Hello, 

My husband was due to take over my previous role as stay at home parent and home educator to our two young boys (4.5years and 2years old), from July 21st when he finished his teaching position (he had handed in his notice).
However he was diagnosed with Stage 4a Hidgkins Lymphoma on June 18th and started ABVD Chemotherapy on July 18th, this obviously means that our children now need to be in childcare for longer (they only started in May when I went back to work full time and were only going to be there 12weeks until my husband finsihed his work and would take over).

My eldest is obviously entitled to the Universal funding for 15 hours a week and we were getting child tax credits to cover 70% of the childcare cost - but now that my husband is not working his sick pay will stop at the end of August - we won't be able to afford child care on just my one wage. 

It worth saying at this point that our 4.5year old will not be starting school this September but they will both be joining me at my place of work (I am a nursery pre-school teacher).

Will we be entitles to the extended (30 hours) funding for our 4.5 year old (he is eligable for funding until January 2018)?

Will we then be eligable for 2 year old funding?

Will we still be able to claim child tax credits up to the 70% to cover the childcare costs (as I know that you generally need to have two working parents)?

Thank you in advance for reading that much, this is obvioulsy a big concern for our family and something that I don't want to have to worry about when I am trying to take care of my husband, work full time and take care of the children in the evenings and weekends.

All advice and information is VERY much appreciated. 

Kind Regards,

Jemma