Self employed KIT days question

[applestrudels]

I'm self employed and due with my first baby in April so I've applied for Maternity allowance and am planning on taking 4-5 months maternity leave.

Now, I know I can do 10 KIT days and keep my maternity allowance, but I'm a bit confused as to what counts as "a day's work" and how/if they track it.

I'm a freelance translator and virtually all of my work is done from my house, via email, on a document-by-document basis for about 5-6 regular clients. So for example, on Monday I might get an email from client A saying "can you translate this 2-page document for Wednesday?" and I'll say yes, but depending on my schedule I might:
a) start it straight away and get it back to them on Monday, (thus, I've worked 1 day)
b) work on it a little bit on Monday, a bit on Tuesday and finish it and send it back on Wednesday (thus I've worked 3 days)
c) say yes to it on Monday, do it on Tuesday, then send it back on Wednesday (thus, I've actually only worked 1 day, but conducted work-related activity on 3 days, and if you looked at my emails you might think I'd worked 3 days...)

So my question is, in situations such as that, what actually counts as "a day's work", how on earth two they track how much time you spent, or how you organised your time? Do they even track it?

I know this sounds like a really pedantic question, I'm just paranoid about getting on the wrong side of them and getting taken to court for benefit fraud or something! Like, say if I accept a job which normally would take one day, but with a 2 month-old that won't settle it ends up taking 3 or 4 days because I can only do 10 minutes at a time (a friend of mine has had that happen), would I be penalised for that..?

[TalaxuArmiuna]

for KIT day purposes, a single calendar day on which you do 15 minutes of billable work counts as one of your KIT days just as much as if you had done 15 hours of billable work. 10 KIT days means 10 different days on which KIT work is done, so you can't do 10 hours work over the course of a fortnight and call it 1 KIT day.

I do not know how they monitor it.

[applestrudels]

OK, that is useful to know, thanks!

[TalaxuArmiuna]

could you make it work by arranging 10 days of childcare across your ML (eg maybe your mum/an aunty or friend once a fortnight) who you trust enough to have solo care, allowing you to do 10 intensive days of work. if you save up the work to do on these days, the client doesn't see a different result between you waiting 10 days and then doing it all in one go, vs doing 10 mins at a time over numerous days.

[SleepDeprivedElf]

Yes, Talaxu is correct sadly. It's completely annoying and unrealistic for SE people who are the intended beneficiaries of MA. I was able to condense work into 10 KITs but then had to go back to work prematurely when I had exceeded these. It sucks!