Space return to work after maternity

[Kamber]

What would you do?

A= YABU
B= YANBU

A - Use all accrued anual leave in one block after full maternity leave and return full time when baby was 13 months .

B - Spread accrued leave out and return when baby was 12 months but work only 3 to 4 days a week, sometimes less, until baby was 14 months

I'd still have the new annual leave years holiday entitlement to use as normal, after I had used up my accrued annual leave, but that wouldn't be able to be used to book regular odd days off, whereas my accrued leave I can do that with.

Iv got leave to take when I return as normal, I'm taking it all at once when my mat leave ends. (Though, I will only work 2-3 week days and a Sunday, dad will be home with baby on sunday) x

If you definitely can use your accrued leave to work "part time" initially I would do that. Some employers insist you have all your accrued leave as a block. This is the policy where I work but they made an exception for me as my husband was taking over as paternity leave which had to be consecutive and I didn't want to waste my holiday being off at the same time - we were trying to stretch as long as possible before we both returned full time.

I did 4 days a week for as long as possible and it was great. We went to my favourite baby group on my "day off". Completely recommend it. Going from all week at home with baby to working full time is a horrible shock to the system. I had to do this with my first baby and it felt awful at first.

Take it all off. Unless they are getting cover in for you, you’ll just end up doing the full time work.

I didn't have a choice last time and had to take it as a block. This time I could choose (different employer) but am still doing a block. I'd much rather have extended proper time off, once you go back you will be in the headspace of work and worrying about things, whereas an extra block means you don't have to think about it.

Plus I think it makes it easier for nursery etc, most would struggle to accommodate a month of three days, then four days etc.

Do you know you can use it to effectively work part time? I probably wouldn’t agree to that arrangement because then I have to cover one or two days a week which is likely to be harder than extending the existing cover by a month or whatever.

Yes, especially if you do 4 days you will just be doing your normal job.

Could you compress hours when you go back? I do this and really like it.

Yes with the accrued leave I would be able to use it to be part time for a while, but once i use that up I'd need to use my regular annual leave in blocks like normal.

Unfortunately not. I could cut my hours in half, but we can't afford to do that. And my employer wouldn’t agree to just drop a day as it wouldn’t be possible to hire someone else for my role to pick up just one day a week.

A phased part time return is ideal for helping a child adapt to childcare - my work offered it as a standard part of maternity leave. Are you going back 5/5?

I did it so I went back 3 days for a few weeks followed by 4 day.

Still paid for ft childcare during this period.

When your child enters nursery (assume you are using one) they pick so many new bugs that being part time to start took some pressure off so if baby was ill during the week I would swap days around etc

Was just about to say the same as pp.

When mine started nursery they didn't do a full week for almost three months. Rashes, norovirus, colds, coughs, tummy bugs. I was grateful I'd held onto a lot of annual leave as I had to use a lot of it during that initial period

This was me last year. I had planned half my allowance before birth then carry the other half over and add it on the end of MAT leave. Baby came early and I ended up carrying over my full entitlement and had the next year's. I was told use it how you wish to. I decided to go back straight away and use the leave throughout the year. I have loved being able to have short weeks here and there, nearly the whole summer holidays. It's made the whole first year far less stressful.

Yes that's what i was considering too, if they are sick a lot. I would still have to pay for all my nursery hours to secure my place so would loose money paying and not always using the space I've paid for if i lower my work hours using annual leave on my return, so just weighing everything up.

Yes that's what puts me off using ny accrued leave in one go. As then I'd be using up the current annual leave years holiday to take time off work and potentially then not be able to have time off when I would like as not enough left!

B. They will be sick a lot

I did ‘A’ twice and found it worked well for me. Enjoyed the longer period off and then straight into what would become my regular routine.

But think it’s a personal decision and the other factors like shorter weeks/illness that pp mention are good to consider.

(In my work going part time essentially meant doing a FT role in fewer days so it would depend on the nature of your job and whether there will be effective cover if you worked 4 days pw)

A is probably better for most companies. But what do you prefer? That's what matters

So would that mean that if you take leave to do shorter weeks there will be no cover? So you will be having to cram in the whole job into three or four days a week?

I'd do B personally.
I think better for baby and mother to adjust.

My question would be around work load if you went back PT. If they've got someone covering your role they would just extend if you took it in a block, would there be pressure to do more in less time if you're back PT with noone to cover the rest?

If it'll work with work, I'd go back PT, like others say, DC will be I'll a lot, if you can switch days around to accommodate that might help. But your DH/DP also needs to take days off too.

They are pretty good at having realistic expectations on things like that so it would be relatively easy to manage my workload where needed.