Reassurance about working more

[Nooop]

I have 19 month old DD and work three days a week. I was umming and ahhing about going back to doing 4 days once she is 2 as it would be better job wise. We have now crunched numbers and with our mortgage going up as the higher earner I really need to work 4 days, we have no breathing room otherwise, and it would be impossible to have another baby unless I do 4 days.

I feel an awful lot of ‘mum guilt’ generally even though objectively my DD is very happy, confident and developmentally advanced. I just always feel like I’m getting it wrong, not being entertaining enough or pleasing her. My parents have her at the moment 2 of the days while I work and I always worry she will have a closer bond with them than with me. She will go to nursery for the extra day now- she will be 2 years 2 months when it starts. We will still have Fridays off together.

Please can I have some reassurance that she will be ok and she will still have a good relationship with me?

I went back to work FT when dd was 5 months old. She is a well adjusted 19 year old now and we have a lovely, close relationship. I was lucky that I worked for companies that allowed a bit of flexibility so I worked from home some, and was able to leave earlier when needed.

I empathise. I’m in the same situation. My dream is to do three days. And I’ll be doing three days from 1 year until Dc is 18 months. But because of finances I’ll also need to go up to four days when Dc is 18m. i really don’t want to either so you have my sympathy x