Mat leave - what is a typical day (pre-COVID)

[CupcakesK]

Can any parents out there tell me about their typical day while on maternity/paternity leave (pre-COVID)? I think I’ve lost perspective of what is usual as I’ve only known mat leave during lockdown! Now things are easing up, I’d like to make the most of it.

e.g. how much of the day out of the house, how often you did go to groups/catch up with other parents, how long spent doing activities at home with the baby etc.

TIA

With my first baby, I used to aim for one main activity out of the house each weekday. It might be a big shop at the supermarket, a trip to the shopping centre, rhymetime at the local library, a walk or playground trip (either just me and the baby or with a friend and her baby), a mummy-and-baby class, Baby Swimming class or a free swim at the Family Sesson of our local pool, or NCT coffee meet-up, a drive over to see the grandparents (or invite them to us for the day).

The rest of the day would be taken up with housework and meal preparation, playing/music/reading/playing in the garden etc with the baby, bedtime routine, sleep training and naps.

At weekends, my husband didnt work so he would often help more with my DD and free me up to have time for a bit of self-care or to let me pop to the shops on my own. We would see PILs a few Saturdays a month (they were about 45 mins drive from us. We would usually try to eat out sometimes, and sometimes meet friends for a pub lunch.

We might also have a few big day trips out but that tended to be when DD was older and could appreciate it more without collapsing into tears of exhaustion or needing an ill-timed nap.

As a first time mum I think I was a bit unsure of myself, and i really hates disrupting my daughter's nap cycle and bedtime too much. Like most parents, second time around routines become less fixed and my second baby would sometimes have 6 separate trips out of the house (schools runs and after school clubs for older DD along with normal requirements like grocery shopping and visiting PIL and my mum).

I recommend having some "fixed" commitments but not too many - leave gaps to be spontaneous! Definitely do "something" each day if you possibly can, it is great for stimulating and wearing your baby out and getting a good night's sleep!

Both of mine were early summer babies. I spent a lot of time walking miles with prams.

For the first I lived close to a huge indoor shopping complex, with adjacent retail park, Ikea etc.
We'd wake at 7.30ish, she'd feed, I'd have breakfast, get dressed and leave just before nap time at around 10.

The walk would take about 40 mins, then I would do a lot of spending. She would wake around lunch time, have a feed, sometimes we ate out, sometimes we'd just head home chatting and singing all the way.

We'd prepare evening meal, play, read, then she'd nap again until DH came home at dinner time.

Some days we'd get bus/train/bus to visit my mum, sometimes we'd stay overnight. Other times we'd meet friends.

As she got older we would go swimming, to farm parks, etc.

2nd, we had moved to the seaside, so spent most days on the beach.

My children are 8 and 10 so maternity leave was a distant memory.

To be honest, my maternity leaves weren't that dissimilar to lockdown. I had intentions of attending lots of play groups, coffees, meet ups and museums. In reality, I was knackered. Babies are hard work with all the feeding, changing, laundry, feeding/expressing prep.

I did attend 1-2 play groups a week, but many of them near me closed down (Sure Start) in the two years between having my my children.

Some ideas:

Cinema - I did the parent and baby screenings. They only had a handful of attendees, so social distancing would be possible.

Coffee - get a free coffee with purchase from Waitrose and go for a stroll.

Gardens etc - I have Corporate membership to English Heritage and it's nice to walk around the gardens of their property's.

I hardly went anywhere for the first few months as my baby wouldn’t feed or sleep easily, I was exhausted and stressed, and it was a snowy winter.

After that I tried to have one “awake” outing a day, plus various walks out in the buggy to get her to nap (she wouldn’t sleep in cot till at least 10 months).

I definitely felt better on the days I got out more. Or maybe I got out more on the days I felt better...

I agree it depends slightly on the age of the baby - DS was 7 months at the start of lockdown and we generally did one 'thing' a day. Two days a week, this was a Pilates/yoga class that involved a longish walk too. One day a week, my parents would usually come over for a few hours and I'd go out. We'd also go swimming twice a week (one lesson a week and once a week at my gym). We'd have a a baby group one day a week. On top of that, they'd be random other things - meeting up with friends, trips to the zoo (we have membership) and the playground, longer walks if it was a nicer day, seeing family. We also spent quite a lot of time shopping or browsing John Lewis. I used the Hoop app and would book random activities too if I felt like it. We'd try to go out for brunch/lunch once at the weekend. It wasn't particularly busy in that I didn't often schedule more than one activity per day but we'd try to do something most days.

Oh yes, PP mentions cinema. We are very lucky in that we have two cinemas in walking distance that do baby and child screenings and we probably went every other week. Loved them.

Thanks, some really good suggestions and reassuring to know most people are doing one main activity a day. We’ve mostly just been going to the park and a couple of online classes, hopefully we’ll be able to start some of the other suggestions soon!

I tried to get out the house at least every other day. Did two main classes - Baby Sensory and water Babies swimming.

Also tried out a few drop in pay as you go type groups.

Park trips, meeting up with other new mums, even just going round the shops to have a change of scenery.

Tried to spend the morning out, and back home by 1pm.