in December 2023 Babies 🇬🇧

How are we Supposed to do this?!

I’ve been very lucky to have so far had time off with my little one due to saving quite a bit of money before she came along (took longer than we thought!) she’s 16 months and I’ll be looking to go back to work September/October time but my question is how the heck do you make this work? No matter how I look at it we will be screwed for money and trying to balance a new job with sickness, morning runs etc it’s insane what we have to do!! I’ve worked out doing part time would just about cover my half of childcare and basic bills so how do we pay for food etc? I know there is funded care but it’s subsidised and we have no support so she would be in daycare at least three days a week. If I put her in five days a week to earn more it wouldn’t help as childcare is so much! We also don’t qualify for any benefits but we don’t earn huge amounts. Further more how do you cope emotionally? I’m dreading not being with her and missing her! Plus worrying sick about her in nursery, how do you trust a stranger to look after your most precious thing to you? I’m just feeling angry about it all, the whole system seems set up to make it as hard as possible to keep your head above water. Just feels really hard!

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By September you'll be entitled to the 30hrs which will probably work out to be around 26hrs pw I think as the full 30 only applies for term time. You'll also be entitled to the tax fee childcare - have you seen childcare choices on the gov website? Other than that I'm in the same boat except I'm going back next month.

I am back at work full time and have two kids now in nursery. The nursery bills are more than my monthly take home pay (both kids full time even with all the free hours is still £2500 a month) even after all the government schemes. It's so hard isn't it. It makes you realise why people stay at home. We just don't really have a life outside of raising the kids at the moment as everything is so expensive. It will hopefully get easier when they are in school. I will be glad of my job then however now I am wondering whether to just quit and I have worked for years to get to where I am within my company xx

I agree! It’s been a nightmare. My baby has had to go to nursery since August (I had her in another country with only 3 months maternity and recently moved here) and I still struggle often with leaving her. I would love to take care of her myself, working to barely cover everything seems like such a waste and it’s not even a job I like. The one perk is that I work from home so I do have a bit of flexibility. But it’s just heartbreaking!

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