Giving up work

[beeboo92]

My little one is currently 3.5 weeks old and I'm not due back to work until next March however I'm already beginning to weigh up my options and really I'd love nothing more than to give up work until she is in full time nursery school to look after her as I feel ideally this will give her the best start.
Plus the cost of childcare (even with free funded hours) is ridiculous.

Does anyone have experience with this (in the UK) and were you able to claim any form of financial help if your partner was working?

I gave up work when I had my second child, my husband was not well paid at the time, so I registered as a childminder and looked after one extra child full time which made enough money for us to cope. Looking back I loved the four years that gave me with my own children. I found it very easy to get back into work ( teaching).

I haven't regretted my decision to leave for a minute, but the factors that I considered were:-

we are married
my husband was fully on board
we were able to cover everything financially without too much stretch
both of us have parents in a position to bail us out if it goes tits up (to cover the time it takes me to find work again for example)
I didn't enjoy my job any and it was very high pressure with no real part time/wfh options