To ask how long the wait is for child benefit?

[Greentartanbow]

I’m due my first baby soon, I had included the child benefit payments of £80 a month in my budget for the next 9 months whilst I’m on maternity but I’ve just seen on the government website that there is up to a 16 week wait for it to be processed?!

Is that correct? So I probably won’t be getting any child benefit payments until next year?

Has anyone applied recently and got it fairly quickly?

We’re lucky in that we can survive without it, but there will be so many mothers/ families out there relying on that payment and it seems madness to have to wait 4 months before you start receiving it?

I think it was more like 3-4 weeks for me last year.

I had to register the birth first before I could apply and I'm pretty sure it was about 6 weeks after I completed the forms. Baby was 5 weeks by the time I could register him as there was a back log of appointments. It was backdated to the date he was born.

I applied about 3 weeks ago and received the first payment yesterday.