Going on Maternity leave and funded childcare hours

Hi all!
I have seen many posts in the group about going on mat leave, and I thought about sharing a piece of information in case someone doesn’t know.
The entitlement of the funded childcare hours will depend upon when we return from maternity leave: government funded hours starts on the official terms (September for autumn, January for Spring, and April for Summer). Based on my research the earliest we can apply would be for September’s term and if we want to have the funded hours from then, we need to go back to work on or before 30/09/2027. So if you leave to go on maternity leave in October and take the full year off, returning only on October/2027, you will become entitled to the funded hours only from January 2028.
I know not everyone can or need access to the funded hours, but for those who do I know it can mean a massive strain in our finances not having it.
I don’t know much beyond that, I’m not a specialist, but I’ve learned searching on Nugget, best start in life, and of course some AI help.

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