knew who completed it first. We got into my second choice for the time slot (which is an afternoon session), but I wanted the morning session. Even though I registered right at 9, the school principal said I was #10 on the waitlist!

@Mamaof2: No. These are private preschools

I haven't seen this here but it doesn't surprise me. For newborn care around here, you need to put yourself on the waitlist before the baby is even conceived for some daycares.

I live in a semi rural area and the preschool we want to send DS to next year is a small private school run out of a local church. I just happened to see they had an IG page and it turns out people lined up at 230am the day of registration to get a slot! The picture looked like a Black Friday scene with parkas and lawn chairs and jugs of coffee. The caption read "so humbled that so many people were lined up at 230am on registration day - 30 applications received by 630am." And all the commenters were like "worth it!" and "did it for both my kids!" My jaw hit the floor! I know for a fact it was freezing and raining like crazy that night!

@catlady: yeah again, semi rural area over here and I put my baby on a paid wait list at a local church when I was 12 weeks along - his slot won't open until he's 11.5 months old!

@catlady: Yup, that happens here too. I live in a good-sized city, and we have plenty of daycares and preschools, but everyone wants to send their kids to the most popular/competitive ones. I have a friend who is sending her baby to daycare, so she can go back to work, and she said if there isn't a waitlist, she takes that as a bad sign and won't even consider the place.

Wow! That's nuts.