Help with childcare/benefits/ returning to work

[Ohj94]

The online advice on gov website and nursery are making it unclear.

1. My SMP ends on 1st August. Will UC give me anything from 1st August upto 1st November when I go back to work? If yes can I tell them in advance to set it up or do i have to wait to August then wait a month ti get paid it as I know they take a while to process.
2. worked out if I go back to work 3 days a week then nursery fees will be £202 per week but I will only be earning £256 per week. First question is the 30 free hours childcare halved because I’m returning part time not full time? Second question is out of term time I understand you don’t get funding… how the hell do you afford to pay £202 a week fees and food and petrol costs plus living costs of bills ect. When only on min wage which is £256 for 3 days. Can I apply for any benefits or help with out of term time childcare costs?
3. Any advice at all on income top up greatly appreciated because what the hell why does nobody tell you about these things before you have a baby.
4. can someone also advice on how you cover costs of before you get the childcare funding. It is saying apply to get funding for the start of next term time. He will be starting nursery on 1st November when I go back to work but the next term won’t be starting until January. So that’s nearly £1000 to cover. Or do I apply for funding starting September even though he starting in Nov?

please help me why is this so confusing!

If you go back to work by 30th September then you cab get funding from September assuming he is 9 months on or before 31st August. Otherwise it's January for funding.

You'll get the full 30 hours as you earn at least £183 per week. Thus can be stretched so you use 22 hours each week throughout the year.

If you're eligible for either tax free childcare or Universal credit then these schemes can be used to pay the balance.

Makes no sense to only give the funding for start of each term babies are born all the time so not course there will be loads of kid starting mid term who then have to wait for the next term for help with it. Can’t start him any earlier than October due to age going back November. So looks like January it is :(

You can ‘stretch’ the funding so rather than 30 hours a week for 39 weeks you get 22.5 hours a week for 48.5 weeks, or something like that. We pay full price for 3.5 weeks then reduced the rest of the year.

The hours won’t be halved because your part time but you have to work a minimum amount of hours to qualify. Try entitled to.com with your circumstances when you return to work and it’ll tell you. You may also be entitled to tax free childcare where the government pay 20%, which you can use as well as the funded hours.

UC will pay 85% of the childcare on your wage that the funded hours don’t cover.

Funding is extremely labour intensive to administer behind the scenes. It might seem unfair but to make it a free flow system as you're suggesting would create double the amount of work and this puts costs up, reducing the amount of money that actually reaches the settings.

I spend enough of my own time filling out forms and portals, submitting estimates and Actuals, chasing payments and writing invoices just so parents can get their free hours, I don't fancy even more admin!