Affordable childcare options in Dallas (Dallas)

The daycare near me wants more than I can pay. This is my first time dealing with any of this. I looked into subsidies but the forms are long. How long did subsidies take?

Libraries and community centres run free activities that gave me a couple of hours.

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 14 months ago, and it settled down once I kept a simple log of every call and form.