Preschool child-care expenses are concentrated in a five-year span.

About unaffordable: Most parents pay for all or a lot of their child-care expenses.

This credit would be available even if the family had no child-care expenses because a parent or unpaid relative watched the infant.

She would have to shoulder child-care expenses that a married couple with a stay-at-home parent would not.

Under the guidelines, child-care expenses would be added to the support award if the custodial parent worked or attended school.

The program also makes economic sense, they say, because it allows working parents to save on child-care expenses.

When Congress established the tax credit in 1976, the rationale was that child-care expenses were a legitimate and necessary cost of earning income.

Parents wishing to claim child-care credit should document child-care expenses.

In addition, this couple would qualify for the existing tax credit for child-care expenses, which is worth up to $960.

Under these programs, parents agree to have their salary reduced by up to $5,000 a year with the money earmarked to reimburse them for child-care expenses.