To think I can return to work 3-4 weeks after giving birth?

[RoguePudding]

As in title, really. I'm pregnant with my first, self-employed, and if I pass on this assignment because of the baby, I may be without income for much longer than we could afford. What is probably important to know:

• my job is intellectually challenging, but involves no physical labour whatsoever
• I can work from home
• It would be for about 16 hours a week
• 3 weeks would be the worst case scenario. The assignment starts five weeks after my due date
• my husband works fulltime

Is this feasible? Anyone else return to (parttime) work or perhaps studies very quickly?

I agree that sleep, or lack of, will be a key issue. If you/baby struggle to sleep, however much your job is physical or not, it could be extremely difficult for you to concentrate and a task that would normally take you a couple of hours might take you 5 or 6. And that will be interrupted by feed/nappies/cries.

It so difficult to tell as there are so many variables. If you take the work you are making the assumption that both you and the new baby will be in good health.
3 to 4 weeks post partum with DC1 I was really quite poorly.
It could be fine but quite a gamble.

If you're bf you can probably do your work over the baby's head as s/he feeds. Think it's feasible but you'll need your partner to really step up when he's home so you get a chance to rest.

Flamingnora, I have never met anyone who thought they were worthless as a person because they didn't start working 4 weeks after birth... I understand your supportive and positive intentions with the OP but quite frankly, your comment is a bit of a stretch... Yes it may be said if someone stays at home years after having had children, but 4 weeks, really?

I did a professional training course whilst I was on mat leave. I started when dd was 3 weeks old. Everyone told me I was mad, but I managed.

It wasn't as many hours as you though. About 4 or 5 hours a week of lectures during term time and then assignments. Dp came with me to lectures at first so I could breastfeed, an then in the second term, I expressed milk and they stayed at home.

It was very intellectually challenging but I managed it despite the sleep deprivation. I did do some studying whilst caring for her, but at other times I studied whilst dp was in charge of her. It helped that his work is very flexible. We would often both work whilst she was asleep on one of our shoulders! We had no one else helping with childcare.

Can you afford to pay a cleaner to take that pressure off?

Could your mum not stay a while later.

As a cm I have had babies from. 6 weeks . Babies are fine. Mums have been fine .

I couldn’t barely sit up after 3 weeks . Had placenta left behind and lots of antibiotics.

So reality is until baby arrives you won’t know . My baby also had jaundice which meant 3 hourly feeds up until 3 weeks so was barely functioning

You do need a back up plan if you can’t.

Forgot to add - my course was 2 terms.

A back up plan is a great idea. I could have with my second but not my first. I couldn’t put him down. He never napped anywhere but On me. BF pretty much continually when he wasn’t crying. My DH used to leave me with a sandwich when he went to work or I wouldn’t have eaten.

I went 14 days overdue, then had a 34 hour labour then spent 10 days in hospital recovering. There's a month of your time gone

Hk eslty, if there is any way at all you can cope financially without taking this work then I'd leave it.

I did it with my first; was back working when she was 6 weeks. I was working from home and managing about 24 hours a week. She was EBF and totally refused expressed milk from a bottle.

A lovely stretchy wrap was my friend and she would snuggle up asleep on me while I tapped out emails, or play on her mat next to me. I had complete flexibility as to when I did the hours so if needed I could put work down and finish it when DH got home.

It didn’t do either of us harm, my career has advanced and pay has doubled since having her, she is 6 now (and joined by 3yo DC2). We have a great bond and I don’t feel I missed out. I breastfed her for 12 months and she certainly didn’t miss out and is amazing (and yes I’m totally biased!).

Depends on the baby. 💁

I could have as my two were easy babies and settled into a good routine but that's all down to luck.......I'd wait and see what you get and how you feel.

What about doing the bulk of the work at the weekends when DP is home and can take care of baby? Say 5 hours each day. Then spread the remaining hours through the week when the baby sleeps. How's DP when it comes to housework/cooking, as that will make a major difference.

I wouldn't make any decision until the baby is here.

There is no way that I could have gone back to work so soon with my firstborn as I was dealing with as little as 3 hours interrupted sleep at night, recovering from a C-section and a baby that just couldn't be put down and screamed alot.

My second one a was a breeze compared to that.

If it has to be done, you’ll make it work. I had to do 6 weeks of work from week 6 including some all nighters. It nearly bloody killed me but it got done. In all honesty I managed very little during the day when I was on my own with the baby. I did most of it when my husband was back from work, weekends or overnight close to the deadline.

I would say though, i think the only way I managed it was formula feeding as my husband could take charge over weekends. That’s not to say breastfeeding would be impossible but I think it would be harder and you’d need to be prepared for that. It was also quite emotionally tough as I wanted to be with my baby. If I heard her cry, it made me want to rush to see her even though my husband was there to look after her. At that young age it does go against every maternal instinct and it is hard to concentrate.

3-4 weeks would have been harder as I was still physically recovering. I was still bleeeding at week 7 but I was out and about and healed up. I should also say I had an easy baby that slept through early. I don’t know if I could have done it if she hadn’t slept.

Sorry, I've just realised you said no to childcare. I think that would be difficult. You'd need slightly more than 3 clear hours each day. Essentially this would have to be when baby was asleep and most tiny babies are not so predictable in their sleep patterns.

I've managed to do a couple of days in the first 6 weeks. The work itself is no problem, and I can concentrate fine, but the difficulty is thst I just don't want to work, and want to spend time with my baby instead.

Honestly though, what you propose is doable, especially if your partner takes SPL perhaps. It's just a bit depressing really as some things are more important than work. I'd see if there is any scope for either delaying or doing less hours in the first few months.

I could not have. When my first was three weeks old I was lucky if I had managed to brush my teeth by the time dh got home from work.

Might have managed with ds2, though, if not for breastfeeding and also having ds1 around. Certainly after that birth I felt physically really good very quickly, and he was an amazingly content baby who wanted only to be fed and cuddled to sleep.

With ds3 I just felt so tired all the time for months that I was a bit shit at everything I did so would not have risked working.

Basically I think every baby is different and you won't be able to judge until you're in that situation whether taking the assignment is viable. I'd really try to avoid it, tbh. It would be such pressure.

This is something I’d only consider if the alternatives were catastrophic, e.g. losing our home. It’s something that might be physically possible for you and baby, but it might just push things over the edge.

I could probably have done this with my second, who is a peach. And slept well, and fed brilliantly. But I was ruined by my first delivery (couldn’t sit down for months), and my baby was the kind that screamed ALL. THE. TIME. I was relentless. I applied for a job when he was 5 months and that was a nightmare. I also project managed our extension when he was 6m+ but the admin for that was impossible to get done

I think it's an unrealistic idea.

You could go up to 2 weeks, possibly even 3 overdue which you say you've taken account of but you really don't know what will happen, without wishing to alarm you've no idea how the birth will go, if you'll even be home from hospital at that point.

Even if you are you will be knackered, sleep deprived, your cognitive function will be less effective, your baby will need feeding or nappy changed or something generally every 1-2 hours at this point, so unless you're going to ff and pay for a nanny while you're working (and good luck finding someone willing to do a temp contract with such a young baby without wanting bloody good pay!) you won't be able to fully concentrate and commit to the work.

Even with a nanny don't underestimate the emotional pull.

No way. Look back on this post once you've given birth and smile at the absurdity of it yep!

When I was at that stage an excellent day was one where I managed a shower AND "cooked" a freezer to oven meal and didn't resort to ready meal/take away/sandwiches.

If I managed to drink a hot drink before it was cold that was bring out the bunting time!!

And it's a 5 month assignment? Babies change a LOT in the first 5 months, you could start off with an "easy" one but they then don't cope well with teething or whatever. Also you don't know how you'll feel about missing time with them during that period.

"Assuming childcare availability" I think op means without employing childcare as the costs then make it not worth doing? Op?

4 months at least with no childcare?! No I don't think that's feasible at all.

The problem for me would be the intellectual element.

Physically I could have done a brainless job but anything requiring thought was out.

I on several occasions made coffee with cold water because I'd filled the kettle but forgot to turn it on, would find items in all kinds of random places, like folded bibs in the microwave, or keys in the bin.

Baby s likely to need feeding every 2-4 hours during the night for the first few weeks so you're sleep deprived, hormones all over the place.

I would say your capacity for error will be high.

Maybe wait and see. My friend went back 3 weeks after birth both times to a fairly physical job and was fine

It depends on the baby and you. I sat medical exams while breastfeeding a 7 week old baby. It isn't impossible but isn't easy. I had a good sleeper which i think made an enormous difference

Probably doable but risky.You can go up to 2 weeks past due date,you could end up with a C-section and your babys behaviour is another unknown.
You will be tired initially because you are healing and this increases as sleep deprivation builds up.
However breastfeeding at a computer is completely doable if you get your set up right and have no problems with it.Breastfeeding takes time so if you can be mentally ok then go for it.
The problem is that these are unknowns until the baby is born and things change a lot.If this is a 5 month assignment there will be a lot of changes and for each family it is different.

Assuming your DH has two full days off a week then you can get the 16 hours done by handing him the baby as soon as he gets home and doing an hour or two in the evenings then finishing at the weekend when DH has the baby. I think you are being very naive thinking you can work and look after a baby at the same time. My DS would only sleep in a moving pram for the first few months of his life. If you get a bad sleeper like that you simply won’t be able to work in the day.

It's probably practically manageable around naps and evenings or weekends when your DH can do childcare.

However, the hard thing is, no one can predict the two main factors - your physical and mental health post partum and the personality of your baby (as so many others have said).

I had many plans for my first maternity leave but in reality the first four months were a total write-off (then other factors irrelevant to this buggered the rest of the year). I could never have predicted:

Bad / slow recovery from EMCS
DC short spell in intensive care left me with (in hindsight) quite bad undiagnosed PND and probably PTSD
Undiagnosed tongue tie for the first few weeks meant DC breastfed for 14 hours a day - I kept records of feeds so it isn't memory distorting this. As you can see, that didn't leave much time for sleep, eating, washing, let alone much else
DC woke every two hours at night, didn't nap unless moving in the buggy or asleep on me (but never in the much beloved slings recommend by those on MN - he abhorred slings). So all that precious nap time I was either prone under a baby on the sofa or pounding the streets
Went from waking every two hours to waking every 45-60 minutes in the night until we eventually sleep trained at 9 months. I was utterly deranged with sleep deprivation. I was a husk of the person I was. More than once fell over because I was so tired I thought I had already sat down.

I sincerely hope you don't face any of this but you just can't know. Once DC started sleeping better, I described myself as feeling like I'd been drunk for the last ten months.