To be nervous about taking maternity leave when self-employed

[biddlybop]

I am self-employed and my business, which I started at Christmas, is doing quite well. I do not have employees but earn a wage that I am happy with and have a good work life balance.

We are going to start trying for our second baby in a couple of months, which is something I have wanted for a while now. The time feels right (as right as it ever feels).

I know that it's unlikely I'll qualify for maternity allowance for more than a couple of months, so have savings that will allow me to take some maternity leave.

I have never had a job that I particularly liked before now. My previous maternity leave was very standard - I had a secure job to return to, I took as long as I could off. Now, I finally have a career that I am passionate about, and proud of. It's finally a bit of a priority. I couldn't have cared less before!

I guess I am worried that I have spent/will continue to spend time building up my business, to have to walk away from it for a little while. My plan was to take three months maternity with no working (maybe looking at the odd e-mail, but little in the way of work). This should be enough time to recover from a difficult labour and also a c section. I would then do some remote working for a further month and then after about four months do a few hours a week evenings or weekends.

I guess I am worried that in 3 months of not working, my business might just go plop. My diary is always pretty busy right now, I get referrals from various places and am always booked up to two months in advance. My nerves are that if I say to people "I'm having a baby, I'll be taking a few months off", my referrals will stop coming in and enquiries will dwindle.

I'm not sure what I'm expecting from this thread. Has anyone else been in this position, trying to balance keeping your business going and also taking time to bond with your baby, recover, and hopefully have the best of both worlds?

I know that life doesn't go to plan and there might be a reason that I'd actually need to take longer off than this, or an emergency might crop up that depletes our savings and I'd have to go back sooner. It's hard being a woman...so many plates to spin.

On the flip side, starting a business during a pandemic could have gone very badly but it couldn't have actually gone better. So my head is telling me that things have worked out before and will again, and that I don't need to worry.

I'd love to soundboard this off of any other self employed working mothers!

I don’t have any experience, but I’m going to guess that if your business is doing well now, it will again.

Yes referrals nights slow down once word gets round, but once you are ‘back’ they will come again and you will be able to build back up. You’ve done it once, so I’m sure you can do it again!!

It really depends on your business.

We made everyone aware that I was taking mat leave and exh was taking pat leave. So they had to get their orders in by 'x date' which would have to see then through until exh started making again.

But we had regular large customers. We did also sell direct to the public and stocked up on that before hand.

During mat/pat leave we did need to keep up with emails and pack small orders. We also kept up with social media.

Exh went back after 2 months to start producing again for the big corporate customers. I kept up with admin until ds was 6 months and then went back.

Had we have taken a complete break, it was very likely a competitor could have taken some of our business.

But every business is different.

If you qualify for Maternity Allowance you can have 10 Keeping In Touch days without forfeiting the benefit.

Could you employ any kind of maternity cover to keep things rolling in your absence? Depends on what kind of business it is obviously but keeping business flowing means that your customers don't start shopping around for alternatives.

Totally depends on the business. What do you do OP?

I was self employed through 2 pregnancies/births (both C-sections/not easy births/both breastfed which I found very hard at first).

I went back to doing bits and bobs after 6 weeks after number 1 and was straight in to doing 5 hours an evening after 4 weeks after number 2.

All of this only possible because I got into expressing with both very early on with both (due to severed nipples with number 1, and convenience with number 2), and because my husband was a confident carer for tiny babies, and was happy to spend his evenings after his work doing this whilst I went to work (I'm the main breadwinner so our finances rely on him picking up lots of the childcare duties ongoing).

I don't think going back to work that soon would be right for everyone, but it was for me. The sort of work I do involves programming, so especially after number 2 (when I wasn't trying wildly to get to grips with motherhood) I really enjoyed 5 hours 'off' at work in the evening, drinking tea, going to the loo when I needed etc.

The reason I'm telling you this is because - what I found - the freelance mindset is different to the staff mindset (I'm now back on staff). It's not like going back to a FT grind, with all of the pressures and demands that go with that - I could make the hours work for me - and actually it was really good for my mental health as I wasn't forced back, I felt like I was getting my brain back, and I could do it in my own time.

Having said that - none of this might be right for you, and it might be better for you personally to take a much longer block off.

Just offering this info to point out that freelance life can be a bit more flexible than the usual staff contract models of mat leave.

I run a business with my husband, we have staff who are more than capable of holding the Fort while we have a week off. But I wouldn't go longer without either of us there.
I had maternity early on and we have had periods where my husband has been sick. A few weeks were fine, just. The staff coped but clients wanted us and after a few weeks staff were getting stressed as clients were loosing patience and wanting who ever was off back. They wouldn't let others step up and do the job, they kept asking for stuff that hadn't been agreed by saying 'littlemissboss said,......, husband said........' none of which had been. So staff rally had their work cut out, thy handled it very well but were stressed at dealing with the 'crap' the owners deal with. The clients acted like it never happened on our return.

It's one of the most stressful things of going alone as you can never switch off and you will still always be on the end of an email. You may not be able to guarantee not having a problem to deal with especially if a client is just not accepting your maternity.
You will have to remember you are your business even if your staff are great, you created it, set the standards built itand are solely responsible for it. That can be hard to switch off from and it's a lot to put on some else's shoulders.

Ps - definitely felt no problems with bonding with my kids with the model I opted for - as soon as I got in after work around midnight, I was back 'on' breastfeeding through the night, and I would then spend the rest of the following day either out and about at baby classes etc, or having baby cuddles in front of netflix in the house if I was tired and just wanted to chill.

Pps - my old accountant said I could only claim Mat Allowance (which is not very much at all), but when I changed accountants, the new one claimed Statuatory Mat Pay for me via my company.

I claimed this for the time I was off completely and then when I was working up until the point that I ran out of KIT days (at which point to allow me to continue working I had to stop claiming).

I only took 3 weeks. I had a full time nanny from after my second was born so it was handy enough to go back to work. I mix fed so nanny could go out with all kids in the AM and bring a bottle. Then I'd breast feed at lunchtime and again around 3pm. I was fully WFH so it was easy enough. Certainly easier to work after no sleep than look after 3 or 4 toddlers!

What industry is it in?

Is your partner an employee? Why don't you take maternity leave for, say, 3 months and then he could use shared parental leave for another 3 months?

It depends on the nature of your work but I think you may well need to start doing a decent number of hours again after 3 months, and not just fitting it into evenings and weekends.

You should be able to get Maternity Allowance, btw.
^If you’re self-employed
To get the full amount of Maternity Allowance, you must have paid Class 2 National Insurance for at least 13 of the 66 weeks before your baby’s due.^
www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/eligibility

I assume you're self-employed rather than director of your own limited company? If the latter you could pay yourself SMP as a PP said. There isn't much difference though between MA and SMP.

Depends on your business. If you plan to have nothing in place for three months then it’s likely clients will look elsewhere.

Depends on what you do. I went back 5 weeks after my third as I had to. I was picking up small bits before then but it was so busy I couldn't turn it down. But I do it all from home and expressed so DH could take baby whilst I worked. It would be harder if I had to leave the home and work to a set schedule.

No issues with bonding etc!

You could alternatively form a limited company if you haven’t got one already and are happy with the responsibilities that go with it?

I’ve been self employed throughout 2 pregnancies. I took about 3 months leave on both occasions. A few weeks longer with the second thanks to covid.

My business is one to one so I’m missed so to speak. I found what worked for me was to choose a date to return and schedule customers in. They were reassured that I was returning and would hold on for that long and I was reassured I had work to return to.

One piece of advice, when others tell you ‘how hard it will be going back to work with such a young baby’ or ‘oh they’re so young to leave to go back to work’ 🙄 tell them to get lost. It’s not that hard and you will manage and baby will be fine. I wish I’d known this before my first.

Thanks for your replies, sorry for my delay. I'm an animal behaviourist. I work very much when I want to, I decide my hours and so on. There's quite a lot of demand and not lots of options for people to go to. I'm not, for example, a nail tech where it's quite easy to just go to another nail tech in that time.

I get a lot of referrals from other professionals in the 'animal industry' and from the word go my business went boom. I planned to have 3 months no income at all when setting up the business, and I had no gap in earnings at all. It is only me.
We have discussed DH taking shared parental leave but as he is the main earner for the household and I set this up as a job that I could work flexibly around family life, I think I'd stick with that set up. He is newly promoted to a mid-level role in a larger organisation.

My head is saying that if I explain to my main referrers that I'll be taking x amount of time off, they will understand, and in the grand scheme of things 3 months isn't that long to wait. People wait 2 months to see me at the moment due to me being booked up, and are mostly happy to do so. I'd keep my eye on e-mails, admin, etc, I just wouldn't go out to practical things for a little while. Existing clients would be given additional support before my time off and I'd check e-mails one or twice a week to make sure they were doing ok, but wouldn't be going out to them during that time.

I'd prefer not to start a ltd company as I have so much to do as it is, it's just one more thing. The current set up works well as it's only me so I don't have any obligations to other people.

Just offering this info to point out that freelance life can be a bit more flexible than the usual staff contract models of mat leave.

Agree with this mindset. As I don't have set hours and very much choose who I work with and when I'm working (I'm busy enough that I can triage what I want to take on), the return to work will be at my pace and flexible, rather than "ok, you're back 26 hours a week every week". I think this will make it easier. I'm just so scared of the people who refer people to me going walkabouts...but I have good relationships with them all and other options are limited.

In your case it sounds fine OP enjoy your mat leave, sounds like the business will still be there for you afterwards.
Your plans sound well thought out imho and if I was a client I'd just wait!