Funded childcare hours: Mumsnetters share their experiences

[LibbyMumsnet]

From September, eligible working parents can access up to 30 hours childcare per week for children aged 9 months up to school age.

If you’re a parent who’s already using funded childcare - or planning to later this year - we’d love to hear from you.

Sharing your experience could make a big difference to another parent trying to figure it out.

Whether funded hours have helped (or will help) you return to work, take on more hours, or simply support your family life - let us know how it’s working for you.

We’re also keen to hear how your child is getting on - is childcare helping them settle into a routine, build confidence, or try new things?

Post your experience by 31st July 2025 and you’ll be entered into a draw to win a £100 VEX gift voucher (T&Cs apply).

Prize draw now closed - thanks to everyone who entered!

Funded hours was a help to us, it was 15 hours and this was 9 years ago. As others have said it wasn't the discount I'd expected, we still paid over £600 a month.

My friend uses the 30hrs funding now and pays next to nothing, I'm slightly jealous! I'm shocked at how much the prices can vary, you read on here about huge nursery costs, even with funding.

Ill be accessing the 30 hours funding from September which is going to be a huge help. It has allowed me to gradually increase nursery days, with dc going full time from September, allowing me to go back to work full time. There was no way I could afford to work part time so having the equivalent of 3 days a week funded is a huge relief.

DC loves her nursery and whilst I was feeling guilty for putting her in early (part time from 7mnths old) I feel much more comfortable now that I know she is getting on so well and developing.

Big life saver for us was realising you can use your funded hours AND tax free childcare if you're eligible to get the 20% top up from the gov towards any hours you are paying for. So many little don't seem to realise you can use both!

We're going to stop be using the tax-free childcare top up towards after-school clubs too.

The 30hours will help us to remain financially stable when our mortgage renewal comes up this autumn. We have a fantastic nursery place but 36 hours costs us nearly £1500 a month (before 20% tax free and funded hours). The 15 hours is great (son is 22months) but 30hours will help to balance out the increase in fees we’ve seen over the last year, the cost of living rises and mortgage increases. Without it, life becomes a lot more difficult and complicated - how people have multiple children in childcare, I have no idea.

The funded hours helped hugely for my 2 year old who was very clingy to me and I felt I needed to try to stop or at least reduce extended breastfeeding with her.

Although she took a few sessions to settle the staff were brilliant and very experienced in facilitating just that. DD settled very quickly and soon enjoyed her twice weekly sessions and it helped her to socialise with her peers and try a wider range of activities.

Thanks so much to everyone who’s already posted. We’ve really appreciated hearing about your experiences so far. It’s clear that the upcoming expansion of funded hours will make a real difference for many of our users. A few things that have stood out to us. “Do your research and don't feel you have to get it right first time.” Wise words from @sharond101 - a good reminder that it can take time to find the right setting for your child.
@Twinnietwin £700 a month is a huge saving, and it’s brilliant to hear how it’s supporting both your working life and your children’s development.
We loved to hear that you’ve been inspired to retrain and your DCs are doing so well at nursery @ketchuporbrownsauce – it’s so encouraging to hear how funded childcare can open new doors.
Many of you have raised some important points too – from rising nursery fees that offset the funding (@Kentishbirdlife @Lost77 , @BouncingBananas ), to the difficulty of accessing support if you’re just over the income threshold (@MidnightPatrol, @HaveCreditWillShop ). We know it’s not one-size-fits-all and these discussions really help shine a light on what’s working and what still needs attention.

If you haven’t yet shared your story, we’d love to hear from you by 31 July. Whether it’s positive, frustrating, or somewhere in between, your experience could really help other parents navigating similar decisions. We know from the boards (and personal experience) that sending your child to nursery can be a really stressful and emotional time even aside from the expense. Your experiences and advice will be invaluable to parents starting out on this path. Thanks so much. 🙌

My 2 year old is in nursery 3 days a week and using the funded hours reduces our monthly bill from £1,200 down to £900/month. Our eldest is now in school but for the 10 months where we had an overlap with our two kids in nursery the fees were extortionate at £1,800/month, and having the funded hours reduced it to £1,200. Still expensive, but a bit more manageable. We never contemplated me not going back to work after mat leave but I'd love it if the UK government could look at models like the Scandinavian countries where childcare isn't so extortionate, and in some cases more expensive than your mortgage or rent. This new change from the gov is obviously welcome, and will help alot of families, but the reality is that private childcare is still expensive, and was a factor in our family planning - ie waiting to have 3 years inbetween our kids so we'd have less than a year of having to pay nursery fees.

We have been lucky. Our nursery's council owned so though there are fees, they haven't sky rocketed. The 30 hours have been a real help. We have both gone down to four days at work, so do one day's childcare each, and have three days at nursery. It's a nice balance of socialising without financial ruin. The 30 hours covers the bulk of term time costs with lunches on top. We save up to cover holiday weeks. We have twins so without the 30 hours we would've been in real trouble!

The free hours massively helped us, we started on 3 days a week in nursery then upped it to 4 once the free hours kicked in. Going in that extra day has also helped our daughter develop a lot more with her speaking and social skills. Looking forward to more free hours as they get older to take the financial pressure off a but. Fingers crossed the UK will move to a childcare system like France or Denmark one day.

I think I have the lucky option of having a job share - I can work 2 1/2 days, and my DC's have been at nursery with funding for the remainder of the week.
I have the opportunity to spend the precious time with my children and they have the opportunity to have the development and socialisation at a childcare setting.

I have found the funding to be pretty important to our family!! It means we can both work full time with nursery costing us now much less. My daughter has developed so much since going 4 days a week. She's now got such great social skills and is pretty much school-ready. If you get the chance to use these hours take them up! You'll be amazed at how quickly your child develops!!!

Also I only found out about tax free childcare and that has been so good at shaving off about £60 a month! So worth it!

Thanks, again, for continuing to share your experiences with us and other parents. We know that decisions around childcare can be some of the most complicated and personal ones parents face.

When we asked Mumsnet users what age their child started formal childcare (if they did), the range of responses reflected just how different every family’s journey can be:

20% started under 1
20% between 1 and 2
14% from 2 to 3
26% at age 3 or older
13% never used formal childcare
7% said they’re still not sure

Whether it was about going back to work, socialisation, finances, availability or just what felt right at the time, it's clear there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

What age did your child start nursery or formal childcare? And what shaped that decision? Whether it was childcare at 9 months or not until Reception, please share your experience below. It might be just the thing another parent needs to hear. Thank you.

We’ve been reading through all your posts this week and it’s clear just how much of a difference funded hours can make. For some, it’s made full-time work possible again. For others, it’s taken the edge off eye-watering childcare bills (even if they’re still pretty brutal.)

It’s been really striking to hear how people are managing things differently depending on their set-up, from juggling job shares and four-day weeks (@JacCharlton, @SammyTales ) to scaling up nursery days to help get back to work full time (@TheKatzKlaws, @NutmegsMum). And @newdad2023, it's great to hear about the boost in confidence and social skills your daughter’s had since going an extra day - we wish her and you the very best.

A few tips have come up repeatedly and we think it'd be useful to highlight them here in case you've missed them on the thread:

You can use funded hours and tax-free childcare together. Thanks v much @Lexibug and @NutmegsMum for flagging that, as it’s not always obvious.

Several posters (@Runningshorts, @Maraudingmarauders , @ThatBeachLyfe)made the point that while they help, costs are still high and planning around them (especially with more than one child) can be a major challenge.

The emotional side matters too. @Summergarden , your post was a lovely reminder that the benefits of nursery aren’t just practical.

If you haven’t posted yet, we’d absolutely love to hear from you before 31 July, whether your experience has been positive, frustrating, or a bit of both. As we said previously, your posts are helping others feel less alone in navigating the whole thing (and everyone who posts has the chance to win a £100 voucher).

Thanks again for sharing.

Yes we are having to pay top up and consumables charges.....that's £4 per hour and average childcare around her is about £5/hour anyway.

We were so excited to receive 15 free hours for our 2 year old. Around August we went through the funded/non-funded weeks with our kids nursery, to be honest they explained it pretty poorly. Closer to the time they announce that they are changing the way they charge to be an hourly rate instead of a daily rate, and what the charges would be.
I thought, oh ok fine they are just don’t that so they can calculate the hours, which is basically what their email said. I guess the overall price will be about the same, they haven’t said anything about this on their email.
Going through our finances today we’ve realised that in September, our childcare provider raised there prices by 25% (hidden in the switch to an hourly rate) compared to what we paid in previous months. Almost all of the expected financial benefit of funded hours is going to the nursery.

When my toddler (who goes to nursery 4 days/week) accessed the new 15 funded hours back in April, the nursery also put their prices up. We ended up saving £40/month. So frustrating. They said it’s because with the funded hours they don’t actually get very much from the local authority, so prices went up to compensate for the larger number of kids on funded hours.

When my son got the 15 hours in April we were worse off than before taking them up. With a price increase and the loss of second child discount (our nursery offers this until you take any funding, then withdraw it), our monthly bill was more than before we had the “free” funded hours. Funded days also have an £11 a day supplement charge attached for meals. We thought the 15hrs would benefit us and save us money, but it worked the complete opposite in the end.

The scheme totally worked against me. My DH earns over 100k so we don’t qualify for the 30 funded hours.

This means it isn’t worth me going to work as virtually all my pay would go towards funding nursery fees.

This means my DC misses out on nursery and the Treasury misses out on me paying any income tax.

There should be no means testing. It is counter productive.

Our old nursery shut because the money they got from the government wasn't enough to pay their staff. Our new nursery doesn't have that problem as they request parents buy everything their child would need in a day (nappies, wipes, food, drink, tissues, plates, cutlery, etc) and then charge for services such as preparing lunch aka taking the food out of their lunchboxes and sticking it on their plates, but as there aren't a lot of nursery spaces around here we just have to pay the added fees.

I will be taking more hours and i am.absolutely delighted as we are struggling month to month at the moment

My DC 3 years old, was in a private nursery with the 30hrs and 20% off we paid 726 a month. We just moved her to a primary school that her brother goes to starting next week. We find out we are only paying £10 a week, and she goes full time.

Thank you for sharing your experiences using the funded childcare hours!

🎉 Congratulations to @JacCharlton, the winner of our prize draw! 🎉

If you have any questions, don’t forget to check out our Q&A thread.

And a quick reminder: make sure you’ve applied and received your code for 30 hours of funded childcare by 31st August. You can find out more at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/

we have barely been able to access funded hours because two years of nursery (only one of which was funded) broke DDs MH so badly (she’s ND) that she had to be removed and then home educated. We had babysitter for a while but zero government help there, Nannie’s can have the tax free thing if ofsted registered but they were way out of budget.

We couldn’t manage for DS to go to nursery when he was 3 because DD was often housebound and then there was a lot of other stuff going on including moving so he was bottom of wait lists for anywhere I’d want to send him. Then we finally got him a place at a preschool and they stopped using government funding because they couldn’t make it financially work right before he started 😩 maybe DD2 will make some use of of but I’m not holding my breath.

lack of access to suitable childcare has meant I have quit my career