You must have some records from before you stopped working if you were full time before you had your baby; can you rebuild them and just include your maternity break? Nobody is going to find it odd that you had some time off for that and you can always get the more recent stuff from your phone records/banking

I don't know much about childcare but I'm sure you get some entitlement to free childcare if you're working and you have young children, although 7 months might be a bit young and I don't know what the cut off is. You could call Citizens Advice and ask about it or look on the .gov website?

You can now receive 15 hours “free” when your child is 9 months. The filling in is a minefield. You can message me if you like. The key question is - are you self employed (or will you be ?) or what are you doing officially ? You don’t need to explain here just something to think about. If you are self employed and say so one day a week or equivalent hours - depending on other circumstances - you may qualify for UC (contingent on savings)… then you get 85 per cent reimbursed. If not, if you are working self employed you are entitled to 20 per cent tax free childcare plus the 15 hours when your child is 9 months old.

Just register self employed and find a registered childminder e.g. three days a week.

It isn't hard.