Have you investigated family day care as an alternative to long day child care centres? It's just like leaving your child with a trusted family member. Just a thought.

I did four years not working with my DD1, on only 1 wage - and it was HARD. Hard but do-able. We didn't have any savings or resources to fall back on, the longer I didn't work the harder it got. We accumulated a lot of debt over that time, but five years on we're back in a financially stable place again.