How did you decide "how" to work after having a baby

[LutherRalph1]

If your company were giving you free reign to decide what days / hours you wanted to do when returning to work, what would you have picked. ( I know it varies person go person, so curious to know what would YOU have picked)

I'm due back to work in Jan and they have said to think about what I'd like to do.
I could possibly work from home, do a couple of days etc

Not returning isn't an option unfortunately

How far do you have to plan? Childcare - one long day vs 2 short days. If they're ill you only have to cover one day. Same for holiday cover.
Eventual school days - Wednesdays are often inset days and Fridays there's no after school club.

Both DM and MIL have offered a day of childcare which is so helpful.
Work is quite a long commute though so if I go back to the office I'm out of the house for a long time, and I just know they'll be the days the trains are up the creek
Little one is 5 months, I'm due back in Jan
At the moment I'm considering a day in the office and 2 at home, or every morning til 1pm

I know I'm lucky to have such a generous employer but I just don't know

If you've a long commute, it doesn't seem to make much sense to do short days when you're there. So if you mean every morning until 1pm in the office, that doesn't seem to make sense.

Do you want to work part time or full time? If part time, usually with preschool child/ren it makes more sense to do a smaller number of full days, rather than 5 shorter days. You can then use the days off to do more stuff. But that might not be your preference.

If you go every morning you block yourself from doing day trips, classes etc.

I’d choose a day in the office and two at home over every morning, without a shadow of doubt. Having a few non work days when part time has been life changing for me.

A lot of my friends have Mondays off. I believe there's more flexibility with booking time off, something to do with bank holidays. Also if you have a Friday off you can take a long weekend

You need to do some sums and work out what leaves you better off.
For example- once I'd crunched the numbers I found that part time work left me with the same disposable income as full time, when tax credits and childcare costs were taken into account.
Go through a few different scenarios and work out what earned income that would get, what your childcare costs would be and what benefits/childcare vouchers you would be entitled to.
Once you know what scenario leaves you better off- you can decide is the money is worth it to you.

Never take Monday as one of your days off because so many mondays are bank holidays. When I worked an 80% schedule I took Wednesday off. When I worked a 60% schedule I took off Tuesday and Thursday off. It worked well for me and for my employer.

If your mum and mil have offered a day each and you are taking them up on that, I'd work 2 days, as mine would have found more than two different childcare settings unsettling.

If you don't work Mondays you'll get the Bank Holidays back to take as leave at other times.

If you don't work Wednesdays, and work somewhere that closes on Bank Holidays, you'll have quite a few weeks where you don't work the BH and Weds in the same week so you have to decide what suits you best.

We have all sorts of patterns here. Some don't work Monday, some don't work Friday, some don't work Wednesday, and we have a job share where one person works Tuesday to Thursday and the other works Monday and Friday.

I chose to do two long days in the office as I had a long commute that meant leaving early and getting back late anyway. DS was looked after by a grandma each day and I still had 5 days a week with him while doing a reasonable number of hours at work.

I work 30 hours over 5 days (my children are school age tho). I do 9-3 three days a week from home and 10-4 two days a week in the office. I’m an hour away from the office so by starting at 10am I can drop the girls off at school and then go to work and they go to after school club on those two days a week and I collect them at 5pm.
I personally prefer doing shorter days but more of them than fewer longer days as I would have to be so much more organised to do a longer day in the office and the traffic would be worse if I started earlier anyway so I’d have to set off around 7.15am to get to the office for 9am.

I work three days a week - currently Mon, Wed, Thurs but it has been different in the past. I prefer my non-working days spread out (to prevent my inbox overflowing while I’m away) but a friend of mine works Mon, Tues, Wed as she prefers them all in a bunch.

At my workplace it doesn’t matter if you work Mondays as there will be a bank holiday adjustment to make it fair.

I could work from home, but I almost never do. I like to keep work and home separate, so I’m not thinking about one while doing the other iyswim.

I did Tuesday to Thursday for a while and I found that too long to be away from my emails. to finish up on a Thursday and not be in again till Tuesday felt like I was leaving people hanging.

I moved up to Monday to Thursday with 4pm finishes, but I don't commute.

I took Mondays and Fridays off at first as those were the days friends from mat leave were having off so we could have some routine with friends (swimming class for e.g)

Obviously, long days make more sense if you're going to commute, but I wouldn't like to miss bedtime for work more than once a week.

Three different childcare settings seems quite a lot though, unless both the grans are coming to your home? so if you're only doing two days a week then i'd want to make them both pretty long to work 0.5 of full time at least. I wouldn't use nursery for just one day a week so if you do need a third childcare provider you would want to make it at least two half days spread out in the week so they don't feel like they're hardly ever there. Maybe one gran or both would do just a half day childcare?

Dd was in two different childcare settings at one point (grandparents and nursery) and she found that unsettling. She was happier with only one childcare setting.

When I first went back to work, the DC were nearly 3 and nearly 1, and I went back on 3 full days, and we employed a nanny. When they started school, I went to 4 days of school hours (worked close enough to school that I could still do pick ups and drop offs, so only childcare needed in holidays). Mine are now in secondary school, I work one day from home, and 3 days in the office.

NB working Mondays can be a pain as your BHs are pro-rated. Thus, if working 80%, you are entitled to 80% of BHs. There are 8 in a year, so 6.4 are covered. In my current holiday year, only 1 BH falls on a non-working day, so I need to make up the shortfall from my main holiday entitlement.

Surely this depends on your workplace and work demands.
Are there particular days when key meetings happen where it's better for you to be there?
Are you in a role where it's best to do a run of days together? or like me work Tues Thurs Fri so I'm never unavailable for more than one day.

Are there already part-timers with fixed non working days, in which case it might be better to chose a different non-working day?

What's the policy on bank holidays (ours are pro rata-ed and added to leave so works slightly in favour of those off on Mondays).

Do you have both the stamina and the late childcare needed to compress hours into longer days (I have neither )? Or will you need to do more, but shorter days to allow for commuting, pick-ups and drop-offs?

Thank you for all of your responses, I'm just reading through them now

Sorry yes I did mean if I did every morning it would be from home

Don't underestimate the need for adult interaction and conversation after maternity leave and a change of scenery. Obviously depends on your circumstances and the nature of your job, but I'd opt for 2 days in the office and 1 day at home for those reasons.

Not me, but DH has Monday's off. As a PP said, it's good for going away for the weekend, especially when there are bank holidays. Most people we know have either a Friday or a Monday off so there are lots of people around.

All along I had thought that I would do Tuesday's in the office and weds and thurs from home. It's only, as a PP has said, leaving things hanging from Thursday evening to Tuesday morning may be tricky.

Nobody else does part time but I don't really have to work with or opposite anybody iysyim

Are there any limits? For example, I can work from home and could fix a day a week to do that, but I couldn't work from home every single day and never go into the office. But some people can.

Is the grandparent childcare going to take place at your house or theirs? If at yours, how would it work with DM/MIL in the house plus DC?

I work compressed hours - 36 hours (which is my organisation's standard working week) in 4 days rather than 5. I did lots of calculations and sadly couldn't afford to drop my hours! DC were in nursery 3 days a week, and DH also compressed his hours to cover the 5th day.