Baby Bonus and CDA, is it worth topping up for our second kid?

Two kids here, maxed the CDA both times, zero regrets. Why it's worth it: the government dollar-for-dollar matches what you deposit up to a cap (the cap is higher for the second child), that's an instant guaranteed return you won't beat anywhere else. The money isn't 'locked away' uselessly, you can use CDA funds at approved institutions (childcare, kindergarten, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, even optical shops), so it goes to real baby expenses you'd pay anyway. Steps: 1) open the CDA (auto or via the bank) after enrolling in Baby Bonus, 2) deposit up to the matching cap to grab the full match, 3) leftover CDA rolls to a Post-Secondary Education Account later, not wasted. Only 'regret' is people who didn't top up to the cap and left free matching on the table. Verify the current caps for the 2nd child on the official Baby Bonus site as they've been revised.

Don't stretch to top up more than your family can comfortably afford, but absolutely DO top up right to the matching cap if you can manage it, because that cap is the sweet spot, every dollar up to it gets matched, and beyond it there's no further match so there's zero rush or benefit to overfunding past that line. So the strategy is simple: aim to deposit exactly up to the cap over the qualifying period, no less (or you leave free money behind) and no need for more. And don't worry about deposits you can't immediately use, any unused CDA balance later transfers to the child's Post-Secondary Education Account, so it stays earmarked for them and isn't lost. Hit the cap, capture the full match, relax.

The second child's matching cap is more generous than the first, so if anything it's even MORE worth topping up for kid number two than it was for your first, the government is effectively offering you more free matched money this time round. The one thing to actually watch is timing: make sure you get the CDA opened and your deposits in before the child ages out of the matching window, because the co-matching isn't open-ended, there's a qualifying period, and rushing it at the last minute is how people accidentally miss part of the match. Set the CDA up early after enrolling in Baby Bonus. And do check the exact current caps and the qualifying timeline on the official Baby Bonus site, since they updated the figures fairly recently.

Maxed it and it's honestly the best guaranteed 'return' you'll ever get, dollar-for-dollar matching is effectively an instant 100 percent on the money you put in, nothing in stocks or fixed deposits comes close and there's no risk. The worry about 'locking money in' is misplaced once you understand where it can go, we just used the CDA to pay our childcare fees and paediatrician bills, expenses we were going to incur no matter what, so it wasn't locked away at all, it was pre-funding stuff we'd pay for anyway but with free government money on top. If you've got a kid coming, you WILL have these expenses. So there's genuinely no downside to topping up to the cap, do it and let the match work.