How best to return to work part time?

[Notfeelinglikemyselftoday]

DC is booked into nursery 3 days per week at 11 months. I can still change this though. The initial plan was me and DH each having a full day off in the week, I earn more so need to get as much money as possible but equally want to spend time with DC.

I've since heard of working 4.5 days over 4 days. Or working 4 days over 5 shorter days. And I'm sure there are other configurations...

Would love to hear from anyone who's done this; what's worked best and any potential pitfalls before I put in my flexi working request.

So unless you're going to be really stretched financially I'd just do 4 in 4. You'll be knackered on your day off if you do 5 in 4 and 4.5 in 4 might mean you don't have much time with DC in the evenings.

Can you work from home anytime? Later evenings when the baby is in bed for example?

Thank you, helpful to hear a realistic opinion. I felt like I was being indulgent with 4 in 4 as so many mum's seem to go FT

I can, yes. It's not written in stone though. Also I was working in the evening most nights even when FT! Its a real meeting culture so there's no time to actually work.

4 in 4. It will still be pretty full on, especially when you factor in how many sick days they have in the first few months. If you do 4.5 I doubt you would get any reduction in work load just salary. Condensing 5 into 4 means you probably wouldn’t see them awake on your working days.

I've done 4 in 4 since returning to work (and at two different employers). I think it's the best and easiest way with nursery. I'd feel bad having shorter days and inevitably end up procrastinating and running out of time and doing more work in the evenings. I probably do more than 80% of FTE hours but I like the fact that I can legitimately turn my laptop off at 5.30, sort DS out after nursery and not then have to scrabble around to find extra hours.

I officially do 5 in 4. It works, but only because I have a very short commute for my 2 days in the office, and as long as I perform no one worries about how many hours I do or when. So plenty of weeks I work 9-5 for 4 days, but when we’re busy I’ll work flat out, including days off and weekends (with DH picking up the childcare slack).

If I needed to ‘properly’ do 5 in 4 my hours would be something like 8.30-6.30. That wouldn’t work because I’d miss DD too much.

It's not indulgent to spend time with your baby, if you can, definitely do PT

I think condensed days would be hard as if you are working 8-6, when do you actually see your child? Smaller children often cope better with shorter nursery days. I do 3 full days and two half days so that kids could do two shorter nursery days when they were there and now I get to do two days of school pick up. It works well for us, although does mean no extra day off work for me.

I def wouldn't do 4 in 5 shorter days. It realistically doesn't end up feeling like part time, you're still there daily so people seem to forget that you're part time, so your work load stays the same and you don't feel like you're gaining much time off either.

I do 4.5 in 4 and it’s too much. I’m not my best parenting self when I know I’ve got to keep enough energy for several hours’ work after the children are asleep.

I work 30 hrs - 6hrs 5 days a week. We don’t have anyone to pick up early mornings/late afternoon so this works for us. It means I never miss them getting up/breakfast/drop off/pick up/tea and bedtime. I have a 3yo and 1yo and can say I wouldn’t change it at all. I think people get hung up on the fact it’s every day but I like that I see them for parts of the day I find important and have the weekends for days out and fun!

After DC1 I worked 4 days a week. She went to nursery three days and my DM had her the other day. I would have preferred to have gone back 3 days but my workplace had a policy that they wouldn't approve less than 4 days for my role. Low earning job but DH was a student with no real income of his own so didn't have any choice.

After DC2, I moved jobs to a couple of different ones (it's complicated!). But essentially work 3 days a week now instead. Much prefer having that extra day off work and with the kids. It helps too that one day each week I do a job that nets me the same as two days in my old job did, so I'm basically earning the same in 3 days now as I was in 4 days before. The kids go to nursery 2 days a week now as DH dropped from 5 days to 4 a couple of months ago. As the third day of nursery care for the two of them wiped out one of our whole net pay for that day anyway. He would have done it sooner but we wanted to make sure I was settled in my new jobs first.

This is a good option if my work want me in every day. Thanks

I do 30 hours per week over 5 days. It means my so can have a shorter day at nursery and we arent rushing around in the evenings trying to squeeze everything in to a couple of hours. My son is very much dependant on routine and I think its easier for him as well as he has more consistency during the week and having nursery everyday helped him settle easily.

I would go for 4 in 4. I did that after DD1 and it was OK. If you do compressed hours e.g. 4.5 in 4 then you just end up missing time with DC and doing a full time job for less money.

FWIW, I wouldn't do less hours over more days e.g. 5 shorter days. It's nice having that day off in the week. My work wanted me to do this after DD2 and spread my hours over 5 days but I refused and luckily they didn't force the issue. It's ages away for you but it makes it an absolute hassle in school holidays as you have to find holiday club cover for 5 days a week but you're not getting paid a full time wage.

If you do go for 4 days a week I'd advise having Mondays off if possible as this works better with bank holiday pro rata allowance for part time workers. People working Tue to Fri get more holiday than people working Mon to Fri as they don't have to take Mondays out of their pro rata BH allowance. Generally speaking that is, it might not be the same at every workplace but it's common.

Sorry that should have said it's often better to work Tue to Fri than Mon to Thu in terms of the holiday allowance.

Agree with pps that condensed days don't work well with very young kids, as their sleep patterns mean you see less of them, or you're doing work every evening and you're tired.
If you're trying to save money, doing 3 long days and 2 half days is also more expensive, as nurseries tend not to do half days so you need to pay for 5 days - it also makes it trickier to get out and about and have fun, I'd recommend saving the half days until they're school age or at least school nursery age.

I do 4 in 4 currently and did 3 in 3. in the past. I prefer having the evenings free and not needing to go back to the laptop. I also have over 1 hour commute on my in-office days so I don't fancy getting up at 5am just to get one more hour in.

Doing 4 days over 5 means you never have a full day off with your child.

Also, DH travels a lot, so I had to be there for drop off/pick up or play taxi for clubs on these days.

I prefer starting my week on Mondays, I know I loose out on compensation for bank holidays but I find that I just work better. But that's just me.

I’ve gone from 3 days to 5 in 4. I think it largely depends on how your employer treats part. My 3 days were never 3 days, it was always more like 4 so unmanageable. I’ve got a colleague back from Mat leave and I’m very conscious about ensuring her 3 days really are just that.

When I jumped to 4, it seemed like a good balance since my workload didn’t really seem to change, but I got extra salary.

The 5 in 4 was choice, and flexible. So one night I always end up working to midnight. My kids are older now, juniors at primary, but I couldn’t have managed more than 3 or 4 with a baby.

From the sounds of it I earn a lot less than you -- but I do four full days over four days and don't work a Friday it adds to 30 hours per week, once taxes and national insurance has been adjusted along with my public sector increment over the last year I take home the entirity of £80 a month less. Definitely play with your figures you might be surprised.

This is exactly why I started this thread @ThreeRingCircus. Thank you.

My pp brain is still moosh, so I'm not sure I fully understand. Atm I get 29 days holiday + all bank holidays. So I worked that out at just over 23 days holiday pro rata (4 days). Are you then saying that if I'm working Mondays PT I have to use my AL for bank hols?

You will get your holiday in hours - and it depends on how many hours you do on that day

So 25 days plus 8 bank holidays

231 hours

if you work 7 hours a day you take 7 hours holiday

If you do long days each holiday will be 8.5 days holiday

If you work 5 hours - you’ll take 5 hours holiday bit your entitlement will be less