Business owners and new baby...how did you cope?

[Peanutbutternutter419]

Just looking for some advice please. I have one DS who is now 2 and DH and I have been discussing no.2 however I set up my own business 1 year ago and so would be going back to work almost straight away (about 2 weeks after giving birth)
My question is...how hard is it?

I am under no disillusion that it is going to be hard as hell but please tell me your stories because I am so desperate to have another baby that I think I am convincing myself that i will cope just fine!

I work with my DBro in a self contained office a short walk away from home and DS goes to nursery 3 days a week which i would continue to utilise. I would need to go to the office 2 days per week but could work from home 1 day if needed doing admin bits.

[purplemurple1]

I went back after a week or so initially just answering the odd email but doing on average 2 days a week from 2 weeks pp, mostly from home (traveled to a conf with ds at 6 weeks) and then had a week away at 3 month's. If you can be very flexible with your hours ans your OH does his share its fine. My OH was working 7 days a week but did the bottle when he got in from work and One before he left so even though I did the nights I was getting about 7hrs of broken sleep over 24hrs.

[Peanutbutternutter419]

Thanks for the reply. Did you take DS with you to work when you did have to go in?
I will be bf (hopefully) so should be easy enough to bring to work as generally I'm in the office alone anyway but i was more worried that I would be shattered. Baby brain was REALLY bad with DS1!
My DH usually works 6 days a week as SE too but can be flexible.
I did tell him to expect to be doing ALOT in those first 6 months!

[purplemurple1]

I took him to a few internal meetings and to the conf at 6 weeks, but didn't take him much after 2 months as I was either working from home or on a construction site so not that suitable. I mixed fed the first 6 weeks and then ff, I assume ebf will be more tiring as you can't have time off as easily and of course your body is workig to produce the milk. I did find taking multi vits with iron helped a lot while I was bf, but I've a tendancy to have low iron so maybe thats why.

For me fitting in some hrs a day from home was OK, I don't think doing full days would have worked to well (also why waste time travelling). Could you do two half days in the office and fit your other hours around naps/and evenings. Maybe agree your OH has both kids from when he gets in for 2hrs while you work, personally I prefered to get up after the 5am bottle and work a couple of hours while having breakfast then the day was mine, but then I didn't have a toddler to entertain. Communication is key so you both feel able to get your work done and have some down time without resentment, we have both taken parental leave but have both needed to work while we were meant to be on leave, and regualrly have to do overtime which clashes with each others work plans. (I'm in Sweden so parental leave works a bit differnelty here.)

Would you be able to up the time your DS has in nursery once you get the free hours.

I'm preg with number 2 and still SE, we have decided we will both work 50% for a yr when this one comes and keep DS in nursery 15hrs a week. So although it was workable I'm not in a large hurry to repeat it.