Unfortunately they weren’t scaremongering! It seems a lot of people put themselves down as soon as they got pregnant. The three nurseries we contacted after our 12-week scan last year had 18-24 month waiting lists, which is pretty nuts, so I would get your name down at a few places as soon as you can. Having said that, Gumboots seems to have some spaces in their baby room at the moment, so their wait was shorter than expected - they quoted 2 years and it’s been about 1 year. Childminders don’t tend to need so much notice.