Part time - best days to take?

[Ohthatwilldo]

I’m a first time Mum. I need to have a conversation with my work about returning from Mat leave. I originally thought I’d go back full time but since having my DD, I can’t bear the thought of putting her in nursery 5 days a week. Our families live in other parts of the country, so nursery is the only option. Think I’m going to ask for 3 days a week. I work in a big office with 9-5.30 hours core hours (in reality do a lot more). These could be slightly amended to, say, 8.30-5. I think my work would be amenable to suggestions. From your experience, which 3 days work best for you? I don’t really have any other commitments. One thing that springs to mind is that I would miss out on bank hols if I took Mondays off. Any other practical considerations would be gratefully received! Thank you x

[Rainycity]

Hi, I’m also returning to work soon and putting DC in nursery. Decided to have Monday as the day I’ll be at home because my nursery closes on Bank Holidays but I still have to pay for them.

[Rainycity]

Oh and I think I can get a proportion of bank holiday entitlement that I can take on other days, but tbh not sure how many days.

[washingmachinefastwash]

I would do Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday.

Most public/bank holidays are Monday’s and Fridays.

[123rd]

I do tues, weds, thurs.
You will get pro rata leave for bank hols.
I'm very flexible - on my current job as kids are a bit older so if work need me to come in on a different day I do. And vice versa.
My reasoning behind having mon & fri off was all those lovely weekend ends away we would be having ....doesn't quite work out as often as I had hoped for

[Invisimamma]

I take Monday / Fridays off because it covers bank holidays, the random days school close for teacher training and other public holidays.

I also like to work my 3 days in a row, I used to be off on a Wednesday but splitting my week didn’t work well for me.

[FairyPenguin]

I used to work Mon/Tues/Weds 9-5 when the children were younger. If I were to go back and do it again, I would not have 2 consecutive days off as it was difficult work-wise for deadlines, handing over, picking things up again. I spent Mon mornings catching up on what had happened on Thurs/Fri and then remembering where I had got to the previous week, then the end of Weds frantically trying to finish things/hand over/telling people I couldn't help them/attend a meeting until next week. I was working on project work so maybe your job isn't like that.

My DC (when younger) also struggled on Monday mornings to settle back into nursery as they'd had 4 days at home. Whereas if they'd only had 2-3 days away, it would probably have been easier.

Also, spending 2 days at home with DC before the weekend would often make me grumpier by the time I got to Friday bedtime! Weds evenings, I would be all happy that work was over, and I'd have lots of energy on Thursdays, but that petered out by the weekend.

[BackforGood]

All other things being equal, I would ask for Tues/Wed Thurs too. Might be different depending on your work - if others are in or have non working days you might need to work round, or if your job is busier on some days than others or if they have staff meetings or team meetings or anything on particular days.
4 of the 8 Bank Holidays are on Mondays (always)... 1 if a Friday and 3 move (Christmas, Boxing Day and New Years Day). Most contracts you will get 3/5 of the whole holiday entitlement, but each time there is a BH you can't work, so you are taking 2/5 of a day out of your annual leave to just not work on a BH if you work Mondays - this is why people are suggesting to avoid Mondays.

[SleepingBooty]

I work Wed/thurs/Fri. No particular reason other than it fit with my old job, busy and the end of the week and then carried it onto my new job as I had childcare in place. I like the Friday feeling with everyone else, getting my weekend and then another 2 days for all other jobs before I'm back in on Weds.

As I'm on stat holidays (20+8 bh) I get 3/5 of this: 17 days less any BH that fall on my working days (good Friday + Xmas).

[UnlikelyRunner]

Be prepared to negotiate: if you go part time, presumably your employer has to find someone else to work the other days to compensate. It might be hard for them to recruit for a 2 day Mon&Fri position. You may do better to offer Mon or Fri in your proposal. At my office, offers of part-time working are made solely on job-share basis, check if that would apply to you. With job shares at my office (large multinational), requests are agreed on the condition that they can fill the remaining hours. If they can't recruit, the remaining part-timer is offered full time hours: if they turn that down, there is a risk of redundancy.

[CatAfterCat]

Don't forget there will be days when you need to take holidays because DD is poorly. Nurseries are little germ factories.
When mine were little in nursery I worked Mon/Tues.
DH had Bank holidays off so that was covered and I got pro rata bank holidays added to my annual leave to take when they were ill I chose.

[grasspigeons]

I've done loads of working patterns

Monday is quite a good day to be in work because it's every ones first day back. I now start on a Tuesday and often feel like I'm starting on a back foot

I quite liked a split week. I did Monday and Wednesday, Thursday for a bit and that worked well for me.

[wewentoutonsunday]

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.

Never more than one more day till a day off, Monday feeling with everyone else, long weekend. What's not to like?

[MotherofKitties]

Watching this thread with interest as I’m in the same position as you OP!

I like the idea of Tues/Weds/Thurs and have the Monday and Friday off. My work isn’t keen on having people off on a Friday though so I’ll have to see...

[CountFosco]

Always have Monday as a day off, otherwise your pro-rata bank holidays won't cover the bank holidays and you'll have to eat into your normal annual leave to cover the bank holidays. And once you have kids every holiday counts.

I think you'lyou'll be lucky to get Monday and Friday off, work might not approve that pattern if it means cover over the week becomes difficult and your nursery might not have space - Wednesday is the most popular day at nursery.

[Believeitornot]

Who will pick up the work you aren’t able to do?

Also theres a risk you end up doing more than 3 days but only paid for 3. I tried 3 and yes it was right for my family it didn’t work for my job. I ended up going back up to 4.

Long term my aim is to go back to 3 but in a different job.

[BadgerFace]

I think it the best days depend on what sort of job you have and what your firm's bank holiday pro-rata policy is.

If they don't have a pro-rata policy and you work Mondays then you end up with more days off. My firm pro-rata so it is equal on which days you take but I don't work on Mondays which means that I end up with "extra" holiday to take at my own choosing from the pro-rata entitlement.

I work Tuesdays, Wednesday and Fridays. I couldn't work three days in a row as that would mean being out of the office too long for my clients. I LOVE having Mondays off! No Sunday night blues, it's already Tuesday when you get in, and only one more day until another day off. I also really like working Fridays as clients tend to bother me less so you can get loads done (depends on your industry though). My other part time mum friends also mainly have Mondays off with a couple on Thursdays off so I have lots of people to hang out with which makes a difference too.

One other thing which I think is advantageous to working split days rather than three in a row is that it can mean less time out of your working week if your baby gets ill and then has a 48 hour exclusion from nursery/childminder.

[Believeitornot]

Always have Monday as a day off, otherwise your pro-rata bank holidays won't cover the bank holidays and you'll have to eat into your normal annual leave to cover the bank holidays. And once you have kids every holiday counts

^strictly speaking that’s not correct. If you take Mondays off, your bank holidays (if your employer does it properly) will still be prorated and you make up the difference with annual leave (it wouldn’t be much).

[Bythepath]

Monday and Thursday set days and one day a week of my choosing, I usually do this on a Tuesday. I appreciate this is unusual but I am in charge of my diary and appointments so can be very flexible. We all have to be in on Monday for staff meeting. I like it.

[fabricstash]

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday too. It’s can really cause problems to miss Mondays and if clients call in week they can say I am out of office and in again tomorrow

[cheminotte]

As others have said I think there's a lot of benefit in having some of the same tempo as the rest of the team. It will be weird going back anyway but you will feel even less part of the team if you can never join the Friday lunchtime / after work drinks.

[Millybingbong]

I've just started a role which is a job share and I am a wed half day, thursday and friday.

I LOVE IT!

Enough days to have a run at it, and friday feeling is great. I dont have to worry about mon/tues as there is someone else covering it, and I love having time at home at the start of the week - and my family deserve my best energy - rather than being flaked out on my days off.

My previous patterns were - mon/wed/thurs - I thought I liked the split week but now I dont feel like i had enough time to do fun stuff with the kids, and a totally flexible pattern with a lot of wfh but I always felt like I should be working.

[Vinorosso74]

I did Wed, Thurs and Fri, avoided the early week blues and everyone was in a good mood on a Friday! You will still get 3/5 bank holiday entitlement so you won't lose out.

[ScrabbleFiend]

I used to do Mon, wed, Thu. I liked it because having Tuesdays off made Monday's bearable then a long weekend. I did job share but we both did 3 days so were in on the same day one day a week which suited everyone due to workload.

[TreTops]

When I first went back I worked Tuesday, Wednesday Friday (tues and Fridays were the worst days) so had the benefit of the long weekend. After my second I worked flexibly any three days per week when I started doing that I realised it was better to work the Monday as that’s when everyone caught up made a plan for the week. I agree that 2 days off together mean that you can have a lot to catch up on so I think the best days to work would be mon, tues, thurs.

[Liz38]

I split my working days because I thought 3 days in a row in nursery would be a bit too much so I had Monday and Wednesday off. She did Tuesday, Thursday, Friday at nursery and was off at weekends. So 3 days off, 1 day in, 1 day off 2 days in. That worked really well for us as I do work I can pick up and put down.