to do this commute?

[takethatlady]

Hi there. Any help appreciated here!

DH and I currently live just north of Cambridge. He's a teacher in a school 20 minutes west of here and I work at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. I'm nearly 25 weeks pregnant with DC1

We had initially hoped to move to Norwich but a thousand different problems have occurred which now means that isn't very likely.

So now, after my 6 months' maternity leave (plus some annual leave) we're considering the following plan:

I work 3 very long days a week in Norwich and catch the train there. This is a 90 minute journey plus a 20 minute bus journey to campus. I would leave at 7am, get there at 9, stay until 7pm and get home at 9pm on those three days (Tues-Thurs).

This sounds like hell, I know. But it would mean that I would only need to bring a smallish amount of work home to make up my hours, which I could do on a Sunday afternoon/evening when DH will be free to take care of the baby. And it would mean that on Mondays and Fridays I would be free to just be with the baby and not doing any work.

On the days I am working the baby will go to a nursery near DH's school (there are 3 to choose from in the nearby area) and he will do pick-ups/drop-offs/evening care, etc.

I know this is going to be hard. But please tell me it's not impossible?

I wouldn't do more than an hour and a half, sorry.

I do an hour and a half each way at the moment and although I find the morning fine, I find the trip home murderous and I resent every second that I am delayed, spending good portions of my life in a sort of incandescent rage at having to be so far away from my young son because of circumstance.

I turned down a good job I was offered in the Summer because having done a trial run it was working out at 2 hours and I felt it just wouldn't be practical. I should regret this decision but I don't.

There will always be delays.. How good are you at getting out on time, though? Perhaps if you are brilliant at that it would be easier? I am not in a job where it's easy to do this!

Not impossible at all. I was doing very similar for nearly three years after my first child, but for four days a week. It's damned hard work, and the tiredness can be overwhelming, but it's certainly do-able. Those very late nights would concern me a bit though, would you consider doing four slightly shorter days so that you could see your baby before they go to bed? Other wise there's every chance you might not see them from one day to the next if they're a very good sleeper.

I think that a 2 hour each way commute is exhausting. I know this as H commutes every day, 2 hours each way.

However - you will not do this full time, you will be on a train, not in a car, so will be able to relax on the journey.

I think that if this is what you need to do to survive, then you need to. The travelling will get old, fast though.

ttl.
that commute is manageable IF you consider the train journey to be part of your working day. I also work in a uni and this is the only way I can manage my (slighly shorter) communte on top of all the family stuff.
I get load of marking, reading etc done on the train.

Yep, sounds very do-able. Like Pfft says, you can relax on the train journey and at least it's only 3 long days.

Give it a go, you dont know till you try. I used to do a lot of commuting but admittedly before I had my DS. Sometimes needs must!

I think you need to factor in that your baby is going to get ill. In the first 6 months this is going to happen a lot. ( I have just gone through 2 weeks of it myself).

At a nursery, they will expect you to pick up your sick child reasonably promptly. They can't give a sick child what he/she needs and all the other children will catch whatever they need. I don't suppose your husband will be able to get out for school for these emergencies, so I imagining it will be you who has to go.

For that reason, I would be more tempted to either go for a childminder or a nanny share (who tend to be more understanding about this) who understands your situation. Or maybe you need someone (friend?) to help with such emergencies.

I would also think driving would be quicker and give you more flexibility if you need to get back in a hurry.

Thanks working that's good advice. Sounds like you did the right thing with the other job.

I'd already be working late and I can get away easily, so that's something. But you're right - and that's one thing I'm scared about - feeling really really angry when things go wrong and being still so far from home. I'd have to really strongly believe this was the best option for the baby both short and long term. We've been back to the drawing board so many times and every plan is equally as bonkers as every other!

When DS was a baby at at a CM I only ever had to have one day off with him....so not every baby gets sick a lot xx

Woah I cross-posted with loads of useful posts there - thank you so much!

mellicauli I'd be going back to work after six months and not before (not sure if that's what you meant.) DH has a Head of Department with a young child who is very understanding and he accepts that if the baby is sick it would have to be DH who left work to deal with it. I would have no way of getting there, since there's no train station in the town my DH works at.

muddleduck I really would try to use the train journey as part of my working day (and maybe this would help me resent it less, too, if I felt I'd marked a whole stack of essays or planned a seminar etc. while on the train.)

Thanks sparkle - I worry about the long nights too. I could get away earlier and be home by 7pm - perhaps that's more sensible? I just thought if I'm going to be away the whole day I might as well milk those days for as much work as they're worth, if you see what I mean. But maybe it would just be too much.

This is all very helpful ladies - thank you. At the moment I drive to work and DH has the car but we don't want to get a second car (cost) and I worry about driving such a long way knackered (and wouldn't be able to work/sleep in the car, obviously.) But from next week until the end of term I may start doing the train/bus route and see how it goes.

It's so hard trying to think yourself into your new life such a long time in advance. It will be lovely to have Mon & Fridays with your baby. However, you'll need to think about how you'll feel about, effectively, not seeing your baby at all on the days when you are travelling to work, as well as how your dh will feel about doing all of the pre-/after-nursery care on those 3 days.

A few questions:

• How reliable is the train and does the 20-min bus journey include waiting time and walking to/from bus stops?
• Do you live walking distance from the station? In other words, how honest are you being with yourself about the door-to-door duration of the commute?
• What about months of a winter like the one we've just had?
• Is there any way you could work at home one day/fortnight, or something? Anything else that would break up this very punishing schedule?

You will be totally exhausted and it would be very easy for either you or your dh to begin to resent your routine. Based on my experience of working out logistics with kids and work, you need to be as open with one another as you can about the arrangements.

And don't rule out the fact that you might change your mind completely once your baby actually arrives. Very best of luck: it's really hard, but your baby will be wonderful.

Hi jkklpu, you're totally right - that's exactly the probem. Making plans when you don't know what life is going to be like in just a few weeks' time!

We live 2 miles from the train station and DH would have to drop me off/pick me up. So that's another vote for me getting home at 7pm and not 9pm, I suppose, since he can't very well leave the baby at home to pick me up. That is a bit of a glitch in the plan ...

The bus goes from Norwich train station straight into the middle of UEA campus and they're every few minutes, so that's something.

As I'll be full time I'll effectively be working from home a lot any way - I can't get away with being on campus less than 3 days a week. This is the least punishing way I can think of organising it, with the most time at home with the baby and the most flexibility built in.

The more I say all this the more I think we need to start trialling it now so that we can discover at least some of the inevitable pitfalls.

Could you go to 4 days/wk? Might not be economically viable, I realise, but would allow for shorter days or give you a free w-e. Would you really have to stay until 7? Not many other people would be around then. If you're in a teaching capacity, are there seminars this late? O could you leave earlier and then do some work on a laptop on the train home or some after you'd been able to put your baby to bed?

I really think the killer would be not seeing your baby on the long days, apart from a quick cuddle/breakfast in the morning.

I ended up taking mine to my work nursery in Central London, which meant commuting with 2ds, a challenge in itself, but once we shifted from the train to the boat along the Thames, it became a real adventure with them and gave me 3 hours extra with them each day. I appreciate that your journey is rather more complicated. But all I'd say is try to give yourself a bit of latitude to change your mind.

Remember, a job might come up for your in Cambridge or an opportunity in a school nearer Norwich for your dh.

My only thought would be that it would pretty much be 3 days a week when you wouldn't see your baby at all. THat would be a deal breaker for me.

takethatlady - I have done long (2 hour) commutes in the past and ultimately found them unsustainable above a couple of years. They are tiring whether by train or by car. They are expensive. My experience was that if something happened to one of my DCs eg taken ill then I was 2 hours from home. If something happened to me eg taken ill then I was 2 hours from home.

I found doing the type of commute you are describing that I became a virtual parent. My DCs were still in bed when I left and were heading bedwards when I got home. Quite often they would already have gone up. Ultimately this made me feel redundant and resentful in my own home.

Sorry, I forgot to say - best wishes for the pregnancy

my dh has a commute of approx half the length of yours, our baby was born a year ago, (i'm obviously the primary carer) but he still says the journey is a killer. Why can't you move to norwich? we're moving there ourselves to solve our own commuting problem in the next few months.

Thanks for the advice (and the wishes gnome :)). I definitely think those of you who are saying I wouldn't see the baby on those 3 days are week and that that would be a killer are right. I could leave at 5pm (no seminars after then anyway, unless I specifically request them, which I won't!) and get home at 7.15. I think that has to be more sensible, on reflection.

intergalactichussy we've been trying to move to Norwich and here are the reasons we might not (in a nutshell - it's soooo complicated!):

1. DH can't find a job there at the moment. All the jobs he's looking at are over an hour away, which doesn't really solve the problem. He's tried his best, too, bless him, writing to schools and drawing on every contact he can think of.
2. We are in negative equity and though there's a chance the bank may let us move it's only a very slim one, and if we did buy in Norwich we'd effectively be stuck there until the market recovers. There's an issue with that (see problem 4!) We could rent our house and rent something in Norwich, but we'd get £500 a month less in rent on our house than we pay on the mortgage and would be 100% reliable on reliable tenants to pay our bills each month.
3. We have thought about renting somewhere in between but this would mean both of us having longish commutes (and one of us having the baby with us) and that seems to make things worse rather than better, especially as everywhere in between is in the middle of nowhere...
4. There is a very good chance I may get a job starting in 2012 in London, which is an easier commute from here but could also mean in the long term, when we can move again, we could be nearer family. As it is, Norwich is at least 3 hours away from everybody in our families (most of whom live in the furthest reaches of Kent). So we feel we might be better off leaving our options open for another year and seeing what comes up, either for DH or for me.

The upshot is we thought that instead of rushing into moving to Norwich right now we might be better off waiting to see if something comes up for either DH or me which would be easier, and if it does then that would make the decision for us about where to go next.

God I hope no-one who knows me is on this thread!!

That's cool you're moving there though :) I hope it all works out!

reliant on reliable tenants (not reliable on them. Doh.)

I would not commute 5 days but 3 days seems ok to me if you don't drive and are able to sit down in the train (lots of reading).

As for your baby, personally if i had to choose i would prefer to have 3 long days and 4 full days with the baby than having evening time with the baby mon-fri.

The poster who mentioned back up for illness has a good point.

No way. Sounds horrendous. And yabu for assuming your employer would allow you to work for those hours ... I would be very concerned if a member of staff put a fwr in for those hours with that commute!

Have you considered changing your job now? To somewhere in Cambridge?

I don;t think moving now is a valid option.

How about extending your maternity leave to a year rather than going back after six months? Can you financially do that?

The most precious time for a child with regards bonding and the attachment is from up to 12 months, changing their primary carer i.e at 6 months could be deemed to be damaging to the child in the long term.

See Ainsworth's attachment theory research.

Hairylights, why the employer wouldn't allow it? Many people do these hours. My brother is a doctor and he was commuting when he was working at a hospital.

I agree that four full days with your baby is preferable to just evenings Mon-Fri but if your baby sleeps 7pm-7am you won't see them at all between Monday bedtime and Friday morning.

It's whatever works for your family though. Perhaps give yourself a trial period to see if you can do it without making any longterm commitments.