Returning to work when baby is 8week - possible?

[LeafHunter]

When DS was born, I returned to work after 8-10weeks. I run my own business and did about 15hrs per week. DH can also choose his own hours so until DS was 2, we shared care around who was working. DH works for home, I work about 20 mins drive away, opposite DS nursery.

Im due start of August and I’m trying to establish if I’m bonkers for believing I can return to work mid/end of September. It’ll be a planned section so I need at least 6weeks off. DS will be 3y9m and in nursery 9-3 3days per week.

we have great friends, altho a lot will be at work. No family. Is it possible to return? I can’t gauge how big the jump from one to two will be.

I think it’s doable. Not ideal - but then when is anything ideal? With dc1 I went back to work at 11weeks full time. I wish I had done part time but I was a single mum and young (ish) and no real clue about it all. Dc2 I also went back to work (different role) but this time I had a husband and dc1 had just started school. I did 28 hours a week 6-2 every other day and tag teamed with husband who worked 230-10 on the days I worked. It actually worked out alright. For me having every other day off helped me.

Easily doable if you have a partner who pulls their weight, a reasonable sleeper and an eldest child who is settled in child care. Even if you were to do 16h a week.

If it's only 15 hours max then I would. I would love to have a few breaks from the baby during the week and just do work stuff. For me I could only go back 40 hours plus commute time which is a different ball game.

Totally depends on how the baby is and how your mental health is.

I had a baby will terrible reflux who screamed constantly and needed to be held for comfort. I hardly slept and developed PNA/ D . I needed 16 months off before returning 20 hours a week.

It’s super unpredictable so don’t make promises .

You can’t ‘always make money back’. Maybe you can if you have a rich husband and your salary is basically ‘fun money’, or if you normally live with lots of luxuries which can easily be cut; but sometimes women need to work to pay their mortgage, to safeguard their future earning potential, avoid getting into debt. Sometimes they choose to work (and we are talking quite a small amount of time here - literally about 5% of OP’s waking hours, and the baby could feasibly be asleep for most of that time!) because the benefit of doing that is greater than the cost of doing it.

I think the OP here is sensibly weighing up the costs of returning to work with the benefits. I find it incredibly short sighted that people can’t understand that it might be a positive choice overall. I wonder if a new mum asked mumsnet “AIBU to leave baby for 4 hours a week with dad while I exercise/see friends/do my hobby” would she get guilt trippy messages like this, or is this just reserved for women who dare to have careers they enjoy?

We are social animals that until recently shared child care. I spent a lot of my toddler years with my Grandparents. I went back to work 13 months after having my first. This was because we'd have 2 or 3 medical/ health visitor appointments some weeks! It was 9 months before I didn't think about my son every 30 seconds I was away from him. Also is it going to be you that picks them up from nursery when they are ill? Missing work. I am pregnant with my second and hopefully will be able to go back to work sooner this time.

I do the same job as you and took around 10 months off with my first - no way could I have sat with someone at 8 weeks. However I have colleagues who did go back a lot sooner to keep established clients so it is doable. Talk it over with your supervisor?

If you work privately there is a lot of work about, or so I have found. So you might not lose the business taking longer off.

I think if you want to make it work you can!
It’s not for me - I took 13 months and still didn’t want to go back!
My hairdresser has had two c-sections and when back within less that a week both times (picked her hours around what was possible for he and her partner) and she’s happy with that decision!

Not sure. 8-10 weeks you are still likely to be very tired with a newborn who is unlikely to be sleeping through the night. Whether or not you will be breastfeeding is also a factor. So would the plan be to work the same as before, 15 hours? And would this be while your older child is at nursery and DH would structure his hours accordingly and look after baby while you are working? If you can afford it I’d wait a little longer, maybe till baby is 5/6 months? I found I was less tired from then on although every baby is different. Or can you work up to 15 hours, maybe by just taking on a client or two?

If I returned after 8 weeks my mental health would've been very poor and I wouldn't have been a good therapist. You've done it before and I'd expect that you know your own mind and how you can manage the emotional toll from clients alongside your own postnatal hormones, so it's for you to decide.
Physically I was well after VBAC but when I had a c-section I got an infection and I was still struggling physically at 8 weeks but a lot of people do recover within that time frame.

My children are in their 30’s now but when I had them maternity leave was only 8 weeks. I went back to work part time and both children were in nursery. Many of my friends went back to work full time at 8 weeks, so it’s obviously doable but really hard work. How easy it will be depends on how well you are after the birth and how demanding the baby is.

2 days a week- totally fine. Every woman I know who runs her business had to go back 1-2 days around a similar time, so as not to lose established customers.

4-5 days a week would be bonkers but again, doable.

I think the main differences for mums are 2 things; 1) you're also recovering from pregnancy and birth. That can take a long time and leave lasting injuries (you don't know how it'll be), and 2) if you're breastfeeding you have to be up every time in the night and also dealing with the tiredness from this, whereas dad's can in theory opt out more to get a stretch of sleep. In saying that, I think dad's should be able to have a lot longer off and also spend time bonding with their child and it's terrible that policy generally doesn't allow this. My husband took months off with our daughter and it's been great for their bond and equal caregiving. I think if you were saying, I'll go back to work and my husband will take leave instead it would also be a different conversation, but you're not allowing either of you to have as many/any breaks here because you'll have committed to work and are filling his none working time. The gym or a meal out fills your cup and is more ad hoc so that's the difference, although maybe that is the case with your work.

I think the challenge is you just don't know what that second will be like, if you can I'd try and delay the decision as long as you can, and plan for the longest time off you can.

But if you were a man you wouldn't be recovering from birth or breastfeeding. It's not about trying to make you feel mum guilt just giving yourself time to recover.

Of course it is do-able.
Only doing 15 - 16 hours a week, with flexibility and with your dh having flexibility too.

Then when you said just for 4 hours a week initially, that makes it unquestionably do-able.

If you can both work flexibility around each other's hours and still get family time and your baby will take a bottle it could work.

I would only do this if I was seriously hard up for money. How often in your life do you have a newborn baby to nurture and bond with ?! Not very often. I would take this time to be with you child(ren) you will never ever get this time back.
I’m a professional and a mum of three and I took my time with them all. I deserved it and so did they.
even puppies get a full 12 weeks with their mum just nursing and snuggling!

The jump is huge. I had to return when mine was 7 weeks due to financial reasons (self employed and maternity allowance was pointless due to claiming UC, but thankfully I work with children so could bring him to work with me some days. It's all a massive blur and I wouldn't recommend if you don't need to do it.

I think it depends how you split your hours. From the baby’s point of view, shorter periods away from its mother are better. If you are a therapist, you could do a couple of hours a day without it impinging on the baby too much.
But I wouldn’t want to put a very young baby into a nursery. Leaving it for a few hours with its father is one thing , putting it into a nursery is something very different.

Abd80, puppies don't get 12 weeks snuggling. Most leave their mum at 8 weeks, they're weaned by then and the mums are sick of them. They aren't like babies and with a mean average life span of approximately 12 years, depending on the breed,grow up very quickly. They're teenagers at a few months old.

I you have sorted childcare- no problem.
I went to nursery at 12 weeks.
Standard in my native country but I don't understand why mums in 2026 would want it.

4 hours a week is probably doable. I'm not sure I'd want to go back quite that early though.

we have great friends,

That is lovely but I don't really see what that has got to do with it. What are you expecting them to do?

I agree with this in the most part, from the practical side of things and just getting on with it, keeping the momentum of life going, but the emotional jump was much bigger from 1 to 2 IMO because you add in the changing dynamics of your relationship with your eldest as well as introducing the new relationship with your newborn. And my eldest struggled becoming a big sibling too, so any time my DH could give me was to spend nurturing my eldest 1:1. That made it so much harder for me.

You may well be fine after 8 weeks, but there is a huge difference in babies between 8 and 12 weeks - and an extra month may well aid your recovery too. Why not give yourself the additional breathing space and aim for 3 months?