Daycare Trust publish the eighth holiday childcare survey, which explores the issues of cost and availability of holiday childcare in Britain, sponsored by Imagine Co-operative Childcare.

Balancing the financial demands of family life can be difficult but there is some help out there towards the costs of raising children. Here we outline some of the benefits, tax credits and other forms of financial assistance to help with general costs of raising a family and specifically with the costs of childcare.

A lot has been written about the Credit Crunch and its impact on households across the UK. One beneficiary of the downturn in the economy has been nanny agencies which have seen a surge in demand as young mothers return to work to boost the family income.

A few weeks ago I caught the last few seconds of a news report about worried parents who plant cameras in teddies and cushions so they can spy on their nanny. With webcams and tiny cameras the technology is affordable and easy to access.

Rrecent reports from YouGov found that the number of stay at home Mums is at an all-time low. Apparently 2.2 million parents stay at home compared to 2.8 million in 1993. And it is the increasing cost of living which is being blamed.