When should I start looking for infant daycare in Ontario?

Start looking twelve months before you need care. If your baby was born between June and September, treat that as a deadline rather than a suggestion: demand for infant places in June and July runs about 28% above the winter low, because the largest birth cohort of the year needs care exactly when the fewest places come free.

Why does my baby's birth month affect finding daycare?

Demand for an infant place arrives about twelve months after birth, when parental leave ends. Supply is created when a child turns eighteen months and must legally move up out of the infant room. Those two clocks are six months apart, so the peak birth months of June to September need care exactly when the fewest places come free. A baby born in July needs a place the following July, and the places freed that July were vacated by babies born in January, the quietest birth month of the year.

When do daycare spots open up in Ontario?

In September, when four-year-olds leave for school and the whole system shuffles up a room. But those places open in the preschool and toddler rooms, not the infant rooms. If your child is one year old, the largest annual release of capacity is of no use to you.

Why You Can't Find Infant Daycare — And When To Start Looking

Q: How are Ottawa daycare waitlists ordered?

The City of Ottawa Child Care Registry offers subsidised places according to the City's Priority List, but full-fee places are offered strictly in order of registration date. Every week you delay registering is a week of queue position you never get back.

If your baby was born between June and September, you are going to have a harder time than most finding care when your leave ends. That isn't bad luck. It's arithmetic, and it happens on the same schedule every year.

By Tracy, The British Nanny • 6 min read • Updated July 2026

The Short Answer

Start looking twelve months before you need care — and if your baby was born between June and September, treat that as a deadline rather than a suggestion.

More Canadian babies are born in June, July, August and September than in any other months. Parental leave runs roughly twelve months. So every summer, the largest group of parents in the country needs infant care in the same few weeks — and that is exactly when the fewest infant places come free. Demand for infant places in June and July runs about 28% above the winter low. Most of those parents will be told no.

Why are infant places so hard to get?

Because the funding formula makes them uneconomic to build.

Ontario requires one staff member for every three children under 18 months. For preschoolers, one staff member can supervise eight. But the subsidised system pays the same daily fee regardless of the child's age — capped at $22 a day in Ottawa since January 2025.

So a centre earns the same fee for a baby who costs nearly three times as much to look after. The rational response is to build as few infant rooms as possible and as many preschool rooms as it can. That is exactly what has happened.

The Numbers

In 2025, 56% of children under one who were not in child care were sitting on a waiting list — up from 47% just two years earlier. It is the worst shortfall of any age group, and it is getting worse, not better.

Age group	Staff ratio	Children per staff member	Fee the centre receives
Infant (0–18 months)	1 : 3	3	$22/day
Toddler (18–30 months)	1 : 5	5	$22/day
Preschool (30 months+)	1 : 8	8	$22/day

Same money, nearly three times the staff cost. You can see why the infant rooms are small.

Why does my baby's birth month matter?

Because supply and demand for infant places are six months out of phase.

Two things drive an infant room, and both are set by the birth rate — but at different lags.

Demand arrives when a parent's leave ends, about twelve months after the birth. Supply is created when a child turns eighteen months and is legally required to move up out of the infant room, freeing the place. That age band is in the regulations: a centre cannot keep a nineteen-month-old in an infant room, whatever it might prefer.

Twelve Months In, Eighteen Months Out

Those two clocks are half a year apart. So the busiest month for demand is the quietest month for supply.

A baby born in July needs a place the following July. The places coming free that July were vacated by babies turning eighteen months — which means babies born in January, the quietest birth month of the year. The largest cohort in the country collides with the smallest release of places.

Infant places: demand against supply, by month

Above 1.00 = more parents needing a place than places coming free.

Jan0.89

Feb0.92

Mar0.92

Apr0.97

May1.03

Jun1.13

Jul1.13

Aug1.09

Sep1.09

Oct1.03

Nov0.97

Dec0.89

← Places availableShortage →

Calculated from Statistics Canada live births by month of birth (Ontario, 2020–2024, n = 694,828), set against the twelve-month parental leave and the eighteen-month infant age band. A 14% seasonal wobble in births becomes a 28% swing in the shortage, because peak demand lands on trough supply.

The mirror image is worth knowing too. If your baby was born in December or January, you have it easiest — you go back to work exactly as the summer cohort ages out of the infant rooms and frees up their places.

When do places actually open up?

In September — but for the wrong age group.

Every September the four-year-olds leave for school and the whole system shuffles up a room. That frees a large batch of places. But those places are in the preschool and toddler rooms, not the infant rooms. If your child is one, the largest annual release of capacity in the entire system is of no use to you whatsoever.

It becomes useful about a year later, when your child moves up into the toddler band, where one staff member covers five children instead of three. That is when most families finally get the call.

Which is why so many parents find themselves needing to bridge roughly twelve months — between the day their leave ends and the day the system can finally take them.

So what should I actually do?

Register at birth, and have your bridge arranged by May.

Register with the City of Ottawa's Child Care Registry as soon as your baby is born. Subsidised places are offered according to the City's priority list, but full-fee places are offered strictly in order of registration date. Every week you wait is a week of queue position you never get back, and it is the one part of this you fully control.

Then assume you will not get an infant place, and arrange care that doesn't depend on getting one. If you wait until August to find out, you will be looking at the same moment as everybody else who has also just found out — and there is nothing left by then.

The families who land well are the ones who had something arranged by May.

I keep three places for children under two.

Three, because that is the legal maximum for a home like mine — and they are the places that go first. If your leave ends between June and September, that is the queue you are in. Get in touch early and I'll tell you honestly what I have.

Join the Waiting List

Or call/text me at (613) 355-5544

Sources

Statistics Canada, Table 13-10-0415-01 — Live births, by month (Ontario, 2020–2024).
Statistics Canada, Survey on Early Learning and Child Care Arrangements, October 2025 — waitlist rates for children under one not in child care rose from 47% (2023) to 56% (2025).
Ontario Child Care Centre Licensing Manual, Part 3 — Ratios and Group Size.
City of Ottawa — Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care; fees capped at $22/day from 1 January 2025.
City of Ottawa Child Care Registry and Waitlist — full-fee places offered by registration date.
Employment and Social Development Canada — EI maternity and parental benefits (15 weeks maternity + 35 weeks parental).
Child Care and Early Years Act, s. 6(3) — unlicensed home care: maximum 5 children under 13, no more than 3 under age 2.