First Child - Returning to Work Quickly

[SJDiggle]

Hi all,

Long time lurker - first time post. Just looking for some (hopefully!) neutral opinions/advice. My DH and I are at a point where we are thinking about children but we are trying to be sensible and consider finances etc.

Realistically we could probably only financially afford for me to take 6 weeks maternity leave (before my policy drops to 50% pay).

I already work 2 days from home and would probably see if I could increase that to 3 when I return to work but my question/AIBU is would it work with a 6 week old baby being looked after by a child minder/nanny during the day twice a week? DH leaves house at 8:30am and one of us is normally home by 5pm

We won't have help from family - My mother works and the in-laws are 3 hours away and no grandparents either.

Happy to hear all opinions and thoughts!

I'm on maternity at the minute. Its really difficult with money but we manage.

I couldn't imagine having to go back to work when babies are 6 weeks. Mine is 7 months and I am only now starting to feel a little more human.

Baby still doesn't sleep through and were shattered. Even still not ready to go back to work in 3 months.

My baby had reflux which started at 3 weeks old. She was inconsolable and I spent a huge amount of time chasing down doctors appointments and trying to get someone to listen to me. At 12 weeks old I got REALLY worried and ended up in A&E. She was admitted for a week and had iv antibiotics and we finally also got a diagnosis for the reflux. Even with ranitidine and Gaviscon she was horribly unsettled and didn't sleep / nap at all well. It was exhausting and she cried a LOT for large portions of every day.

I went back to work full time from home when she was 10 months old and her Dad became a full time SAHD. That was STILL incredibly difficult as I could hear her cry.

I don't think there would have been any way I could have done a jot of work and looked after her. She is 9 now and off school today due to a sickness bug (she is better, just waiting out her 48hrs) and even that makes working from home really tough!

If you have to do it (like I did) then you manage.

I went back 4 weeks later. I had an emergency c-section after a v long labour.

Yes I was tired, so so so tired, but I needed to so I did it. He was my first (and only) DC.

@Tombakersscarf
Yes first dc. Work will be flexible with work from home or at office. I'm sure if I couldn't cope I would be able to change my dates but really hope it works out as it will best for our little family and the small family firm I work for.

Remember while on 50% pay you should also receive stat maternity pay which bumps it up, then also child benefit approx £80 month

I was worried when pregnant and we managed to save during that time to bump up finances. Also saving some AL to bolt onto mat pay

Once you pay childcare you will be poorer than you have ever been in your life!! Try and take as much time off as you can

I sincerely doubt it will be best for either you or your baby, but I do hope it works out well for you.

I think my view would be that if you find yourself in a position where you have no choice but to manage (unexpected pregnancy, change in circumstances etc) then you probably will. If you're at the planning stage then, if I possibly could, I would put off TTC until I could take more time off.

(And your work have no choice but to give you maternity leave, it's a legal right)

I went back to very full time work when my DS1 was 6 weeks old. I had a job when taking more time off was not an option. DS1 is now 29. We had a nanny share at the beginning. I took the baby round to the house she was working (pretty much a mansion compared to our little flat) then she finished off the day at our place. It worked brilliantly. My other half was freelance and worked abroad a lot so it really was the only option for us. I expressed and left that for daytime feeds then fed as usual at night.

I think 6 weeks is very early to leave a baby. And I couldn't have done it. I don't know if you are planning to breast feed but it will be very difficult if you plan to return to work at 6 weeks. Also you need to think very carefully about your plan to work from home while looking after the baby. Tiny babies spend most of their time feeding and then sleeping on their mother. Some sleep in their cots for hours but that hasn't been my experience!
Having said all that some people manage it. It would never be my choice but you are not me. All I can say is you won't know how you will feel until you have had the baby.

I would say on the whole it would be incredibly difficult: physically, emotionally just no.

I was still wetting myself and having physio at 6 weeks so I definitely couldn't have gone back to work. Something that you really do need to ask yourself is are you happy going back to work at 6 weeks? I didn't want to as for me part of having a child is taking them to baby groups, spending time at home and not having a single worry. When my DD has a terrible night sleep, I don't worry as I don't have to do anything tomorrow. Consequently, my baby isn't feeling any stress or anxiety.

Please think of your mental health, not just the money. I can go some weeks with spending £0.00 during the week and my stat mat pay and savings cover my bills.

Also, you don't need to sacrifice bonding with your baby for your employer. If times got tough they wouldn't be loyal to you.

I hope you can stretch you mat leave to 6 months.

Birth is very hard on the body and assuming you don’t have to take early maternity leave and your baby doesn’t need NICU and you recover well then in terms of your body, 6 weeks would be manageable. My friend went back after this amount of time but her job is very flexible, she was able to work around the baby 24/7 so could email at 1am whilst breastfeeding etc.
Some people take a long time to recover - I took over 6 weeks so it wouldn’t have physically been possible for me.

In terms of leaving your baby after 6 weeks then I think this is where it’ll be difficult. I am not precious of my child in terms of leaving her at nursery etc but I don’t think I would have been able to do it at 6 weeks. My emotions were all over the place.
Also, working from home whilst being the person in charge of a baby could be difficult depending on what you need to do with your job? If you need to interact with people (eg calling them) then this will be difficult as babies can be unpredictable and just because they sleep every day from 10-1, doesn’t mean you can rely on it if you need to make an important phone call

I get 18 weeks full pay before it drops to stat, its going to hit hard, ill be loosing about 1400 a month. But im planning on using KIT days to top up my pay

Only potential issue is if you had a c section or any postnatal depression issues which are hormonal in origin.

Pregnancy does take its toll on the female body.

And the lack of sleep.

Wow you sound like me pre DC, but there are some things you won't be able to control or just "power through" like a normal problem.

I didn't even have the worst experience in my antenatal group but here are a few things that would have meant your plan is ludicrously, ridiculously unrealistic:

1. ended up with a csection and developed a nasty post surgery infection that was far more painful than the initial recovery! Gory details left out but I basically had to get myself to A&E in the early hours of the weekend when it was vvv bad. For pain relief, then cleaning out, wound dressing at the outpatient clinic for weeks after, etc.

2. baby health problems. Again,not predictable but needed extra stay in hospital for both of us, we were in for a week!

3. pre delivery health issues (me) meaning I legally had to start maternity leave earlier than planned; no wiggle room with HR/employee law.

4. worse, having a fairly normal baby post hospital that had latching bf problems (we have had a truly horrific time with that, tongue tie missed, mastitis!), the weeks of broken sleep, reflux.

Honestly, the first 3 months of my baby's life I was just running as a ghost. I was a shell. And I was so sleep deprived and in a lot of pain I really don't remember a lot of it, my brain seemed to have shut out bits, I see photos of those weeks and there are entire days that I don't remember, it's scary how the lack of sleep impacted me. I wasn't safe to drive after the csection until 6 weeks but I'd say the sleeping issues were actually more dangerous in terms of doing a job where you might do something bad or wrong or expensive, or driving as part of a commute.

Finally, my employer has a clause in our flexible working policy which prohibits childcare at the same time as working. It might be ignored for an occasional sick 12 year old who's independent and off for the day... But not 3 days a week, you're paid to work and immediate discipline action would clamp down on what you're proposing if it became apparent...

If you can't afford more than 6 weeks maternity, how on earth can you afford childcare? You need to rethink this, babies are expensive and, unless you get really lucky, not very good at sleeping at night. DS woke every 45 mins for the first few months of his life, I was utterly destroyed. I couldn't drive as I wasn't safe to be on the roads after so little sleep, if I'd had to work I'd have been sent home for making no sense PDQ!

I read somewhere that the body doesn't recover from childbirth for up to two years post partum.

With hypothyroidism and breastfeeding, spd and hypermobility in the mix, I'd say it's definitely two years before I start to feel like me again.

With a planned c section the second time round I felt okish at 6 weeks but still weak, tender and tired, better at 4 months, lots better at 6 .

Felt able to drive at 6 weeks second time round, confidently at around 12.

SO i am about to go back to work (from home) - im going back in a fortnight, when my baby will be 16 weeks. We're not doing it for financial reasons, my company pays 100%, but it is really really important to my DH and i that he gets time to dedicate to our daughter too. Also, i am absolutely not SAHM material, I'm finding being a changing feeding burping machine incredibly bad for my mental health. I'm getting the best of both worlds. I'll be working at home, in my office with my news cancelling headphones and the door closed, and my husband will be taking care of the baby. And then in 5 months time I'm taking another 2 months off, and the three of us will have a summer together.

This would NOT work if we had to pay for childcare, and i would not be going back to work if i was going to be leaving my baby with a stranger. I would absolutely not have gone back to work at 6 weeks. Absolutely not.

Also if it's an office that you work in regularly that might be fine but I'm expected to visit a lot of offices and other business premises, I had a small amount of incontinence after my birth and it took a few months to get it under control. I don't think I'd have been able to get back to that in 6 weeks, it was at about the 5-6 months point I stopped taking a change of clothes out for ME in the baby bag, and checking where the nearest loo was before going somewhere new etc.

I don't know what your job is but that was the reality for many weeks post birth and I honestly wouldn't have been able to face going to HR and asking for adaptations, women on sites already struggling to get respect and such without being known as the woman who leaks wee because she's just had a baby

Just to add another voice saying i absolutely could not have gone back at 6 weeks. Physically I was still a bit of a wreck and struggled to drive. It was a few months before I was physically well. I was diagnosed with PND at 5 weeks. I was a zombie from sleep deprivation. I would have hated to leave my daughter when she was that tiny, and I really enjoyed and appreciated the support from the baby groups I went to.

It also would have been impossible for me to do any work at home, she rarely napped anywhere except on me and when she did I had to sleep.

I had a normal delivery, healthy baby and supportive husband.

It's good that you're planning ahead OP, but you seem to be asking how you can have a baby and everything stay the same. It can't.

Reduce your outgoings and save up, or accept that now isn't the time.

Six months is the very least mat leave I would want to take. At six weeks you're barely into the sleep deprivation, I don't think I would have been capable of doing a job before 6 months.

Another one here puzzled about how you will afford childcare longer term if dropping to 50% of your salary for maternity leave isn’t doable...

Firstly it depends on your employer as mine does not allow any work from home unless there is childcare in place. My friend had a terrible birth with tears etc and she could barely sit down six weeks later, let alone work. Her baby also could not be put down without screaming the house down and did not sleep through the night at all.

Also, if you can't afford to drop down to 50% of wages, I would worry about affording a nanny or childminder.