Any childminders who only took a short time off after having their own baby?

I had 2 weeks off-my daughter was 10 days old when I went back to work. I had a 5 year old DS who I had to take to school, so thought I may as well get paid to take the others to school!
However, I do have a childminder friend who did the school run in the morning whilst in the early stages of labour, went to hospital, gave birth and was back at school to collect the children in the afternoon!True story!!

When dd7 was born I had dd age 4, ds age 2 and dd twins 11 month olds at home. Obviously it's different when they are not your own dc but it sounds perfectly possible to me.

I had 2 weeks off when I had DC3. I was home educating DC1 and 2 and had 4 part time mindees. It was mad but happy and fine, baby was breast-fed 3 hourly which worked very well (and I repeated with DC4 when he came along, though I'd stopped CM then).

Maryann you are right in my case. It was money. We could have made it work if we had properly planned the pregnancy & had a maternity fund that we had paid into. However the other factor to me was worrying about losing all the little ones. This was a massive worry of mine. I was concerned DP would struggle to be the only one bringing money in & the thought I could lose some little ones terrified me.

I really wish I could have that time back & even to an extent now I really hate working full time. Really hoping to change my days soon to give my children some time. I'm struggling with housework & paperwork on weekends as is. Be nice to have a family downtime day

I'm a cm and took full maternity leave. I guess I was partly lucky as we could manage on dhs pay and savings for the time I was on maternity allowance, but also I would have hated to have to share myself between my new baby and other children that weren't mine. The time I had with just my children was really precious to me.
Those that went back very quickly, I wonder if money was the main driving force to returning so quickly. If you could have, would you have spent longer off work?

The cm I knew who planned to go back after two weeks actually took 2 months off as the baby wasn't as easy as her elder two had been and she misjudged just how much family life would change. Her parents were partly sympathetic but it was also difficult for them as she kept extending meaning they had to alter their plans Constantly. Had they have know it was 2 months at the start it would have been much easier to sort.

When I was a CM (a good while ago now, I had my mindee back when dd3 was three weeks.
I only one mindee though who was three and at the same nursery as dd2, so I only had him in the afternoons after nursery pick up

I'd recommend getting a good sling so you can carry baby and also learn to breastfeed in the sling so you aren't stuck to the sofa when cluster feeding. Something like a Beco sling is possible to breastfeed in. I figured it out by about three weeks with my second! When baby has good head control learn how to carry baby on your back, then you will be able to play, carry a toddler, help with toileting, prep food etc whilst baby is on your back. Useful during those unsettled periods.

Oh and definitely if it's a choice between short mat leave and baby or no baby then go for the baby! :-)

I took 4 weeks off with 1 mindee and 6 with the other, so a staggered start back, both were 2 year olds. I also worked til 2 days before I gave birth (8 days past my due date). But I had my mum as an assistant beforehand, so wasn't on my own.

It was ok, I read the toddlers stories etc while breastfeeding (i bf for years, so it clearly didn't impact!) and had baby in a sling and 2 mindees in a double buggy for the school run.

I won't lie and say it's the route I'd have chosen if money wasn't a consideration -and I did cry the day before I went back to work, but it was fine.

Nope, I've said upthread that I stand corrected! I just don't know many women who were up to working a couple of weeks after giving birth. I was basically feeding or sleeping (or crying!) constantly at that point. But plenty of you say it's possible so I accept that.

My cm had my son back when her 2nd child was 2 weeks old!!

I took 5 weeks with first dc and it wasn't enough..first child is a very special, very exhausting time.

Our cm only took a month off when her 4th was born. She then had her baby and two 2 yr olds (including our DS). Seemed fine

DS2 was supposed to be born during the summer holidays, but he arrived so late he was born on the Sunday, I went home on Monday and back to work as CM on the Tuesday. However, I had only one mindee the same age as DS1 and at the same nursery (a few hundred yards from home), and the others were at school/aged 8 or over, so the school run wasn't very far!

Is there a middle ground of taking off 6 weeks ish instead of 6 months? Are you currently a child minder? It depends on the kids you currently mind and the kind of baby you have I think. I've had some mindees where It wouldn't have worked, others where it would have been more feasible.

Oh, and I found it a doddle to breastfeed and childmind at the same time

2 weeks off with all of mine. I treat the mindees as one of the family therefore they're here with the newborn. Always been fine for me. I've also worked until the day I gave birth.

Weasel are you a CM? Just curious as to why you think it's not feasible. All people with more than one child of their own have done this

It's something I'm thinking about too, I'm hoping to go back to work at around 6mo, ideally w a baby of a similar age. I need to see how the breastfeeding pans out but may have to introduce some formula if breastfeeding is taking away too much time for me to be able to do my job.

I'm a nanny and I had my baby 7 weeks ago. I can't imagine being back at work yet! I am breastfeeding (constantly!) and finding it hard to express more than 2oz in a go (and very little opportunity to express more than once a day ATM), so you'd need to be sure you could express enough if that was your plan!

I went back to work one month after having my second DC. I had had an elective c-section which was very straight forward and caused me no problems (luckily). The way I saw it was, if parents can do it with lots of their own children, then I can manage. And I did. DC2 is now 8 years old and has been around lots of people ever since and is now an extremely confident young chap!

Agree with Furry! I actually only breastfed for 3 weeks so that I was able to bottle feed when working. So if it's something your passionate about then you may want to spend longer with just your baby as they do tend to feed a lot in the beginning!

Not a childminder so no experience as duh but just wanted to add that it would probably also depend a lot on how you'd plan on feeding the baby. If you wanted to breastfeed you could well be stuck for hours cluster feeding on a sofa which may not be the most ideal thing.

He was my second child. I'm not sure if that made a difference & I felt more confident? And knew that I'd manage ok? Might be different with a first?