Strategic C-sections and a birthday lottery: The hidden cost of free childcare hours

Thirty hours of free childcare sounds great in theory, but the government's "impenetrable" and arbitrary support plan has been a burden to countless families.

Support doesn’t begin until the nursery term after a child reaches the eligible age. Pic: Unsplash

Starting this month – September 2025 – working parents who earn between £9,518 and up to 100,000 annually are now eligible for 30 hours of government funded childcare once a child turns nine months old. The support is an expansion of the April 2024 scheme that grants 15 hours of free childcare for all two-four year olds across England.

While state-funded help sounds like a sensible and necessary policy – particularly as the average cost of full-time nursery (typically 50 hours a week) for a child under two in England is £12,425, according to Coram’s 2025 Childcare Survey – historic and current schemes have an inconvenient (to put it mildly) catch: support doesn’t begin until the nursery or school term after a child reaches the eligible age range, leaving families in financial limbo according to a birthday lottery.

“I know a mum whose baby was born forty-four minutes shy of a termly cut-off point, so she had to fork out for extra fees and wait longer than other parents for childcare funding to kick in”, says Alexandra, a 39-year-old project manager from Manchester who is all too familiar with being stung by nursery fees after her first child was born later than planned in 2017.

“I think my main realisation was he would have an extra year in nursery compared to what he would have done if he’d been born on time. And then when I was talking to other parents it was at that point I was like, ‘oh and I have to wait another four months to get my 30 hours for three-year-olds funding’ because he was a September baby”, she tells The Lead.

In 2017, the Conservative Government introduced 30 free hours of childcare for three-four year olds. The hope was that it one of the most expensive childcare systems in the world had finally been fixed. But for too many parents, this hope has never materialised.

Mothers failed by poor policy design

The night after Alexandra left the job she had been in for over a decade in 2021, and the security of a 16-week maternity package with it, she found out she was pregnant with her second child. If she had known earlier, she may have halted her career progression, like a wealth of other mothers who have turned down promotions to stay eligible for childcare support.

What should have been a time of rest and gentle preparation for labour quickly became strategic planning around which delivery date for Alexandra’s C-section would have the least damning financial ramifications.

“I didn't want to say to the consultant, ‘basically, I don't want to pay for another year worth of nursery’,” but Alexandra had no choice. “I want to make sure my funding for the 30 hours kicks in in the September and that we can access school nursery… and I managed to get it agreed”, she says.

Without the option of statutory maternity pay, Alexandra was left with just maternity allowance. “I didn't even get the first six weeks at 90 per cent pay. I was just straight on the maternity allowance, which was like £600 every four weeks, for nine months. It was peanuts and a huge pay cut from the £3,000 a month I was previously earning”, she explains.

Then, four months into her pregnancy, her mother-in-law died suddenly, and she became responsible for caring for her father-in-law who has dementia, alongside her husband. “There were a lot of choices to be made. We were aware my father-in-law might need a care home at some point, and that doesn't come cheap. We had to balance our whole family finances”, she recalls.

A whirlwind ensued to make sure her daughter’s birth wouldn’t result in another financial sinkhole when it came to childcare: “We finished nursery for Harry on the Friday, had my daughter on the Tuesday. It was my son’s birthday on that Thursday, his birthday party the following Saturday, and he went into school on Monday. It was like a 10-day military operation, and now, three years later, the dust is only just starting to settle”.

Stressing the need for childcare hours that aren’t dependent on academic term dates, Purnima Tanuku CBE, Executive Chair of National Day Nurseries Association [NDNA] notes: “It makes sense to build a system around children and their families rather than arbitrary terms in an academic year. Children should become eligible when they reach the right age. Funding should follow the child to where they want to take up a place.”

Alexandra acknowledges that being able to advocate for herself and her due date was a privilege not all other parents are afforded; she imagines parents being forced into initially unwanted C-sections because they can’t see their finances working out any other way, and has heard stories of a similar ilk.

Katrina, a 42-year-old from London, wasn’t so lucky when it came to changing her C-section date for twins.

“Because they were born on April 7th, when we did qualify [for the childcare funding for three-four year olds] in 2023, we had to wait, and ended up paying for nursery without any help between April and September… I don’t know how we coped financially, but we had no choice”, she says.

The strain on the early years sector

As a self-employed couple on the heels of COVID-related financial struggles, nursery for the twins came just as Katrina and her husband were “clawing back” their companies “from the brink… which was financially disastrous.” While Katrina is grateful for the family-run nursery placement she secured for her children in south London and the government support she received, the financial knock-on effects were complicated and unexpected – which she recognises isn’t a problem only parents face, but nurseries and pre-schools too.

“I still keep in touch with people running the nursery who were such a huge support in the early years, and I know they really struggle to offer the extended hours funding (30 hour childcare scheme) because of the way the government pays them for it. I don’t think it goes very far per child. If you want to have a safe and nurturing and enriching environment for little kids then the government really has to invest,” Katrina says.

“I don’t know how we coped financially, but we had no choice.” Pic: Handout, Katrina

Over 300 nurseries were forced to close over the course of the last two academic years affecting around 10,000 children, according to the National Day Nurseries Association. The most deprived areas, including Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham and parts of London, bear the weight of almost a third of them. It is estimated that 85,000 places are needed from September, which comes at the same time as concerns over recruitment and retention of staff in the early years sector.

An Early Years Expansion Grant of more than £75 million was announced in December to help nurseries and pre-schools cope with the demand for childcare expansion. However, eight months on, less than a third has reached providers.

“Some nurseries may have to turn families away if they cannot recruit enough staff. Without policy action to support the expanded entitlement, families could face disappointment with reduced access to promised childcare”, Jack Worth, National Foundation For Educational Research Education Workforce Lead, warns.

Complicating matters further, “the free childcare hours can create a false sense of security too. Often nurseries charge for nappies, wipes, other non-negotiables for care, and the support doesn’t account for wraparound care before and after nursery either”, Alexandra says.

Without sufficient spaces in formalised early years education, countless families will have no choice but to turn to familial or childminding arrangements, which don’t fall under government schemes, and is something some of the most disadvantaged families are already contending with. Families who aren’t eligible for the new entitlements for children under three in England – because they aren’t in work, don’t meet the earning threshold, or don’t meet other criteria – pay around £105 per week more than eligible families for a part-time nursery place, locking the most disadvantaged out of much-needed help.

In response to building tensions and patchwork policies within the childcare system, the New Economics Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and Pregnant Then Screwed believe they have the answer for England’s childcare system. A new co-developed proposal calls on the government to remove the ‘working parents’ part of the extended hours eligibility criteria, so that all families can access at least 15 hours of free childcare a week from 9 months to 4 years old. In addition, maternity and early years education campaigners would like to see the introduction of a cap on childcare costs at 5 per cent of family earnings for any additional hours to ensure costs are proportionate, fair and accessible to all.

Alexandra reflects on the relief she feels about choosing to have a tubal litigation after the delivery of her second child. “Right now, the government’s support is really quite impenetrable. Policymakers aren’t thinking about the unintended consequences, but they’re huge and impact you every day.”■

About the author: Scarlet Hannington is a writer specialising in gender-based violence, sociocultural inequalities and the politics of sex and relationships.