New Baby & WFH. Is it do-able? Or am I kidding myself?

[expectinglittlebear]

Unfortunately my employer do not offer any enhanced maternity pay and therefore only offer SMP. I am due our first baby in January.

Due to finances, I am only able to take 8 weeks of maternity leave (6 weeks SMP and 2 weeks annual leave tagged on the end). Childcare is also extortionate (and also wouldn't want to leave my baby with anyone that young, bar family), so my employer have offered for me to WFH 4 days a week, and then my mum will be looking after baby the other day so I can go into the office (Husband works full time). I am very grateful for this opportunity to WFH around baby as we wouldn't be able to afford for me to be off work, or pay for childcare. So after my 8 weeks off, I will be back to working full time, while caring for our baby too.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation and gone back to working full time after a short maternity leave, working from home and caring for baby - is it doable or am I completely kidding myself thinking I can work around baby at home full time? For context, I am an office manager and PA, but my job is relatively easy and stress free. It would be the odd zoom call meeting, but other than that just mainly working from a laptop.

I often see this on MN and I have never seen it in any employment contract.

The ban on WFH as a substitute for childcare is generally in the remote/virtual working policy and not the actual contract.

I don't think you've really listened to or understood the feedback that you've been getting on this thread.

Many many parents on this thread are telling you that it will be impossible and they know this because they have experience of looking after a new baby.

My first thought was - your boss must be mad. Won't pay enhanced mat pay for a defined period but happy to pay full time wages for a part time job for years on end by the sounds of things!
But my over riding feeling is this - you admit it will be 'hard'. Think about what that means in practice. Feeling torn in two and wracked with guilt all day every day. Being so tired you are cross eyed and can barely string a thought together, but having to try and work. Or having to be torn away from the amazing joy of an eight week old baby who will be starting to get really interactive and giggly and fun at that age because you HAVE to do some work.
NEVER being able to switch off. That time in the evening when your husband will take over, you will need that to try and decompress, relax, sleep, have a bath plus you WILL need to take care of the baby in the evening too. There will not be enough hours in the day and neglecting the baby or your work aside, you will be really neglecting yourself and looking after yourself is so important too. Your mental health could really suffer at a time when your hormones will be playing havoc with your equilibrium.
How many babies are you going to have? For working mothers mat leave is one of the only times you get to focus just on your child. When you look back at that time with your new baby, do you want to think back to such a difficult time?
I think you need to move heaven and earth to avoid this scenario. Bank as much annual leave as possible. Sell things, anything. Save as much money as you humanly can before the baby comes - you/ your husband could you work a second job (sorry can't remember when baby is due) meantime to get some money in the bank. I guess a mortgage holiday is out of the question if you just moved. Consider a loan to buy you some extra time off?
Then when you really have to go back, get your husband to review his annual leave, parental leave and working hours.

It just sounds like making what should be a really special time really miserable.

I don’t think anyone is being condescending, just realistic.
And the point about your DH is why can’t he take parental leave? That would be my big “tip” ;)
People are concerned that this isn’t fair on you or your baby. Not to mention that even in a best case scenario eg easy birth, easy baby, work remains insanely easy and flexible it would be hard and since when did you ever know life to work out like that?

My memory of this time is positive. I really feel that I got to have my cake and eat it. I got valuable time at home with my baby and I became incredibly efficient at my job. My DH did a lot of the housework and laundry and that was a big help. If I had a big deadline, he took annual leave to help out. Your DH should be prepared to do this too!

Unless you’re your own boss, have no deadlines AND the easiest baby in the world then no, totally impossible. Having to drop everything 24/7 for hours on end in unfortunately part of the deal with a newborn.

Make sure you make yourself a packed lunch in the morning and maybe a flask of tea for the day or ask your husband to do before he goes to work.
Shower and get ready while your husband is there.
Get a sling
Make sure you have everything you need for the baby downstairs
(extra clothes/ wipes/ nappies etc)
If you bottle feed make sure you have plenty of sterilised bottles for the day.
If it does'nt work out you may need to re think your plans, maybe find something part time, or some evening work.
But good luck

@whatswithtodaytoday

And yes, I worked from home with a 13-16 month old during lockdown. Obviously rather different to a new baby, but I can't imagine that would be much easier. I can honestly say that trying to work from home with a young toddler was one of the worst experiences of my life.

This 😫 I nearly had a nervous breakdown.

Toddler was 13-20 months old in the first lockdown and 23-25 old months in the second one. Honestly the hardest thing in the bloody world. I wasn’t a good parent or employee. I cried more times than I can count.

Don’t do it.

Hi OP! I'm a new mum with a 3 week old so no experience of a 8 week old baby. From my limited experience, this would be possible on "good days" but extremely difficult on the "bad days". If you're breast feeding you would probably have time while the baby feeds that you could be working on the laptop with your other hand. If you're bottle feeding then that is a two hand job.

I'm sure you're not the first person that has been forced to WFH with a newborn. It will be likely difficult and overwhelming but not impossible. You might get more relevant replies if you posted on an American forum (r/pregnancy on Reddit maybe), I'd imagine it's more common there due to their lack of statutory maternity leave.

I forgot to say as well - in my experience anyway - you will not care one iota about work once the baby arrives.
Even if you are a workaholic super career focused person, when that baby come along, you are in the baby moon and you will not give (nor want to give) work a second thought.
Even if you can't conceive of ever feeling like that, it is true!

Bless you OP.

Not a chance in hell would this work.

I am an academic and while I did have a full year's maternity leave with both of mine, there is no such thing in my field as being off for a full year. So even while on mat leave, I was keeping up on some emails and I was working on some publications and writing grant proposals. I would say it's possible to do 2-3 hours work a day at a push (including time after they go to bed in the evening).

It's not great though because nap times are your only downtime. Do not underestimate how completely full on having a baby is. You really need those few hours a day to re-charge and rest (sleep!) and eat (eating is surprisingly difficult to do). Yes, you will find 2 hours a day to return emails and do light admin duties. You will not be able to do zoom calls or anything that involves doing something at a specific time. You will also be absolutely exhausted.

That said, I think my main concern would be that if your employer sees that you can do your full-time job in 2 hours a day while not being able to be responsive for a good bit of that day, that you'll be talking them out of keeping your role. I think I would tread carefully so that you don't make yourself look too expendable.

What do you do OP ? Cos I'd like a full time job where my work was done in 2 days if I concentrated a bit

@expectinglittlebear

Thank you to *@RacketeerRalph* *@Yarboosucks*! Some actual tips there, thank you :) x

I have always been given great advice on Mumsnet, even if it isn't something a lot of people would do necessarily. Unfortunately this time around it appears rather condescending.

For context, my DH and I got married this year, and moved to a new house, with some savings in the bank left at the end. I was told by medical professionals it would be very difficult for me to have children, and if I could it could take years, and therefore just after we got married we started ttc, thinking it would take a couple years, in which case we would have a bit more money in the bank. Unfortunately sh** happens and we have had a lot to fork out over the past 6 or so months, car going wrong etc etc, so savings have taken a massive hit. Also, we found out we fell pregnant after only 1 month of trying - a HUGE shock to us, but we are completely over the moon obviously, especially with the news I was given by doctors. Therefore, it is a case of making things work...

We have been unable to save the past few months, as mentioned things going wrong and also some small debts to pay off, which will be paid off a month or two after baby is here - in which case we can then start saving and putting money aside for childcare for when baby gets bigger.

As mentioned in my original post, 'NEW baby and WFH'. This situation will only be temporary and therefore was just curious if anyone else had been in the same situation with a new baby. Not a toddler.

As i suspected, some debts. It might be an idea to get debt and budgeting advice to see if you can clear the debts quicker. MoneySavingExpert is excellent and there are also debt/money charities like Citizens Advice, National Debtline, Stepchange etc.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/
www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/baby-checklist/
And more at www.moneysavingexpert.com/budgeting-debt-help/

I have worked as much as I could around a small baby twice (own business) flexible hours. I won't lie, it's very very hard and there will be times all the time when you feel you are failing at both. I never really managed full time hours. It really depends on what type of baby you get and how you end up feeling. Can you see how things pan out over the first few weeks? I imagine if your employer knows you are doing this then they will give you some leeway. Can your dh take over in the evenings/do some of the nighttimes? Would it be possible to do, say, 3 days per week hours at least for a few months? Then you'd have your day when your mum has baby plus 2 other days worth of hours to spread over the week. Or work over (some of) the weekend? At 4 months, it became possible for us to put in a nap routine (with my second - first was a crazy non sleeping baby but my mum helped 2 days per week) which helped a lot.

I was offered the same but the other way around 4 days in the office and one wfh with child at home when I returned from maternity leave when my little one was 10 months old. In all honesty it was hard I probably was productive for about 2 hours while my little one napped but had to force myself to do that. It didn't work I ultimately dropped the day it was too hard to be good at both.

I feel very sorry for your baby. Will you leave them to cry while you're on your zoom call? I can't believe your employer supports this. It's madness.

I had to do this with 3 of my babies. I did learn to breastfeed and type while also talking on the phone, but to be honest, I was suicidal for a lot of that time.

I found that I could cope with work and the house and the children, but having to do all of that at once on very little sleep very nearly killed me. Honestly, avoid it if you can.

I had my 5yr old and 9yr old home during lockdown while I worked from home and that was almost impossible, I nearly had a breakdown. They are not nearly as much work as a newborn would be with sleep deprivation in the mix.

As an Office manager, you must be on a reasonable salary. You need to take mat leave or pay for childcare like everyone else does . I had ds (surprise baby!) when I was straight out of uni at 21, I was on smp, dp is a low earner and we had hardly any money and had just bought our first house but we still had to pay for childcare when I went back to work after 9 months.

It's also not fair on the baby, during mat leave we did baby groups, walks, swimming, music classes etc. If you're glued to a laptop your child will miss out on all of that. Interaction and stimulation are important for their eelt development. Not to be ignored in a bouncer while you work.

Babies don’t give a crap about baby groups. They’re for the mums. (Exception being swimming - really good to get them water confident super early). They only need you! It’s totally possible, ignore the naysayers. But don’t underestimate how hard it will be!

Well you’ve nothing to lose by giving it a go! My first was a really easy baby and I reckon I could have done this. It wouldn’t have been enjoyable or easy but definitely possible. My second baby was really hard work - allergies and reflux - basically screamed for 5 months and didn’t sleep. There’s no way I could have worked. But you don’t know which sort you’ll get so wait and see.

I would aim to get baby in a routine ASAP and make sure they take a bottle so you can share the nights with your husband and get enough sleep.

But also have a think about plan b and what you would do. You need to have a bail out plan and you need to set some strict criteria with you husband about what would cause this to be enacted. And have multiple people on the lookout for your mental health post partum. You’ll be a sitting duck for PND, just make sure people are watching out for you. Good luck!

I would go back and look again at your finances and see if you really can't make it work. DH second job at weekends? Payment holidays for debts? Do either of you have parents who might be able to lend you some money to pay back when you start working again? Moneysavingexpert has a money makeover which can lead to a lot of money saved per year.

For me, this scenario would have to be an absolute last resort, we were going to be on the streets destitute if I didn't do it, type of thing. I'd explore every other avenue first, even if it meant serious cutbacks and selling some stuff.

Remember to use your Keeping in Touch days too to do some paid shifts without losing mat entitlement.

@Lokdok

Babies don’t give a crap about baby groups. They’re for the mums. (Exception being swimming - really good to get them water confident super early). They only need you! It’s totally possible, ignore the naysayers. But don’t underestimate how hard it will be!

children need interaction, babies brains develop so much in the early stages. They can’t shouldn’t sit in a bouncy chair all day while their primary care giver is on a laptop.

@stalkersaga

I often see this on MN and I have never seen it in any employment contract.

The ban on WFH as a substitute for childcare is generally in the remote/virtual working policy and not the actual contract.

Do they actually put this in policies? I suppose some places might. But at many, no one really cares so long as the work gets done. Depending on the ages and personalities of the children involved, there may be cases where they'll happily amuse themselves with schoolwork or art projects all day, and the work will get done, no problem. But I don't think that would ever be true of a baby or toddler.