Nicole Ashurst was five months pregnant with her youngest son Rafferty when she put his name down for child care in their hometown of Dalby, three hours west of Brisbane.
Rafferty is now 20 months old and the Ashurst family is still waiting for a vacancy at any of the three childcare centres in town.
"They sort of gave me an inkling it was a bit of a wait, but nothing to the extent it is," Ms Ashurst said.
"With my older two, I literally called up and got in straight away.
"It was surprising. I knew there was a wait, but not two years plus."
Ms Ashurst and her husband Mitch are among scores of young professionals in Dalby caught up in the childcare crisis biting across Australia.
In regional areas, the problem poses extra challenges, and Ms Ashurst is worried it could lead to a mass exodus of workers if solutions are not found soon.
"I work 30 hours from home a week and study and look after Rafferty and then pay a friend to watch him on other days so I can go into work and be productive," she said.
"It's not cheap but I have to. I don't get any rebate; I don't get any subsidy.
"A lot of families in town have had to resort to that; getting friends, neighbours and grandparents to watch their children so they can return to work and then they're out of pocket."
Private babysitters
Dalby mother-of-two Natasha Schoefield has hired a private babysitter because she could only get two days a week of child care.
"The only reason I got a spot is because another family left and that's not good," she said.
Ms Schoefield, a medical centre manager, said her family relied on two incomes.
Many parents in the town needed to return to work to provide essential services.
"It's stifling the economic growth," she said.
"I feel that younger people want to buy houses, they want to stay here.
"They want to build down roots and, unfortunately, if you can't get day care, you can't go back to work and you can't live in this community."
The problem in Dalby is so bad, a private company has commissioned the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) to deliver a report on childcare vacancies across the Maranoa and Western Downs.
The RAI is expected to deliver its findings early next year with recommendations to support high-quality child care in the regions.
Chronic skills shortage
The state LNP member for Warrego, Ann Leahy, says the lack of childcare places is adding to an already chronic skills shortage because parents were waiting 18 months or longer to find care for their children.
"Businesses can't employ people, people can't go to work if they can't have child care," she said.
"We don't want to lose people; we have great jobs, we have great businesses, we want them to stay.
"I'm quite sure the lack of child care is contributing to our labour shortages, and we need to work harder to make sure there is daycare or childcare options."
Ms Ashurst and Ms Schoefield conducted their own unofficial community survey in Dalby and said they counted 200 families struggling to find care.
"There have been quite a few that we're aware of that where both mum and dad needed to work, but mum couldn't get back to her job," Ms Schoefield said.
"And the job wasn't available past the certain time that was needed for maternity leave, so they've moved."
National crisis
It is a similar story 126 kilometres away in Nanango, in Queensland's South Burnett.
Simone Kucyk drives 35 kilometres to and from Blackbutt to put her daughter Gracie in child care.
"I had to leave my bartending job and get something else which allowed me to drive to and from Blackbutt two days a week," she said.
"I am one of the many Nanango mothers who drive that drive every day, so our children have the opportunity to attend child care."
A recent study into childcare access across Australia conducted by the Mitchell Institute found 35 per cent of the nation's population lived a region where there were fewer than 0.333 childcare places per child.
United Workers Union representative Helen Gibbons said the solution could be found in de-privatising childcare centres and not running them as for-profit businesses.
"There is not a centre in Australia that doesn't have a shortage of educators at the moment," she said.
"We are finding that not enough people are attracted to the profession, and we are seeing staff vacancies everywhere, but particularly in regional and rural areas where there are lots of reports of having to close centres or limit vacancies."
Ms Gibbons said publicly funded childcare centres in schools would attract staff.
"Investment in the infrastructure into the land and buildings would make it more easily available for the not-for-profit sector to operate those daycare centres," she said.
"Put it on school grounds, set up a centre that's for children and educators."
The Regional Australia Institute will release its findings early next year.
