To think I’d be able to work with a newborn?

[Pipiscoming2023]

I think I’m probably going to get shot down here but hoping someone who’s experienced in this can help.

I’m self-employed and due to have a baby at the end of November/beginning of December. Luckily, December is a very quiet time for me and so taking that time off isn’t a huge issue. However, I’d likely need to return to doing some work from mid Jan - so around 6 weeks off work in total.

This isn’t for financial reasons as such as we have some savings to cover us for maternity, but more due to the nature of my work that I wouldn’t be able to let my clients down during a really busy period. I’d likely lose a lot of clients and struggle to rebuild if I took too much time off. I love my job and my clients too! I did look at getting some kind of admin support to cover but I’d still need to work some hours in the business myself each week.

And no we didn’t plan the timings very well, I know, but conception was difficult for us. Would I be able to do at least a couple of hours work a day while baby naps etc? DH is a very hands on, helpful partner and is supportive of my choices whatever they may be. He works full time and will be returning to work mid Jan as he’s taking holiday/Christmas/paternity combined.

Any advice from someone who’s done it? Or am I just totally mad to consider it?

YABU - you won’t be able to work with a baby (if not, please tell me when you think it would be realistic to go back to work)

YANBU - you’d have some time to work each week

I'd definitely ask your husband to ask about any shared parental leave entitlement. It might need more looking into as you're self-employed but it's worth seeking some advice about what DH is entitled to. Also, worth looking at DH's hours at work too, could he temporarily/permanently condense (or reduce) his hours? Or could he use one day of leave a week?

Oh, well, if it was your experience, it must be gospel truth.

Less than half of mothers with children under 5 were in employment in the 1990s. https://www.employment-studies.co.uk/report-summaries/report-summary-women-labour-market-two-decades-change-and-continuity#:~:text=Working%20mothers&text=The%20most%20notable%20changes%20had,in%201973%20(Figure%202).

By 2021, three quarters of mothers (the stat is for all mothers, not mothers of under-5s, who will of course be less likely to be in work - but I couldn't find comparable stats fast) are in work. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/familiesandthelabourmarketengland/2021#:~:text=2.,92.1%25%20of%20fathers%20were%20employed.

There is a massive difference between now and the 90s.

I'm not confused with 1920s
Even now less than 25% of mums go back FULL time after having babies
and 85% of women are leaving full-time employment within three years of having a child as they don't cope with the juggle or it's not manageable financially.
not to mention those who return to a less senior role in order to gain more flexibility or better balance
in 1990 the number of mothers returning to working was half that of now (including all types of work full and part time) (and likely then as now many left again within 3 years - possibly due to a second child tipping the balance)
so you may have experientially seen more working mothers being a working mother but the reality was very different when you look at the stats available

My baby is 6.5mths now and yep, I could've, as long as it was "this needs doing at some point over the next day" type of work rather than "this needs doing at 11.15am precisely" type of work (ie if you're a beauty therapist no, but consultancy or freelance admin type stuff or an architect then probably)

Then again, appointments I'd have been fine too as long as I could work around when DH was/is home.. but I've also never done a night feed or a nappy change when hes not at work so idk 😅

I have friends that have gone back to work at 2 weeks PP, wfh and flexible as they're the company owners but work nonetheless and it's worked great.

Ah yes. Because babies are robots. I am probably what you would refer to as "wishy washy" but I'd love you to understand the strength it takes to allow your baby to lead you, run on little to no sleep, be there for their every need, but still get "sht done. Those of us who choose that way are simply putting our baby's needs first and not trying to bend them to suit us. They soon grow out of it!!

OP my first baby refused to be put down from day 1. I found it all incredibly hard and couldn't have worked. My second would sleep for hours during the say in her Moses basket, and I could have worked in the first few weeks after birth, I found myself getting bored waiting for her to wake up! However around 6 weeks she woke up to the world and spent less time asleep independently, so annoyingly that time is a turning point for them as they're coming out of their newborn sleepiness.

If she is one of the wishy-washy baby-led mums so dominant on MN, I think working would be pretty much impossible as she will spend all day every day being 'nap trapped' by the baby and unable to do anything.

I was totally baby led, you'd have thought me very wishy washy. I still cosleep with my 4yo, breastfed till gone 2.5. That sort of thing. 😂

I also never missed a meal, and was able to do work around babies as self employed. Thank goodness for having a flexible schedule and slings! I remember making a great lemon drizzle cake with my contact napping 2 week old sleeping through it in the wrap. I also spent a lot of time working whilst baby slept on me.

Nap trapped only really happened when I wanted it to (for a sneaky chill out), otherwise I'd make sure baby was in the wrap and I'd be able to be as mobile as I wanted. We tended to bathe together, or I'd wait for my husband to be around. Or, on occasion, I'd even wear baby in a water sling and just have my shower with her attached.

Being baby led doesn't mean you are trapped unless you actually want to be.

You won’t be know with an degree of certainty until baby is here. I have 3 and I probably could have only done this with my first. The other two not a hope in hell. My youngest is a full on clingy baby who has never napped well in the day and was a equally awful sleeper at night!

I think you need to be prepared for anything. Some days, you’ll be able to do it, other days, you’ll struggle to find time to brush your teeth! And it changes weekly, you may find that working with a 6 week old baby is far easier that a 3 month baby! What is your line of work, could you end up losing more clients by promising the work and then not delivering? It also depends on level of support you have, I was not used to having time off, so spent a lot of time in my parents during maternity leave or my mum came to me for a few hours at a time, if you’ve got that level of support so you literally can say “I’m going to work for an hour” knowing baby is totally cared for in that time then yes it can work, but also be prepare for baby brain!

It depends on your support, what your baby is like and how flexible your work is.

If your partner doesn't work long hours and will honestly only be working, say 9-5 then you could do an hour before then and am hour or two after. Alternatively if family could come watch baby for an hour or two, or you pay for additional help to watch baby you could do it.

There will likely be patches when your baby has good solid naps where you could get some work done, but there might also be patches where they only nap 20 mins at a time or will only nap on you, where work would be impossible. Also you may feel incredibly sleep deprived and so working every spare chance you get would be really difficult or little one might sleep OK at night then its definately more do-able.

Given you won't know what your baby will be like, I'd personally only plan to work if I had the support in place to watch baby for a few hours, otherwise you could well be setting yourself up for burnt out.

Entirely doable (although I accept it does depend on how well you are and how 'easy' your baby is) Most newborns sleep a lot. I think it's quite sad that so many people seem to have had so little support from partners, most dads I know including my husband did an awful lot of care, and very much shared everything. With all 3 of mine, I carried on working from home, all be it in a reduced capacity, and remember with my first being 10 days old and doing payroll from home!

I'm self employed so had my first client meeting 3 weeks after my second baby (CS) was born and was working P/T from then on. We had a cleaner and I was mostly WFH too. It's definitely possible, but I do wish I'd given myself a little bit longer to just do nothing.

It's very hard to say. If you were determined then I guess a few hours a day would be possible but you might pay the price in stress, feeling you were missing out on DC etc.

I think typically after a baby is born:
1st 2 weeks absolute train wreck, possible trauma from birth, bleeding heavily, sleep deprived, shell shocked - BUT baby sleeps a lot, you get attention and presents and visitors etc and feel totally animally in love with the baby
Weeks 3-4 sort of get a grip on how often to change nappies, how to burp and feed baby, some kind of system going on
Weeks 5-6 I think you can actually fine it harder than at first, the bleeding and worst bits of recovery from birth might be over but the baby might be more wakeful and the accumulated sleep deprivation can start to hit (you try to be heroic about it and then it hits and you get cranky with your partner etc)

So much depends on how much and how easily your baby sleeps, feeds and cries. My DC1 we literally had to pace the floor with her through the night as she was colicky and would cry and cry. DC2 would wake, feed and back to sleep.

You might be able to scrape a few hours at 6 weeks, but depending on how hard it all is and how determined you are to maintain your business, you might want to spend them doing things that make you feel more human like sleeping, having a bath, having your arms to yourself etc rather than work.

I am not saying it was the gospel truth, I said it was my experience, no need for the sneery face.
Regardless, the lower amount of mums who worked has nothing whatsoever to do with experience of those who did work, does it?

Again, the amount of mothers who worked in the 1990s is irrelevant to my comments on the maternity leave on offer to those who did. My comments about the 1920 were more about your assumptions that things were a lot different in terms of attitudes and villages etc. My experience (which is not the gospel truth @SarahAndQuack ) was that the situation regarding friends/family was pretty much the same as it is now. I went on to have more children a lot later (2010+) and apart from the fantastic maternity leave on offer, nothing much had changed.

It’s so hard to say. You’ll have no idea how baby will be until they’re here!
some people have super easy babies. Mine is somewhere in the middle. She’s now 9 months, I’m taking the full year off, but all the plans I had for maternity leave, have gone completely out of the window. They take your full attention!

This sounds like me around 13 years ago :-) I was at the time a full time wedding and event photographer so had booking upto 2 years ahead - when we (finally thanks to IVF) got pregnant I was absolutely sure that I'd simply carry on working as before as I work from home right? my 'main' workdays were weekends and evenings so it couldn't be that difficult right? That first year I had a full book of weddings, but as you can imagine you don't just turn up, shoot a couple hours, then go home and put your feet up (regardless of what some people might think!) between a newborn and work I was literally pulling all nighters to get projects finished for clients! To be clear my hubster was amazing and really did 'do his bit'. By the end of the first year I'd made myself horribly ill so I adjusted, reduced my workload and so on - by the time we had baby 2 though I had a good rhythm going and a strict limit to the number of bookings I could take - in short I wish someone had told me to really sit down with a pen and paper and work out what would be reasonable to continue with and what needed to go for my own welfare! The other option (which I didn't want to do mainly because I couldn't earn more than the cost of childcare would cost) was to pop bubs in a nursery like 'go to work' parents do and free some weekday time up that way - not sure if that's an option for you? Good luck though, us women are resilient and always find a way - just don't make yourself ill trying to be super women! x

Depends a lot on the baby imo. My first born had terrible reflux and wouldn't sleep at all not on me! So I did nothing for months except watch TV until they got him better. My 2nd slept lots and when he was still a baby I worked from home while he sat in his chair or played at my feet. My third was another baby who wanted my attention alllll the time and was difficult to get to sleep. My mum knows someone who's just cancelled going back to work and is back on maternity as she underestimated how hard it would be to juggle her job and baby and was struggling! Not to say that everyone does, I'm sure some have done really well but for me it would depend on the baby.

Before I had kids, my friends (who'd already had children) talked about a magic button. It's one that automatically seems to get pressed when your baby is finally asleep and you sit down to get something done (or have a rest). She was so right

Oh, I do apologise, I missed the post where you said it was your experience - do quote?

I only saw the post where you generalised from your experience, and referred to 'wishy-washy baby-led mums so dominant on MN' ... which sounds awfully, erm, sneery.

I also read your post when you claimed quite directly that it was 'fairly standard' to be back to work when your baby was six weeks old. So yes, actually, 'the lower amount of mums who worked' does have to do with it, doesn't it? Because it was far less common for people to go back to work, for the obvious reason that it was very hard to do so.

Honestly to OP you won't know until you try it
but try to build in that back up plan if it's harder than expected (maybe a childminder or night nurse or family member to help out or something )
don't miss out on any maternity/parental leave pay between you both and have faith in yourself to do it.
genuinely I could have worked from home with my baby when small maybe not everyday but I could do it she was good as gold - ironically with some babies you sort of need the time off later on once they sleep less and are on the move!

I think as long as you’re super organised, have appropriate childcare in place & you can be relatively flexible you would be able to work at least part time. I went back to work after 6 weeks with my first baby, breastfed so I expressed milk if she needed a feed when I wasn’t there, my mum looked after her for a few hours when I was working & it worked out fine

Depends on the baby and how you recover. Nursery possible early on, or get other help for a bit. Babies take up a lot of time. They sleep when smaller but become more aware.

Yes you could manage it when they are in the first couple of months, as they sleep all the time.

After that it's not going to be as easy tbh as they require engagement and more input from you as they sleep less.

Also depends on baby. I couldn't have done anything with my first that had reflux issues. Second I could have easily worked as he's a placid potato lol

Actually, I think the way women are encouraged to manage the early months are far more likely to lead to mental health issues and PND nowadays than they were when the adult was essentially in charge of the situation.
If MN is typical, the early weeks now seem to be a blur of not being able to shower, have a cup of tea or arrange anything because you are completely driven by the whims of a baby, who may 'refuse' to be put down, be a 'boob monster' or decide to 'nap trap' you at any given time. Add a side order of constant narrative on here that it's entirely normal to be up 2-3 times a night until the baby is a toddler and shunning all visitors or offers of help and you have the perfect recipe for PND I think. I know if I was glued to my baby 24 hours a day and being made to feel guilty for not enjoying the milky cuddles, I would be demented.