Full time work with baby

[bigbluehouse]

Do you think working full time from your child being approximately one year old affects your relationship with your child?

I am NOT asking this to be controversial, I am genuinely seeking advice as I've been offered a fantastic opportunity however I'm concerned increasing from part time will change things for us. I KNOW how ridiculous it sounds but I'm terrified my child will be upset and seek comfort from his childminder instead of me...

Has anyone out there gone from being part time to full time and can share their experiences?

bigbluehouse
I am a childminder and the children I have do look to me for comfort during the day because I am the one doing the caring. None of these children would pick me over their mum though, it's a completely different relationship and no matter how much they like their childminder, they do not compare to the way a child feels about their parents.

Nope. Not one bit. I've worked full time since my DS was 10months . DH also works full time and we're all incredibly close as a family unit.

I'm happier working and I don't feel my career has been affected by having a child at all.

@Timeissliplingaway that's really lovely of you to take the time to say that. I think I need that reassurance, as pathetic as that probably sounds.

Thank you

I have two kids, went back full time after 6 months mat leave for both. I have a wonderful relationship with them and they are happy confident children. We make the most of the time we do have together.

bigbluehouse
I don't think it is pathetic in the slightest, I would feel the same if leaving my children. You will always be number one to your child no matter who looks after them though.

I went back to work FT when DS was 9 months old. He has a fantastic attachment parenting style childminder for approximately 20 hours a week and was with my DH the rest of the time. I had a short commute and did all drop-offs to CM, all night waking and we did (and still do) fantastic stuff every weekend. I really do rejoice in my time with him (he is 5 now). It isn't easy, you will feel guilty, you may (like I do) resent comments from SAHMums who post that they are dreading the school holidays, but your relationship with your baby will be absolutely fine. I promise.

PS my mum also worked full time (as a police officer) and she returned to work when I was 3 months old. My relationship with her is and has always been rock solid. I have always known I am her number one priority and we did so much fun stuff together. :-)

I went back to work full time (plus 3hrs a day commuting) when mine were a few months old. I have a far better relationship with them (they are now adult) than I had with my own SAHM.

Idon't think working/not working has much to do with it, it's down to personalities. But they will turn to you first as mother. They can have a deep and rewarding relationship with a CM, but you are their mother, and that's different.

I mean, it obviously AFFECTS your relationship with your child. How could it not? The question is, is the effect significant? Evidence suggests no.

I went back to work full time when DS was 6 months old and DD was 10 months old. They went to nursery full time.

I have a good relationship with both kids. They are sociable and secure children.

I am glad I went back to work. 10 years on and I’ve had to stop work on medical grounds. I’m incredibly glad that I have benefitted from the ‘protection’ of paying NI and into a pension for those 10 years.

I went back to work when ds was 13 months and it didn't change my relationship with ds except perhaps that we enjoy our time together more now. I was back for bath and bedtime every night and worked a 4 day week. Ds had a nanny 44 hours a week and while he loves her, I'm still always first when he lists the people he loves and he still says that I'm his best friend (he's 2)! I'm now on my 2nd maternity leave and am happy to do the same again when dd is bigger.

My DM went back to work FT when I was 3 months old. We have always been very close and I never resented her working. I am proud of everything she accomplished in her career and I never felt that she didn't have time for me.

My own DD is 4.5 and during her lifetime I have had periods of working FT, working part time and being at home. We have a very strong bond and I do not believe that my WOH is detrimental to her in the slightest.
My DH also works full time and he and DD adore each other but then no one ever questions whether Dad's working FT impact their bond with their DC, do they?

I do struggle a bit with this. Currently I’m 3 days a week (in reality doing 4) but if I leave my current role I’ll probably have to go full time. I love my days with my daughter and I think it benefits her but I wouldn’t say there is any difference in the bond she has with me and my husband.

If I went back full time I would miss spending time with her where she is the absolute priority. It feels like we already try and cram in a lot during weekends but in the week I love our time that is just us. She would miss time just pottering in the garden, going to parks, seeing friends and her more structured activities. I don’t think I’d be happy with the food they give at nursery if she was there all week but happy enough for 3 days. If I go back full time I’d want a cleaner to make sure we spend the weekend doing nice things and I’d prefer a nanny for the other two days to try and replicate what we do now.

For me it is a free choice as we don’t need the money but I am also ambitious career wise so I do feel guilty thinking about working full time when I don’t actually need to.

No personal experience as I was part time until mine was 2.5 (for financial reasons, with cost of childcare it worked to our advantage). But my mum went back to work when I was 3 months and we have a wonderful relationship. I did have grandparents who looked after me and I think that certainly helped because I also had a close relationship with them. But my mum and I couldn’t have been closer when I was growing up. I don’t think it negatively affected our relationship at all. If anything, I’ve come away with a real appreciation of all she did for me as a child and how hard she worked so that I could have a good life.

I would definitely agree with the pp who mentioned trying not to overschedule weekends etc. My tribe are in a mixture of different childcares through the week and want very little more than to get to chill and hang out at home with us at the weekends. good luck op!

Surely we are fooling ourselves if we think that our bond with our babies/toddlers is not affected by them spending up to, or even more than, 40 hours a week without us? That is a lot of time where comfort, love, reassurance, feeding, nappy changes, laughs, play etc are not provided by or shared with someone who really loves them. This is not to say kids cannot be happy and do well in nursery, or with other childcare, but of course it would affect the nature of parental bonding. Babies and toddlers brains and emotions are developing so rapidly that very day counts and makes a difference in some way.

I have never noticed it. Mine breastfed a lot of night too so there was heaps of contact there too and surely it's good if they spend a lot of time with their father and another person too as love is not divisible. you don't love one baby less than you love two and if you think bonds are bad if you work does that mean people's other halves don't love their babies if they work? Babies like security and things happening at the same time. They don't remember if you changed 16 nappies a day or three but they will know if you can't afford to buy them stuff as teenagers and they might want to be proud of your career. I was reading my 1984 diary which I have been scanning recently (first baby) back full time to work at about 3 weeks and there is just so much time withthe baby. i did leave work on time most days as the balance which worked for us and her father was around as much as I was and we had the someone who came to the house each day in the week to look after her and feed her my milk. I don't think it was unbonded in any way. Nor did I notice any bonding differences later with the twins when I worked from home so our then nanny in the house would call me out of my office to breastfeed them when needed during my working day. It was just I was not doing a lot of the dull grunt stuff like cleaning up quite so much sick , although even there there was a fair amount of it.

What studies do show is that if whoever is looking after children neglects them which sadly can be a parent as much as anyone else or the children have loads of different people and homes eg 3 months here, move to new foster care 3 months, then elsewhere or on their back in a cot ina Romanian orphanage for 3 years with no attention they are certainly damaged by that.

Had lunch with some friends today and our kids and this came up......

3 out of 4 working mums came to the same conclusion

They're only little once and if you don't need to work full time with pre schoolers it's nice to have the time off

Thinking about it my friends and I will all retire around 68 another 30-35 years time

Plenty of time to earn and work and you'll never get this time back

Only 1 person in the group works full time, she'd run ragged and has a cleaner, ironing lady, gardener, 2 in full-time childcare and 1 of the others who works 20 hours for sainsburys around the kids is financially better off, certainly makes you think!

But there isn't always time to work and earn...not if you want a career and a decent income. Unfortunately taking a significant length of time out of work does have a detrimental effect on your career prospects.

I work full time but I'm not run ragged like you describe your friend to be. I have a cleaner once a month but had one pre children and other than that household responsibilities are split between me and DH. However, because I've spent time on my career I now have the flexibility to make it work with a family.....most of that comes from the length of service and the seniority I've achieved.

I went back to work full-time when DD was 9 months old and continued until I went on maternity leave for my second when she was 18 months old. I then didn't go out to work for another 6 years when DC3 started school. I don't think I was ready to give up the social life that went with my job when DC1 was born. We relocated from London when I would have returned to work after DC2, so instead stayed at home.

I don't think the bond with your child is affected by a parent working full-time. I worked part-time when DC3 started school and built up to full-time by the time DC3 was in Year 10, so haven't used childcare except in the school holidays.

I do think it's sad to see so many young families with both parents working and the child in day care from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm. It's sad that this is so much more the norm with two salaries needed to fund a mortgage and having a stay at home parent simply isn't affordable financially or from a career point of view.

I have a wonderful relationship with all three of my kids, so no, I don’t think it adversely affects it.

I am a SAHM to my four kids but with my first I worked full time till he was 5. It didn't affect our relationship but I did feel guilty leaving him with other people and I felt like we never got a spare minute.
I was a nursery nurse and he came to work with me but he wasn't in the same room as me.
I was always dragging him up early and sometimes getting home really late. He'd have to have his tea in my work because it would be 8 oclock by the time we got home and past his bedtime.
Leaving work to look after my children was the best thing I ever did and with four now I don't have the option to work.

My mum went back to work full time after her mat leave with both me and my sis. We both had happy childhoods and now are relatively well balanced adults - decent careers, good partners, friends, close with each other and with parents etc.

@hillairious don't feel sad ...unless you know every family who has both parents working full time and children in childcare you can't make those judgement calls. People do what is right for their families.

I could say I feel sad for women who sacrifice their careers and financial independence to stay at home but it's not my place to judge.

I can confirm that my relationship with my children (they are end primary/early secondary age) is every bit as strong as those of my friends who didn't work/worked part-time.

It's not always about being nice Bellabutterfly - if you have say 3 kids over a 5 or 6 year period, you could feasibly be out of the workplace for the entirety of your 30s. And by the time you go back, your skills are way out of date and your career is on the skids. Then you have 30 odd years of being bossed about by graduate trainees

Blaablaablaa - I know it's not a scenario that suits every family, but my observations are made from the point of view of seeing a shift in the way society is with regard to who's looking after our children. Also, I did specifically say "stay at home parent".