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 had a hard labour with DS but we run our own business so I had to go back when he was 4 weeks old . Luckily I work from home in an office with DH so we took turns holding and working .... then 15 m later DD arrived and I went back after 4 days... I didn’t have to commute or get dressed if I didn’t want to - but if I didn’t work we may well have lost the business ....

DS was a terrible sleeper so did it all for years on about 4 hours sleep .... BUT - abd this is important - I was early 30s .... mid 40s now and it would kill me doing that now ...

I look back and literally don’t know how I did it - so if you need to - you will - good luck OP

I think most women could, but if there’s any possible way of not doing it then I would. I would only have done it if in absolute dire straits, and my babies were all easy ones.

Then I wouldn’t*

You probably could do it and survive it, but I would advise you not to.

There's no way I could have but I suffered severe pnd and physical issues.

You can't really know until you get to that point. Sorry!

I would have said no problem with my 2nd and 3rd child. However, my first baby was incredibly hard work and I was sleep deprived to the point of madness.

Which would be worse... Not accepting this job or accepting it and then, if things go wrong, having to let clients down? Because that is a risk. What is your baby arrives two weeks late? If you have a straight fwd birth and the baby is a dream, it may be possible (not enjoyable but feasible). But you would probably have to miss out on hanging out with other new mums. The best way that I can describe having a baby is like going to Glastonbury. It's a long painful wait. You finally get there. The first three days are quite good fun (inspite of all the mud and sleep deprivation). But then, after three days, you want to go home, have a bath, some nice food, go to bed and sleep until you have fully recovered. But you can't!!! You are stuck there. Night after night. Hardly sleeping, grubby, in need of a shower, grateful for just being able to use the loo or have a bite of a sandwich. After about 6 weeks, you finally get to leave the mudfest of Glastonbury. Everyone tells you that the first six weeks are the worst and they are right. What they don't tell you if that, having left Glastonbury, the V Fest awaits you!! And so on and so forth. This goes on for... Well....months. You are so dependant upon the co-operative of an entirely unco-operative person. So, ask yourself... How much work could you get done at Glastonbury. If it is entirely unavoidable, then could your partner/husband take ,2-3 weeks off later on (i.e.delay his initial Paternity leave?). Do you have any relative that could come and stay for the first couple of weeks?

This is a massive gamble. What will you do if your situation is not ideal? For any number of reasons - if baby doesn't sleep, if you can't concentrate, if your new upside down world is just too overwhelming to think about anything else, if baby cries and cries and is inconsolable, if you're an emotional and/or physical wreck, if feeding is a battle. All this is normal. So what then?

If you are a serious professional, you have to think of the worst case scenario where you'd be letting down your client and ruining that relationship. It's not just a possibility, it's pretty likely. You seem to be focusing on the money rather than anything else. Be realistic. Everyone underestimates how much a baby will change their life - your world is going to change beyond all recognition, and all of your priorities too. As a parent you will put your baby's needs before everything else - if you do attempt work , it will be constantly interrupted, postponed, messed with. When you finally get a minute to yourself, switching into work mode will be the last thing on your mind, if you've even got the mental resources left to function intellectually!

I wish the above were an exaggeration. Tbh it sounds like you're going to go ahead anyway. I hope your baby is one of the ideal ones. Pretty sure they're few and far between.

Hope your birth goes well and you and baby come out healthy and happy. Enjoy becoming a mum, it's amazing l

I was working from home around from when baby was 2 months. Signed up to a project management thing part time (3 hrs a day). Was meant to be flexible. Did it for financial necessity too.

However, it was very stressful. Because I felt very guilty that at times I had to leave baby cry.. because the hours weren’t as flexible when something needed to be responded to ASAP. Baby was asleep around the day but was mentally draining due to the Rythm of sleep, eat, play. It’s short 30 mins of each on repeat. You can’t do a task needing full focus and by the time baby is asleep you need to wind down as dealing with all that baby stuff for the first time is tiring. Your body is still healing.

I would say... it’s not impossible if you can do things in the hours your DH was home. Or if it was extremely flexible and not too demanding.

I would prefer if you just rent a room out or do something very passive until baby is a bit older. As you will need sleep. Don’t forget not having good sleep at night also drains you mentally.

When my baby was born, I was filled with energy. Enthusiastic and upbeat. For the whole newborn phase. Hormones were in my favour. I still struggled and was glad when it was over after few months.

But many of my friends had those same hormones make them very stressed, vulnerable, drained...

So you can’t plan that far ahead.

Last but not least, 4-12 weeks were actually my worst weeks in terms of sleep. Many babies have serious colic around that time and do what’s called cluster feeding meaning every 30 mins.. so bare that in mind.

It's impossible to tell until baby is here. My oldest I was fully able to do my degree her first 9 months she was an utter dream. My youngest we spent the first few months in and out of hospital, force feeding him hourly and running on less than empty. It was impossible with him

I'd be looking at finding some way of scraping together enough money to pay for some childcare. Even if it is a mothers help or student (I don't suppose you are going to be lucky enough to have an overlap with the summer holidays?) who comes to you and babysits the baby in one room while you work in the next room. You wouldn't need the full 16 hours to be paid childcare, but enough to give you some flexibility in addition to DP helping and you grabbing hours where you can.

I ended up with a baby that would
Scream bloody murder if she wasn’t touching me. She absolutely would not sleep without me being right there (we now know she has autism, but at the time we had no clue what was going on). I had agreed to cover the occasional emergency task at work. They didn’t care about when I worked, just that the task got done. My work is intellectually very difficult, but physically just involves typing on a laptop. I didn’t want to pass on these tasks as they came in because it was good money and it kept up my professional contacts.

It frequently ended up with me sitting in bed with baby on my lap and laptop propped up on pillows. When DH got home from work he would walk with her and try to keep her happy for as long as he could so I could get some uninterrupted work time. Those projects were really tough. Luckily they tended to be only a week or two long so we knew a break was coming.

I had imagined a baby who napped. A baby who I could lay down under a mobile while I took a quick shower. A baby who would eat and sleep on a schedule. A baby like all the other moms seemed to have. I wouldn’t trade my dd for anything. She is an amazing person and has a bright future ahead of her. That doesn’t change the fact that the first few years of her life nearly broke me.

So you could be fine. Or it could end in disaster and damage your professional reputation. You just don’t know what your life is going to be like. Babies are unpredictable.

Yes it is possible assuming the birth is ok and you and the baby don't have any complications.
The trouble is nobody knows what's going to happen until it happens.

I'm self employed and similarly do an intellectually challenging but not physical job.

I planned on not taking any time off at all but things went pretty tits up at the birth and I was in hospital for two weeks and pretty ill for a further three. I did manage to respond to some emails and delegate some tasks out during that time and then went back properly after 5 weeks.

I'm enjoying carrying on working while looking after my lovely baby girl, the thing I find hardest is when I have to deal with things on the phone, you can't really predict a baby crying or a sudden poo explosion that needs dealing with.

You know yourself and your limits

I had no choice was doing the VAT when I went into labour, finished it ten days after DS born. Had the wages to do, invoicing, purchasing, OH and I owned a business. I managed somehow. Babies sleep a lot at the beginning it gets harder as time goes on in my experience.

It might work. Like others have said, depends on your baby. I had a wide awake screamer with loads of medical issues and no sleep for months. I tried to return to work too early (from home, like you) but had to give up as I just hadn't the brain capacity when existing on so little sleep and worrying so much about DS's health. Just telling you that so if you try and it doesn't work out, know it's not you failing (post-baby hormones induce massive guilt) it's just how life panned out.

I started exam board marking with a six week old and found that even when I had time I was knackered. I ended up doing about 1/4 of what I normally manage around a full time job. But I was breast feeding and recovering from a section. To be honest it sounds like a financial necessity so if I was you I would do it, but make sure your baby is able to take a bottle and that you can do some of it whilst your husband takes care of the baby each evening (get him doing the bath and bed routine for instance).

I would say it is doable. One of the mums in my antenatal class went back to work ft with an hours commute standing all the way 10 days after an EMCS.

However a couple of things to be aware of.

1. Babies don’t always arrive on your due date.

Dd was supposed to arrive 20 days earlier. I was supposed to be going in on day 17 to be induced and she decided to begin labour, then stopped then started and I was in for 3 days before they had to go in and get her.

1. Whilst people can tell you about how tired you get. It is not something that you can take on board till you have been through it (at one point I couldn’t stand up because the whole world was tilting)

1. If you are bf or just have a Velcro baby you might not be physically able to work if their are set times you need to be at your desk.

If it is only 16 hours and you are flexible with when it could be done then it is quite possible.

Could you get someone in to just look after the baby during the time you are working.

I know someone who did this with twins (after 2 weeks), but she had a full time live in nanny.

There's no way in hell I could have done it.

• I took a long time to recover from the birth/pregnancy;
• tiredness affected me very badly especially after a few weeks as by that point the sleep debt really builds up. I always thought I would be OK as I have gone without much sleep for a week or two before, but not months;
• babies hit peak crying around 6-8 weeks. Mine would fuss, cry and refuse to sleep from 5pm to midnight every night for several weeks.
• babies also often go through a phase at around 2 months old where they want to be held constantly and will not let you put them down.

I don't think I could have done it even with childcare. The idea of doing it whilst watching the baby seems incredibly unrealistic to me.

I went back to nursing as a single parent after 6 weeks as that's all you got in those days. I was young and he was a really good baby who slept a lot.
I think if you can work from home it's do-able if your baby doesn't keep you up all night.

If it's genuinely 16 hours a week (and not really 30) and you are really committed to it and disciplined then I'm sure you could manage it. It is only 2hours a day, you could probably even do some while feeding with a laptop etc. Maybe get in a few good stints at the weekends/evenings while your husband is there. Plenty of people 2hour essential school runs with babies, so I'm so you could manage it (there and back:)

However, I wouldn't want to have to focus on delivering a good job for my client a few weeks post birth personally. Could your husband find a way to supplement his wage at all?

If you do take it, please consider doing extra work during good days (if possible). Babies are unpredictable and get sick/ extra needy randomly. Do your best to do extra things when your baby lets you, so you could afford to sleep/ rest / survive when baby needs you.

Your dp needs to do more at home, batch cook now and online shopping is good help. Try doing/ teaching your baby mix feeding. Have a routine for baby if possible. With ds1 who was feed on demand which was very predictable 3hr feed (who took 45min on breast for the first two months). He also had one formula feed at around 9pm by dh which put him to sleep for 4hr. So I slept from almost 7pm till 1am of unbroken sleep. It was great. Until vaccination time, sleep regression at four months hit. But that was nothing.

Ds1 used to entertain himself a lot and loved watching me do things. He was very content being in his bouncy chair. I used to narrate my life to him as he found comfort in hearing my voice. He hardly cried.

Ds3 was a completely different story and had reflux. The only time he wasn't crying was when he had breast in his mouth. He didn't sleep (I Google can you die from lack of sleep). Took him to the gp and the third try of medication helped him. To be honest they all did help but the side effects were counter effective. For example, the first one, stopped him from vomiting but gave him diarrhoea.

Get your dp to save up as many annual leave as possible and book vaccination on fridays. The first day if paracetamol is adviced it might be easy. Paracetamol made my sons sleep for longer.

Try all the safe advices, to get baby asleep. Ds3 feel asleep in his car seat for 3hr after driving until he feel onto deep sleep. But I only realised that when he was four months. Before that it was feeding every hour and he only accepted breastfeeding no bottle. We co slept as I needed to save the little energy I had. Ask dp to take baby out of the house if baby is a screamer, as it can be very tough to nap/ shower/ rest while hearing baby crying for you. I was lucky as I had a good neighbour helping me dropping & picking up ds1 from nursery (I have repaid the favour but it was nice having a child at same nursery as a neighbour). I also had big support from dbro (who I added to the car insurance so he could drive ds3 until he feel asleep) and dsis when they were off from work/uni. Accept help whenever, possible and feasible.
If you end up with a c-section walk as soon as you are able. They say to quicker you are mobile the quicker you heal. Well that is what my midwife told me.

I think it would be feasible. Just start routine from day one. You would need someone to watch the baby though. 16 hours is not that many. No commute, no school run for older kids, no getting dressed in work gear. Go for it.

Personally I wouldn't commit to it you will have enough pressure being a new mum and everything that goes with it. To much stress and you could land up with PND and you seriously need to avoid this at all costs. Give yourself the break you will need to enjoy and bond with your babyou will not get this time again.....work needs to be to one side for now