I'm much older than a lot of ERA and already raised 3 kids (two of whom have their own kids now) and I do find it kinda sad that families are much smaller and atomic now. We had the help of both sets of grandparents when we were raising our kids, and my wife spends about 6 months of the year with our daughters helping them raise theirs, and we are even considering moving to be closer to our oldest daughter if she has a second baby. When I was growing up our family was 8 kids big and the oldest took on a lot of responsibility and we had a ton of family around, but each generation is more spread out and less able to rely on other family.
Anyways in a more concrete fashion I'd say maybe try thinking outside the box for child care. Regular daycare places are expensive because there are a lot of regulations, inspections, training, safety equipment etc they have to pass. Its not at all the same thing but I know an older lady in our neighborhood who takes care of two kids of a single working mom and she only charges $20/day to the mom, the 3 of them come over to my house daily to hangout, watch TV, eat, play with our dog, etc because she's my wifes friend and a really nice and amazing lady. If you can reach out to friends and neighbors maybe you can find a retired couple or something that wouldn't mind some light babysitting for a much lower price. I know some skeptics are gonna say "but what about abuse!", but imo we've gone way too far in the extreme of worrying about that kind of thing. It really does take a village to raise kids and there is nothing wrong with more adults helping raise kids.
