Hi 👋🏻 Childcare advice in Wales pls!

Hello! You can apply for Tax free childcare which is where you pay in £8 and they will top it up to £10. Then when your child turns 3 you are entitled to some hours for free but at the moment that's it x

Have you checked if you are entitled to ‘flying start’? If you google your postcode on the flying start website it should tell you 💕xx

We currently get tax free where I pay £8 and the government top it up with £2. It’s not a lot but helps. Depending on your postcode you could be entitled to free childcare from age 2-3 in a flying start setting. This is only from age 2 though and depends on your postcode. There are some areas where you can be entitled to it but the person living directly opposite isn’t (crazy) my little girl (18 months) is currently in English speaking nursery but I plan on sending her to Welsh school so debating moving her to a meithrin when she turns 2 as they work out cheaper (but only take on from age 2) I work as a teaching assistant so I looked around for a creche that does term time only to save some money but there’s only one in my area that has no spaces.

Thank you everyone! Where do you apply for tax free childcare? And does that happen before daycare starts or when you’ve started paying? We’re not entitled to Flying Start unfortunately

@Chloe here's the link. You can apply whenever but best to do it when you need to. It's a bit like a help to buy isa they only top up when you put in. https://www.gov.uk/sign-in-childcare-account

I would apply a couple of weeks before needing it as if I remember correctly it took a couple of weeks for confirmation. You then need to confirm every 3 months that your details are all still the same (financial situation etc but that takes minutes) once it’s all set up it’s really striaghtforward to do I’m not sure if all nurseries accept the tax free though. I believe MOST do but double check! There isn’t enough support out there for us working parents I’m so lucky to have my parents to help us out X