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The real cost of having kids is the loss of one parent's earnings for about 2-3 years. You lose it either way: work and pay or stay home.
Early years care is more expensive than when kids are older because you need more staff per child so the first couple of years are worst, but even when you get "free hours" it doesn't cover the full cost because the "hours per week" are term time hours, 30hrs/week doesn't cover a full working day, and the extras like food and snacks are on top...
We 'got around it' by essentially having no time together as a family, and even less as a couple.
I work five days and she works the two days I don't work; it sucks but it means we don't have to worry about childcare costs at the moment. The thought of her going back to her minimum wage supermarket job and sending our toddler into nursery is frankly, a non-starter.
We've got a five year old and a two year old. My youngest will be entitled to those funded hours soon, but even then the amount of top up fees nursery have to add on to simply meet costs makes it unaffordable for many.
We got super fortunate with my eldest. She got accepted into the nursery group that was run by (her now) Primary school. We only had to pay for cover at lunch times with cost us about £80 a term. Had that not been the case I think she'd have missed out on all of that pre-school socialising.