Young baby and no furlough after maternity leave - any advise please?

[CowgirlBride]

I am currently on maternity leave and will have to return to work when my SMP ends at 39 weeks. I am employed by a council and have asked HR if there is the possibility of me being furloughed. They have told me that no employees within the council have been furloughed so this is not an option.
New guidance has just come out to say that employees that are on leave such as mat leave can still be furloughed after the deadline of 10th June but with the clause only if their employer currently has employees that have already been furloughed. And obviously this doesn’t apply.
I am completely devastated as I had looked at the furlough criteria and just assumed they would go “young baby, no childcare, off you pop on furlough”. I realise now that this was incredibly naive of me, but I can’t do anything about that now.
Childcare placements are still few and far between and even if that were an option I have serious concerns about doing that at this point (DS never been looked after by anyone other than me and DH let alone left in a setting, nor had any socialisation with other children in lockdown, so may not cope. Also DH cares for disabled adults who will absolutely die if he carries CV to them)
I feel I’ve been left with no other option than to say I’ll return to work and try and work from home. It’s either that or unpaid leave - which isn’t really an option at all.
DS will only be 8 months old and is currently all about mummy (not helped by lockdown) and I can’t even go to the loo or make a cuppa without him grizzling that I’m not with him. (Sometimes he even does it when I’m in the room with him if I’m not giving him 100% attention, as I’m sure other mum’s can sympathise)
My job will basically be making phone calls and doing admin, and apparently there are online team meetings. DH works full time but there may be times when he is here to support depending on how his shifts fall but I’m imagining it will mostly be me on my own trying to get by. I’m just picturing me trying to make phone calls or do online meetings whilst DS cries his eyes out in the background. He’s not really big enough to be left to entertain himself - he is starting to play independently but it doesn’t last very long before he wants me again. And obviously I can’t say to him “sorry mummy is on the phone right now” (like you might perhaps be able to do with an older child.)
I also worry that if I’m working that means that I won’t even be able to do things like take DS for a walk during working hours and he’s just gonna be stuck in which seems so unfair on him. (Sorry if that sounds ridiculous but I feel like that’s the only bit of normality/socialisation I can give him. It’s not great but it’s the best I can do at the moment)
Has anyone else been put in this position with their employer with a young baby who could offer some support/pearls of wisdom? I already mourning the loss of my maternity leave as we have just been stuck at home and I feel like I have let DS down. I keep crying cos feel that I will now be “neglecting” him in order to try do my work!

It's very tough. I'm working full-time since start of lockdown with a young child and also homeschooling a 5 year old. I start at 7am and finish at midnight every single day and most weekends to make up for lost time. It is a nightmare.

I'm self employed and managed to work ok with an 8 month old without childcare. He did watch quite a lot of cbeebies and eat baby crisps when I needed to give something my full attention. When I was doing paperwork he sat on my knee. Its rather more challenging now he's nearly 3 but he still sits on my knee when I do paperwork.
He has always naturally had a later bedtime and a longer nap or naps during the day so I can get work done. I've driven him round until he falls asleep then done the phone calls etc in the car on the drive where the wifi reaches whilst he sleeps. Its definitely not easy but can be done. Very much have to think outside the box.

I would take the 3 months unpaid maternity leave you still have. Do your 10 KIT days during this period. That will give you some income. Your DH can use his annual leave to cover while you are in work. At the end of the 12 months mat leave, take your accrued holidays (again paid).

That should give you 4 months to sort out childcare.

@fedupandlookingforchange

I'm self employed and managed to work ok with an 8 month old without childcare. He did watch quite a lot of cbeebies and eat baby crisps when I needed to give something my full attention. When I was doing paperwork he sat on my knee. Its rather more challenging now he's nearly 3 but he still sits on my knee when I do paperwork. He has always naturally had a later bedtime and a longer nap or naps during the day so I can get work done. I've driven him round until he falls asleep then done the phone calls etc in the car on the drive where the wifi reaches whilst he sleeps. Its definitely not easy but can be done. Very much have to think outside the box.

It really depends on the baby. Mine will be put down to play for a max of 20 mins a day and will only sleep on me. Definitely not conducive to getting anything done whatsoever.

No public sector organisations have been able to use the furlough scheme, so that's not the employer being difficult, that option isn't available to them.

Find out what they are doing for other staff with childcare issues and expect them to do the same for you, although as childcare becomes available in sure you will be expected to use it. It sounds like you were hoping to use furlough to extend your ML TBH.

Mirrorxx

I’m confused. So you were planning on working part time but now you want them to pay for you full time but do part time hours?

This

Have you contacted any childcare settings to find out what their settling in arrangements are?

Speak to your line manager, you might be surprised how accommodating they will be. I work in Local Government and my colleagues with young children have quite rightly been given a bit of leeway so they are able to still look after their children. Unfortunately this means they are doing their working hours over 7 days and most days working in the evening but it is possible.
Although bear in mind that this won’t be the situation forever and if you and your dh are both planning to work full time you are going to have to get use to your dc going into childcare.

I am in a similar situation in terms of returning to work with an 8 month old and actually have 2 other kids who are older but the school are over capacity of keyworker children so they can't go there.
My original plan was for my parents to have the baby and the older kids after school. Everyone was happy with this plan but obviously covid has scuppered that.
All parents, particularly those in the public sector, have a right to apply for flexible working hours. I would suggest your husband has a serious look into that and so do you with each of your employers.

Mum of 3 and Childminder here, my DH also works in a nursery. You have 2 options at this point. 1) put DS in childcare or 2) work with him at home.

If you decide on a setting then I suggest you contact your LA who will be able to tell you who has availability. Nurseries and childminders are screaming for new customers so hopefully you wouldn't struggle to find a space. Most Childminders are doing visits in the garden social distancing from parents but not children. Parents are not allowed inside houses. My husbands nursery are doing social distanced visits but I'm not sure about settling in sessions. Each provider will do things a little bit differently. A childminder will likely be working with smaller numbers than a nursery. All settings have strict guidance to follow. Ask them what they are doing about cleaning, social distancing, visits to other settings (eg school run) and personal belongings. Voice your concerns because only by being open and honest can you begin to feel confident.

If you keep DS at home then you need a plan. Perhaps a playpen might help for some of the time and schedule calls for nap times if you can. Take "lunch" at a time that DS is being particularly tricky. I think a schedule enabling you to work would help - if you have a baby that's on some kind of schedule and if it works. Always an IF! Remember that nothing lasts forever. Children change each day and soon he will move onto the next phase. So whether it's because he gets older, or because your work set up changes again or because the pandemic ends, this will come to an end.

Another thought is that you try having him at home but have a backup plan in place. If your employer would allow some flexibility then you could get a childminder for the mornings and then pick up before afternoon nap, allowing you to work through nap time and then you should get a good chunk of work in.

Try to remember that there are many people working at home with small children. You are not alone.

You need to seriously look for nursery places. Even if they are only part time to start with. Or childminders. Once you have an understanding of what is on offer you can discuss with your line manager.

Talk to your employer - I am partially employed by the LA and where parents haven't be able to find key worker childcare we have been able to work our hours more flexibly. Could you do the phone calls during the day (nap time/ whilst DS is eating) and the admin/ paperwork in the evenings once DH is home? Could either of you do weekend work (one saturday and one work Sunday or one do both days)? Means limited family time but it's only until you can get child care sorted.

If you come up with a plan for how you would work the responsibilities of your job and meet your hours requirement whilst also being able to manage the childcare and put it in an email to your manager it will come across much better than expecting them to come up with the solution. It is what a lot of my colleagues have done. The LA is aware they have to allow people to work more flexibly because of the situation and most are being amenable to this.

In the mean time, get looking at childcare - at least get your sons name down!

Public sector can't use the furlough scheme as far as I understand it. A couple of people coming back from mat leave in my (public sector) organisation were put on paid leave for a few months while childcare was closed which is effectively the same thing but nothing to do with the official furlough scheme.

But the problem doesn't seem to be that you can't access childcare because of coronavirus. You've just changed your mind about going part time. That's not your employer's fault or their problem to deal with I'm afraid! You need to find childcare, or go PT as planned.

Or, can your DH be furloughed??

And people are getting really used to hearing kids in the back ground of phone calls and popping up during team meetings, it's almost the norm now!

Sounds like you need to look for childcare.

@overtimewoes

And people are getting really used to hearing kids in the back ground of phone calls and popping up during team meetings, it's almost the norm now!

I did supervision with DD (15months) on my knee the other day. She wasn't feeling great (teething) and just wanted mummy snuggles.

Honestly OP I'm sorry to be blunt but it really doesn't sound like you thought this through properly at all. Burying your head in the sand and hoping for the best was never likely to end well.

Practically, I think you'll find it very difficult to go back to work whilst still looking after a baby at home. Until our nursery reopened on 1st June I was doing this with DS and it was a real struggle, plus DH was at home too so we essentially shared the care between us while both trying to work as close to full time as possible. Luckily our employers were understanding, but yours might not be.

You're likely to need some form of childcare, which might not be as bad as you think. DS started nursery full time at 8 months after only a few settling in sessions. He was absolutely fine after the first few days and now at 16 months can't wait to get there on a morning. He'd never been cared for by anyone but me so I had similar concerns that he wouldn't settle, but babies are remarkably adaptable. I'm sure it'll be fine

Councils, as a general rule, can't furlough staff anyway. Never could. So it wouldn't ever have been an option for you. Most also will not allow employees to simultaneously work from home and undertake caring duties. For us, you would have to either take annual leave or unpaid leave.

And it's not just women. My husbands virtual team meeting is at 9am - the time his (male) boss gives his 2 young kids breakfast and his other colleague is home schooling the child sat next to him!

@Rainycloudyday

Sorry to be blunt but why on earth are you approaching this with the assumption that if your baby doesn’t go to nursery you’re the one responsible for childcare and DH works as usual? This is the kind of shit that is stopping employers from taking women seriously in the workplace and frankly as a council tax payer I’m not over the moon that you expect your council to pay you a full time salary while you do what you can, meanwhile your husband works as normal.

If you have ruled out baby going to nursery then you sit down with DH and work out which days you each do childcare and which days you work, then both of you take the hit on unpaid leave when you can’t work. Your husband is equally responsible for childcare now that he no longer has a wife on maternity leave.

As long as women struggle on, running themselves into the ground and allowing their husbands to absolve themselves of any childcare responsibility, the government isn’t going to face up to this problem. Until men are going into work and saying they can’t do their full hours because of lack of childcare, the problem isn’t going to be taken seriously by the powers that be. Sad but true.

Hear, bloody hear.

And yes, am interested to know if you expected your employer to pay you full time while you worked part time?

Your baby won't be the first or the last baby to have gone into a childcare setting at a young age, without having been looked after by anyone else before. I realise this is probably overwhelming for you but really, you need to give yourself a shake.

It sounds like you had various plans but that you haven't actually bothered to implement them. Has your dh asked his employer about doing the shifts you were hoping for? Have you asked your employer about returning on the part time hours you were hoping for?

If you work for a local authority, are you a key worker?

You either need to work from home with a small baby and you and your dh need to juggle your hours so he can look after baby while you get work done and then vice versa. Or you need to take up a nursery place. This is what everyone else is and has been doing for a long time.

I've been working my full time job with a toddler at home and a primary age one who I am homeschooling, as dh cannot work from home in his job. Dh has been taking a day off a week unpaid so I could have one child free day a week to get as much work done as I can without being distracted. And then as needed we both share working on the weekends too.

Now that nurseries are open, my toddler has gone back to nursery 3 days (all they could give him right now). I still have one at home and I'm still working as normal. You presumably aren't going back to work right now or you would have had a nursery place booked months ago. But we are moving house (new nursery and school) next month. I booked in the nursery place in the beginning of March. Settling in will happen as it always does, but probably outside or inside (while other children are outside) and you and nursery staff stay as socially distanced as possible.

It's hard to imagine when you aren't doing it, but you just need to put your big girl pants on and do it. None of us are enjoying working from home with small children, but you have no choice unless you can live off a trust fund or something. Your baby will be absolutely fine at nursery and my nursery is doing nothing different than they always have except more handwashing, more time outside and we generally stay 6 feet from other adults at drop off and pick up if we can.

Those with babies/toddlers in childcare, are the settings doing any social distancing? Or are they letting the children be as normal?

Asking out of interest for when my child starts.

You need to find childcare, I don’t think working from home is a workable option here at all. I don’t mean this unkindly but you sound like your making a lot of excuses for yourself to avoid doing what needs to be done. Sending your child to a nursery or childminder without settling in isn’t ideal, and I know it must be daunting, but it’s not a good enough reason to avoid going back to work. I would recommend a childminder as then at least it would still be a fairly homey environment without too many new faces. I wouldn’t underestimate your child’s ability to cope with a new surrounding - a lot of children are a lot less bothered than parents would predict. The argument about your DH passing on Covid at work is also a weak excuse I’m afraid - plenty of care workers have children at home, many of these children have continued to go to school this whole time. You and your DH need to bite the bullet and take some action now.