My thoughts - based on many years of doing it and managing a busy career
•Make adjustments to the way you work – people will anticipate and expect it. Just do it the way you want to from the outset and make it work. This may depend on your job type. As kids get older it will change again.
• Lose the psychological divide between work and home. This is particularly helpful in the early years (there might come a later time when it helps to compartmentalise again). You might even find that the juggle between the two can, at times, even charge your adrenalin rather than drain it.
• Depending on what job you do, consider working full time (and getting paid for it) in a flexible way compared to working part-time. It might make more sense and be less stressful.
• If you have an intense transactional/client facing/ job that doesn’t switch off when you walk out, just make sure that everybody knows that even when you are not in the office you are still working and still available. Nobody can criticise you then.
• If there is a choice between disappointing work and arguing with your DP choose the former wherever reasonably practicable – angry partners will make your life stressful, work will get over it
• Do not work in the office late unless you absolutely have to. By that I mean a client meeting or those rare jobs where you have a deadline that really does have to be worked on by a whole team together sitting side by side. Don’t apologise when you have to go at a certain time – just do it, walk out, cut conversations short, whatever.
• Try to drop any perfectionist tendencies. You wont have time. If you can find someone good to delegate checking etc too then great. Perfectionism applies equally to motherhood as it does to work. But its all in your head, perfect doesn’t exist anyway in either sphere.
• Don’t treat mothering as a tick box exercise or a competitive sport – quality and closeness of your relationship matters more than many other things. There are good mothers who work a lot and there are bad mothers who stay home full time and vice versa.
• Whist getting pregnant may be very difficult at times, remember that having children does remain very common denominator amongst human beings. People are doing it everywhere regardless of wealth, health or mental faculty. It doesn’t have to be hard. Perfect doesn’t exist.
• It shouldn’t be a choice between working and kids. Kids are a natural normal part of life. Think of your new life as being the same but better ie. “I work really hard but now I have a fantastic home life as well to keep me sane and grounded”.
• Take a longer term view. Your child will not always be this stage. Things will change and you will adapt and make changes at each stage.
• Remind yourself that working to put food on the table and a roof over your family’s head is as much as act of love as trudging the kids everyday to the park in the rain (or all the other selfless acts of a parent at home) are.
• You will appreciate time with your children much more because you are working. This is possibly one of the biggest pluses for working even if it sometimes feels like a minus.
• Don’t sweat the small stuff. If you want to let your children come into your bed every night then do it. If you want to keep your kids up later so that you can all eat together as a family then do it. Whatever makes your life easier/allows you to meet the values that are most important to you.
• Learn what your most productive hours are – you might decide to prepare/cook dinner in the morning for example as you have more energy and willpower than you will on the return from work.
• I have met some inspirational women who see working in a full on job and having children as a badge of honour (as opposed to an object of pity). It’s an interesting mindset change.