To not want to go back to work AT ALL

[girlafraid]

I have been on maternity leave for 4 months and I LOVE it, I love my DS and i love being with him - I am dreading returning to work, even part time

Does everyone feel like this? Everyone tells me I will find it boring being at home but I have never been happier in my life.
i have 2 degrees and an extremely well paid job in IT. They have said i can go back 3 days a week, but the idea of being a 1.5 hr commute away from ds is really distressing me

dh says he'll support whatever decision i make but is concerned i'm throwing away a good career if i opt to take 3 years off - which is what i really want to do

i don't often read the pluses og being a sahm and i'm surprised by how much i love it

YANBU - don't go back if you don't want to and can afford not to!

HOWEVER - I felt a bit like that at 4 months - now I have been off for 10 months I am looking forward to going back, so you may change how you feel. It is a bit all or nothing in IT as well - as you say, if you take 3 years off it will be hard to get back in, there's no denying it.

Four months is still a relatively short time to have been at home and I would have found the thought of leaving my daughter distressing at that point too. I eventually went back to work when she was 9 months old and I was ready!

Having said that I knew that I needed work as well as being with my daughter and have an arrangement that works for us in that regard - I think she gets a lot from being in nursery, she spends one day a week with my mum and then we have 2 days to ourselves and the weekends as a family.

Having said this if you can afford it, your DH is supportive and you want to do it then I would go for it. Just don't make a decision until you have to. I went through a stage of wanting to be a SAHM (not saying yours is a stage!) but changed my mind.

I really admire SAHMs because work is my 'downtime' - never thought I would say that! It helps me keep sane but in a way I feel selfish that I need that and that my daughter doesn't have me full time (we can't afford it in any case though).

When you do think you might be ready to go back, you could find a nursery nearer work so you're not so far away from your DS?

Yes - give it some time. And remember that all of us, whether we work or not, love our children to bits and love being with them! I'm sure your DH feels the same!
I get the feeling from your OP that you imagine people who go back to work somehow don't enjoy their children as much, or being at home. Not the case at all. I loved my maternity leaves, but also loved going back to work. The two things don't need to be mutually exclusive.

The other thing is that until you go back, you don't actually know how it's going to feel. Sitting at home with a 4 month old imagining being 1.5 hours away on a commute might feel upsetting. Actually being at work won't be - you'll be busy, engaged and no doubt enjoying being back with colleagues.

Same with childcare. No point trying to imagine yourself into the situation beforehand. If you've been practically the sole carer for 4 months, you can't imagine anything different. Once your child is settled in nursery/with CM,happy and enjoying the interaction with other people, then you'll realise it's all fine!

I would say take the year (you are entitled to have it) and see how you feel. Baby is still tiny and you might as Op says change your mind at 10 months.

violethill, i absolutely don't think that - and I completely accept that i am extremely lucky to even be in a position to consider this

It is more that after years of feminism i have tended to read more about the other side of this issue and it surprises me how much I (not saying anything about anyone else) enjoy being at home, I did not think I would love it so much

Girlafraid i have been a SAHM since ds1 was born (he is now 17.6) and i have 3 other dc. I am also a CM but i never wanted to go back to work.

If you want to be at home then just do it!! They grow up soooo fast and i know i would have hated to miss them growing.

Ok - I wasn't meaning it in a negative way girl. I just picked up from your post that you were really taken by surprise by how much you are enjoying being at home on maternity leave. I think most of us probably feel like that in the early months - it's new and exciting and we all love our babies to bits. I know VERY few mothers who genuinely hate being at home and are wanting to rush back after a few weeks.

But it's one of those situations where it pays to think longer term. It's perfectly possible to enjoy a lovely maternity leave and then enjoy returning to work.

I do understand how you feel, but if you're in IT then 3 years is a very long time to be out of the loop - you need to bear that in mind.

I was dreading the return to work when DS was 4mo, but by 11mo when I did go back it felt a lot easier leaving him. The difference between leaving him at 11mo and 4mo is huge - he was down to morning and evening milk feeds so I could keep bf going, takes solids really well, and is at an age where he likes exploring and meeting other people.

I have a very similar set-up to what you will have: good degree and very well paid job with flexible employer, and fortunate enough to have a DH who earns just enough for me to be a SAHM and is supportive of whatever I want to do.

I've gone back 3 days a week, and although the adjustment is hard (I'm a month in) and I have worries about whether I really have a career at the moment or just a job, I feel fairly optimistic about it at the moment. I get to carry on with what I worked so hard to achieve (and what would be difficult to pick up again in a few years), yet have all the benefits of 2 days just with DS when we carry on activities we started in mat leave.

DH and I decided I should give it 6 months to see how it goes. We picked 6 months as I'll be free of any obligation to my employer then over enhanced mat benefits so any decision is free of encumbrances about having to pay money back etc., but also because it is a decent amount of time to make sure that DS is happy, and that I'm happy.

Really, truly, don't make any decisions now: you really don't need to. Just enjoy your time off. And then you should think about giving your 3 days a week job a go for a few months - you may love it as you get to continue your career (albeit at a slower pace), but also still have weekday time to do activities with your DS.

The reason I say that is because it sounds like you are in the very lucky (though in some ways hard!) position of having a choice. I am too, and decided I needed to try going back so that if I decide to be a SAHM then I will know it is because combining motherhood and career didn't work for me. I wouldn't want to have the what-if questions about my career if I hadn't tried to combine the two, and I wonder if you might feel the same later down the line.

my boy is 11 months and i have loved and cherished every single minute. I feel like i am on a permanent holiday and genuinely feel sorry for people if they have to go back to work and they don't want to.
He will be my only one so i don't want to miss a minute with him and i can manage on the money i have.
I am envious of sahm's who have 2 or 3 children and have had years of not having to think about work and just enjoy their children
do what's right for you and your little one

do you love your job?

if so you may regret no going back after a bit. But you maybe able to go back to it in 3 years. but it is harder to go part time when you dont have a job. Also you may have more kids.

But they do grow up very fast and 3 years in 20 years time will seem like nothing. In imo you can always try and go back up a career ladder but you can never have those early years again.

Thanks everyone - the wait and see advice is sound, i'm just not good at waiting to make a decision!

noonki - I'm really thinking what you;re thinking. I used to love my job - or at least i think i did, I certainly felt i ought to but i feel it's a bit of a gilded cage. I have the kind of job which everyone reacts to when I tell them what i do "ooh, how exciting, what a great job" etc etc It's a job like any other with the same stresses. I am particularly enjoying not managing 65 people, however hard you try people don't generally like the boss very much. I've always thought I was OK with that but I feel like a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders not having that kind of stress on me any more
I'm also aware that the offer to go back to work 3 days a week isn't as generous as it sounds, my work won't change I'll just have less time to do it in - this along side a £400 a month commute plus £180 on 3 days child care makes me think why do it when i just want to be with my son? would i really regret that?

thanks for listening

You may decide after you have been off 1-2 years you will be itching to go back. Is there an option to work from home or get a job closer to home?

I am not great at waiting to make decisions either! It really prayed on my mind until I could arrange what was going to happen, various complications came up with my DH's job which meant it took longer than I would have liked and then I had to apply for flexible working etc.

Sometimes it helps me to make the decision and then not act on it and see how I feel about it. For example if you decide you want to give up work don't tell your employer for a while and see if the regrets about career/ money/ adult world etc start flooding in. If not then you have your answer.

It doesn't sound fair that you have to do the same work in a shorter period - I am not an expert but surely they can't expect that of you legally?

Fwiw I end up working for a few hundred quid a month after travel and nursery costs but my feeling is that I am keeping a foot in the door and I will want to be full time at some point.

My DS is 8.5 months old. I've been back at work for 1 month. I too LOVE being a SAHM and once my Husbands job is secure again, i.e the recession looks to be ending and things begin picking up, I'm out of here and straight back home to bring my little boy up.

I miss him terribly. I knew I would and I was right.

Do what you feel is right - trust your instinct. If you can afford to be at home and it's where you want to be...there is your answer.

You could very well be throwing your career away BUT, your children won't be children forever either.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

Maybe a compromise would be to look for a job closer to home that uses your core skills ? That would let you drop the management stuff that you don't like, but keep upto date with the technology side

Three years is a very long time in IT, and you might well find yourself unemployable if you didn't work for that length of time

My DS is 9 months old and I'm due back at work in 3 months. I'm dreading it, I feel sick most days at the thought of going back.

I have just discovered that I have no statutory right to flexible working (I am contracted to my company through an agency) and have been told that with the 'market conditions' it is unlikely that my request for flexible hours will be agreed to.
I wanted to go back 3 days a week and that was bad enough, but the idea of going back 5 days a week is hideous. We will have to use a childminder for the whole week as we have no family near to us so the financial benefits of going back aren't really enough to motivate me.

DH is in the process of looking for a new job that pays a bit more so that I can stay at home, which is what we always said we wanted to happen but it sucks. A lot.

I never thought I would want to return to work and took the full 12 months to make up my mind. By that time I was desperate to go back.
Wait and see how you feel and if you really don't want to go back dont.
Some people love being sahm, I wish I was one of them but I really am not the earth mother I wish I was .

girlafraid - is there anyway you can work from home (or are you managerial which does make life a bit harder on that front)?
I was a developer/team leader working in London before I got pg with DS. When it neared the end of maternity leave, I realised there was just no way I could commute for 1.5 hours (just the logistics of getting him into a nursery were a nightmare, and DH worked an hour away from home too, so either I brought him with me to a nursery near work - meaning godawful train journey, or worried constantly that he was so far away) so I resigned.

I then fell on my feet after speaking to hubby of one of my mates who works for IT company in London who are very flexible. I had an interview the next week, and was offered a job as a test analyst - part time and from home, with the odd trip into the office. It was a big drop in salary (and halved obviously), however no commuting costs, and now I work every afternoon (ahem, yes I am working now...honest) and have DS on a morning.

To be honest he's so active its a relief for both of us to take him to nursery now (he's been going since he was 10 months), but its only for four hours a day, and the rest of the time he's with me. He loves it and is happy to get out and play with the other kids. I still get to earn some money, and theres enough to cover his childcare and all the bills bar mortgage, which DH can cover.

I agree with other posters that 4 months is very very early to decide - your baby is so teeny still. Don't panic - you have your qualifications - there are places out there that will be willing to give you the chance if you do want to take time out to care for your DS, and there are places that are flexible too - you just need to find them (which is easier said than done!) try not to stress about it too much