# The cost of a child, by year
Author: Anita Desai
Author URL: https://demoatlas.superblog.click/author/anita-desai/
Published: 2026-07-25
Category: Family
Category URL: https://demoatlas.superblog.click/category/family/
Meta Title: The cost of a child, by year · Atlas
Meta Description: Not the headline figure. The actual shape of the spending, from the first year to the eighteenth, and where it peaks.
Tags: family, childcare, budgeting
Tag URLs: family (https://demoatlas.superblog.click/tag/family/), childcare (https://demoatlas.superblog.click/tag/childcare/), budgeting (https://demoatlas.superblog.click/tag/budgeting/)
URL: https://demoatlas.superblog.click/the-cost-of-a-child-by-year/

![A parent and child cooking together in a kitchen](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1752652012719-91c73fafdcb7?ixid=M3w3OTAzOTJ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw1fHxmYW1pbHklMjBkaW5uZXIlMjB0YWJsZSUyMGtpdGNoZW58ZW58MXwwfHx8MTc4ODYzNTQzOXww&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop)

The lifetime figures quoted in newspapers are large, round and useless, because nobody pays them at once. What matters is the shape: which years are expensive, and why. Tom and I put our own figures together for this one.

## Years one and two

Cheaper than you expect if you accept second-hand, and more expensive than anything if one parent stops working. The equipment is a few hundred. The lost income is the real cost, and it is the one people forget to count.

## Years two to four

The peak. Full-time childcare for one child costs more than most mortgages, and it arrives at the point when the household income is lowest. Every plan for a family should start here.

## Years five to eleven

School takes the childcare cost away and replaces it with wraparound care, clubs and holidays. Roughly a third of what you were paying before. This is the decade to rebuild savings.

## Years twelve to eighteen

Food, phones, trips and a slow climb. Not a peak, but a long plateau that ends in the question of university, which is a post of its own.

## The number that matters

Not the total. The peak-year cost, and whether the household can carry it. If it can, everything after is easier. If it cannot, the answer is usually about hours worked and not about spending less on the child.


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