To ask how you made the decision to go part time?

[PotentiallyPartTime]

We are expecting our baby next month and I’m planning on taking a 10 month long maternity leave.

I sense I won’t want to return full time. It is difficult enough sometimes already just me and DH working full time as we work opposing times so sometimes go a few days without properly being able to spend any time together.

I know there are pension and future-earning repercussions from dropping too many hours or leaving altogether, so keen to avoid this.

My full time hours are 37. I am getting a pay increase this year and probably next year too, so dropping a day would likely leave us no worse off than our current monthly income.

I can’t go any lower than 75% of my hours really. I was considering either 90% over 4, or 75% over 3. Which of these would you ask for and why? I can ask for it either permanently or per 12 months and keep reviewing it.

Side notes: DH will remain full time, he enjoys his job a lot more than I enjoy working and earns more so it makes sense. He can also pick up overtime. All family money will be combined.

We think we are one and done but haven’t ruled out having another child altogether, though it would not be for several years until our daughter is at school if we did.

If anyone else chose to go part time how did you make that decision?

I went back 80% after our last child. So 30 instead of 37 hours a week. Work 6 hours a day - no break. (legally the longest you can go with no break)
I mainly made the decision so I could do school pick ups with my eldest. Balanced with needing to still bring in enough to pay for my youngest in nursery.
Its hard to juggle everything so we have a set routine/schedule every week of what is happening when/who does what went/who had the kids when. Even down to when I clean which parts of the house etc. It works for us but I would love to move to a term time only position - in the pipleine eventually when DH starts earning enough to cover the drop in salary I would get.

It wasn't based on having children that was not possible financially. Even after paying FT childcare I was better off working.

I went PT in my mid fifties, put 2 DC through driving lessons and uni and they had their own homes, we were mortgage free so could afford to.

What I will say is, I had also banked a good pension through working FT nearly all my adult life, so working FT wasn't necessary any longer.

I am glad I did it that way round because it gave me choices later in life when I was tired, it wouldn't work for others though.

This makes sense! Glad it worked for you.

I had a 10 month maternity leave and then went back part time. 4 days a week down from 5 but I negotiated 1 day from home as I can do a lot of my work from home, its just we are office based so that everyone can share phone duty essentially.
So we only needed 3 days childcare for 4 days pay which basically made up for being down pay from full time.
It's the best, I love having the time off with my daughter.
Though I often hear, and have experienced the same that even if you reduce your hours & therefore pay, your work often don't actually materially reduce your workload, so it will potentially be far more stressful actually during working hours. So my 1 day from home, I do the work flexibly time wise but I often have to do some work in the evenings/weekends to catch up with everything.
But overall, I much prefer it to being in the office 5 days a week because going back to work was the biggest shock to the system, so much harder than initially having the baby because your time reduces so much & its a real slog with barely any time together on work days.
My husband also works full time as he earns more than me and is more passionate about his career.
I would go as part time as you can afford honestly, because you can't get the time back and being able to do life admin/errands on weekdays is so much nicer than trying to fit it all in on weekends which would eat into family time.
Also found that it meant I could keep in touch with mums I met through NCT & play groups whilst on maternity leave as if everyone goes back full time, then focuses on family on the weekend, you loose a bit of that support group. So I luckily have 2 friends who also work part time and we all meet up once every other week for a play date.

I went 0.6 from returning from mat leave to DC starting primary school (one and done).

It was great, kept my career going (and I was able to progress quite a bit even on part time), then when I went back full time it was glorious dropping nursery fees and getting a huge income boost!

I just thought DC is little once and couldn't bear the idea of just being with them two full days per week and nursery the rest of the time. I felt like I'd be missing his childhood.

Financially speaking we could swing it so that's what we did.

I’m going to 4 days, in my job 4 days is seen as full time whereas 3 days is very much seen as part time and that does impact career progression unfortunately, but it depends how much that matters to you. I’m in a senior role and enjoy my job and want to keep progressing.

I’ll be doing 1 or 2 of those days from home and finishing at 4 on my office days, which should enable me to pick our child up from nursery at a reasonable time so we still get a good chunk of evening time. My husband has also negotiated an early finish one day a week so nursery will only really be 3.5 days, which I’m comfortable with.

I do 3 days, 21 hours a week. Anecdotally, friends who have gone back 4 days have ended up having to cram 5 days of work into them, whereas 3 days is more clearly 'part-time' I think and perhaps easier to set boundaries or more likely that tasks will be divided between others.

I always assumed I would add at least one day when we were out of the baby and young toddler stage, but actually the balance of only working three days is really nice and I'm in no rush to change it.

I was full time WFH but got made redundant when I was 34 weeks pregnant. I had an extra 6 months out of work and then now I have a part time job in a shop working 20 hours. This works for me, after everything owed out I have enough spending money and I love having more time with the little one :)

I knew I wanted a day with DC and went straight to 0.8. I'm in the civil service and part time is very common and there's good systems in place for it. DP is in an industry where part time means you do the same job in less hours for less pay, so does 90% of hours over 4 days. On paper, really it ends up being more hours than that but the benefit is a guaranteed day off with DC.

I wanted a day with DC while they were little (but also knew I could go insane being a SAHM). Four days seemed like the perfect amount, and was what a lot of women in my office already did so the precedent was there.

I do find it hard - the work really builds up on a non-working day when everyone else is still working.

10 months mat leave and returned 3 days part time after. Financially it’s tighter but considering grandparents look after DS (I pay them and treat them often but spend no where near nursery fee costs) it’s do able for us as a family.

I know so many people return full time but I genuinely feel like 3 days is enough for me. It’s hard to juggle house work, a toddler and working plus maintaining a social life and time for each other.

Mine was partially tax related and partly because I wanted to.

Going to 0.81 FTE actually left me better off overall because it reduced me back to 20% tax in both salary and BTL income. When you counted in the childcare saving it would have cost me more money to stay full time.

I work Tues-Fr, the Monday’s off with my DD have been absolutely wonderful and I have no regrets.

I am senior in my sector so no career implications and I did get a tangible reduction in workload. I also have hard boundaries and do absolutely zero work on Monday’s and no extra hours Tues-Fri either. It only works if you are very aware of that.

I would do 3 das at normal hours because the toddler years are hard with bedtimes and I think you'll struggle to fit more hours in.

Then 4 days over 3 when they get to school because its easier to find 3 days of childcare than 4.

Finally, make equal pension provision for yourself, whether that's asking your husband to pay towards it or taking it not of the family pot. I think some pensions have limited time to backdate payments.

Don't forget to apply for your NI credits.

After dd1 and ds I dropped to 3 days. After dd2 I was able to drop to 2 days and am now self employed. I do more as and when I need to. The initial reason for dropping to 3 days was partially related to childcare costs and my wanting to be at home with them. I have the best balance now. Dh works full time but does compressed hours so he has the kids when I work a weekday. By working around each other we don't need childcare.

And try to take Monday and Friday as your non work days because you will build up hours to take off another day, whereas if you work them, you need to take them off and often end up owing the company time.

What i mean is that rather than getting 8 hours/FT credit for Bank Holiday, you get, say 0.80FTE/80% credit and need to use 20% annual leave to cover it so your leave doesn't go very far.

for me originally it was so i could increase my skill set by volunteering in different depts as otherwise i would of not got the skills i have. then increased to full time on my original role due to covid causing restructuring.

at the moment made redundant and considering part time to give more flexibility on my projects rather than just eat, sleep, work and repeat etc

It depends though, I’m happy to take the bank hols off as my husband is also off, on 0.8 it works out only “oweing” 1.5 days assuming my non working day (Wednesday) never falls on a bank holiday, which sometimes it does for Christmas/Boxing Day/NY. For me the benefit of only having my child in nursery two days at a time and benefiting from the midweek break outweighs any bank holiday issues. I have a generous holiday entitlement (30 days plus bank hol pro rata) though and can be flexible with shifting days around.

I always knew i would go part time. One of my first managers when i started work was part time, and split the week with her husband. She was a great role model, so i knew that I wanted both DH and I to share childcare equally.

In the end, we both went to 4 days, which meant only 3 days in nursery. I felt 4 days is "nearly a full FTE" where 3 is "almost half". So i hoped it wouldn't stop me getting interesting projects.

It has worked well, though things have changed now the kids are in school and childcare is harder. Now DH is FT and i work school hours.

If he is working and earning, budget accordingly and many of us did it/do it

I do 90% over 4 - would totally recommend! I don't feel like I'm missing out on much salary and pension wise, and love a day off in the week with my toddler (although that one day is enough for me!)