paranoia about my job whilst on maternity leave

[rainbowrosie]

Oh i have a healthy dose of paranoia in my blood recently about my job whilst on maternity leave- i am pretty sure its fuelled by newborn baby lack of sleep, and my general post natal funk i get into

• i do not spring into motherhood gleefully - from experience it takes me a couple of months to get back to feeling emotionally settled

this is my 2nd baby - but with 1st baby i was self employed and my contact ended with maternity leave starting (joys of self employment)

I now have a permanent job - a job i love & i am experiencing horrible feelings of self doubt whilst on maternity leave thinking that my cover is better and ultimately i will be replaced

As i type this i know how ludicrous & oversensitive this is - but have other mums experienced this

its a weird situation to hand your job over to someone - rationally i know the self esteem issues and i know i am great at my job
its just my emotional body need to catch up with my rational brain!

going for a nap to see if i can reconfigure my brain:)

I think that is perfectly normal. I was constantly worried that as a manager, my team might prefer my cover and my boss might too. At first the team loved her but by the end she was taking loads of leiu time (even though noone could figure out why) and her work wasn't as good as mine. I was a features editor and my section had about 50 stories in it per week - hers had less than 30 (yes, I counted!). Maybe that gives an idea how paranoid I was!

Don't worry, relax and enjoy your baby. She's the one who should be nervous as she's got to live up to you and your the one with the job at the end of it!

I'm quite glad that with this pg my new employer isn't covering my work (I'm in a school). He is going to spread my workload out but he's assured me he wants me back and it's only a compromise so the school can relaunch what I do on my return.

You are no different to everyone else, I promise. You'd have to be extremely arrogant not to worry!

Have a cry, then relax and enjoy your baby x

I totally understand how you feel. I basically trained another member of staff to do my job whilst im on mat leave and now i wonder if theres actually any work for me to do when i get back in august as he will still be doing 'my job' - my boss assures me there is enough work to go round, but im not so sure. Sorry, thats not much help is it. x

Morning thank you for your responses / it does really help

i think the cure for this paranoia is a cuddle with the baby that lasts for ages & a romp with the toddler in the morning

Pregnancy & babies is a "slamdunk" sensation for me - my body is out of whack and my brain is out of whack through lack of sleep, physical tiredness and hormones and a whole new world of toddler with newborn anxiety

& to top it all off this morning the body image monster came to play as well - i work in media too - and its a young, beautiful industry with alot of women being single and not having time commitment issues - long hours are expected etc

but i am striving to be comfortable and celebrate my reduced hours generally & i am old mum so luckily i am over the culture of non stop work

SO this morning i am climbing out of my self pity abyss and going to exercise and join weightwatchers & i am going to go into work on friday and have lunch and try to get over this way of thinking

xx