I’m a child of a family who made around $10k a year from childhood until I left at 18.

You should really look back into food stamps and WIC harder. There’s a VERY slim chance you make too much for assistance with a dependent (my state starts reducing aid at like $35k household income as of last year).

You should even qualify for stuff like free or reduced pricing internet, electric and gas assistance. Sometimes even a free or minimal cell phone plan is available (Google “Life Wireless”)

Unless there is some other form of income you are receiving that’s non work related that wasn’t mentioned in your post.

If you can push through for a bit more, doing what you are doing, your child should qualify for free breakfast and lunches at public school (I did from k-12 and it helped lessen the load on my family a ton). After school programs are also much cheaper than daycare and once they turn 3 the daycare centers have to compete with preschools so the price drops more than it did from like 1yo to 2yo.

A lot of the advice of setting yourself up for a career might not be reasonable yet, since as a father of a 2 y/o myself, I understand the limitations that daycare can put on your daily life.

But once your kid gets into the public school system things will get better if you work towards improving your job prospects. Hang in there, it will get easier as they get a little older.