Childcare costs are incredible, how do so many women afford to work

[Zealey]

Hi, I'm sure many people have asked this question before, but I've just seen a piece on the BBC News about how childcare costs are often thousands of pounds a month for multiple kids.
Here in London my local nursery charges £750 per child per month. Considering many return to work mums will be typically part-time and in low paid jobs, HOW does ANY make it pay? Surely not every mum in London is on £40k+ a year.
I'm sincerely curious.
Thanks.

When I was expecting, me and my partner were both working ft we had an income of nearly £2900 a month. A week after I went back to work, he got made redundant, but went self employed shortly after. So then our monthly income was closer to £2000. £1100 went to childcare, the rest was for rent, food and bills. It was the worst period of my life, rarely did we have anything left over, we were borrowing left right and centre, We haven't been on holiday since son was 3 months old, and that was because it was paid for by partners parents.
I've now stopped working completely as my income alone didn't cover the childcare, I wasn't in a position to gain a promotion so it was pointless. I didn't hate the job, I hated the people I worked with, I was always left out for overtime and bank holidays, as well as training opportunities. Really pisses me off thinking about it, I should've made a complaint.
Now we have no childcare costs and all of partners income covers the important stuff. We moved to a smaller place too, to save £150 a month on rent, maybe this year we can go somewhere nice on holiday.

Agree with bigkidsdidit.
No tax credits or free nursery hours when our kids were small, so the last couple of years of childcare wiped out my income. However, from the perspective of 15 years later, how glad I am that I hung on in there. It's worth it for keeping on the ladder and having kept the pension going.

Just a thought... I do wonder whether this is partly a generational thing, and whether to some extent it's a side effect of tax credits. If you low waged, you qualify for a lot of your childcare paid for you. Therefore, if you're part of the 'squeezed middle' maybe you're more likely to resent the idea of having to pay your own childcare and not making any profit in the short term. I don't know- just a thought. I just remember when my kids were little, quite a few of my friends had babies around the same time and we all just accepted going back to work when the babies were 3 months or so (shorter ML too) and we accepted as a given that the childcare would be a massive hit. I know there are many positives to the low waged being given help, but I can't help but wonder whether an unexpected knock on is that it makes it feel a lot harder for those who don't get it.

When I went back after no. 2, my childcare fees took almost all of my salary. But I'm glad I went back and stuck it out. I have a job when many of my peers can't get back into work, I have a final salary pension which is looking fairly healthy. Best of all though, when you stop paying those extortionate childcare fees it feels like winning the lottery ... every month!!

I know that feeling librarian. When our kids started school and we were down to just paying after school and holiday care we felt like we'd hit the jackpot