Am I the only person in the country who didnt know about child benefit?!?!

[KimmyLB]

Hello

I just found out today we could have been claiming £20 a week for my son who is almost 17 months old, and they can only backdate it 3 months.

I had previously checked on the stupid, unhelpful gov.uk website about our eligibility for benefits but we weren't eligible for anything as we arent a low income family. Not one midwife, health visitor, birth register official, friend, family member, ANYONE mentioned it to us. I'm so angry with myself for not knowing what everyone else just somehow seems to know for some reason. Why dont they give it to your automatically when you have a kid? Why dont they tell you? Apparently it is all in a bounty pack at the hospital. well I'd been awake for 2 days when i have birth and was so exhausted i couldnt walk to the toilet and then I had 5 days in hospital trying to get baby to breastfeed... so had more important concerns than reading through a bounty pack full of adverts!!

Anyway i just wondered if I'm the only one. I feel like such an idiot and we've lost out on £1000 which would have been very very helpful

This seems like an appropriate thread to remind people that grandparents looking after children can claim the NI uplift normally available to stay at home parents if the parents are both claiming child benefit (regardless of whether it is paid back or not) and working. My mum has claimed this for the last 3 years as she looks after my children after school when I am working.

Tomtontom honestly I did! It was child tax credits which came under the same page as universal credit. I googled child tax credit which brought me to the form which then set up an account with the job centre and gave me an appointment to attend the job centre. I was baffled as I had to put in all my DP's details and financial income for the whole year also. When it gave me an appointment for the job centre I knew something was wrong. You can't claim just child tax credits anymore, it's all tied in with universal credit.

I had one of those horrible bounty reps trying to force me to take her bag of rubbish by telling me that the child benefit form was in the bag as if that is some kind of insentive.