I’m currently on maternity leave. In the first 3 months DD would only nap on me. She would actually sleep in the bedside crib from about 2am until about 8am but wake for a feed, so she wasn’t a terrible sleeper but I was still sleep deprived. I managed to get a lot of crochet done because I could do it over her back while she napped on me but only easy projects that didn’t require too much concentration. I think the motion of my arms moving was a gentle rocking motion and I was basically cuddling her constantly. Plus whatever I was crocheting would be snug and warm across her back. I did absolutely no housework.
At about 3 months she started having naps in her cot but only short naps. I didn’t get anything done and I would crochet in the evening because she started going down a lot earlier. At 6 months she’s doing slightly longer naps in her cot but that time is now prepping food, cleaning up breakfast/lunch, doing laundry and baby proofing. I still only crochet in the evening but there is always more productive stuff I could be doing (I’m never on top of the housework).
I have made some changes on maternity leave as I applied to and got a new job. I started job hunting during any short 5 minutes I could grab but mostly when DH was home. Less housework got done because I was looking for jobs. I had to open a job advert that looked interesting but read it later, sometimes later that evening or sometimes a few days later. Sometimes I also had to re-read the advert again a day or two later because it just hadn’t sunk in the first time. It took longer than pre-baby to pull an application together because I was just so tired and my brain was just so full of baby admin (when is the next sleep, when is the next feed, how much tummy time have they done). However, I think I put together an altogether better application because I was quite certain about what I wanted. So I knew I wanted to weed out organisations that wouldn’t want to wait until I finished my maternity leave and I included that in my covering letter. I didn’t overthink my application but did make sure someone sense checked the application and I hadn’t put the wrong word incorrectly (like when I said to the midwife about my disposable stitches instead dissolvable stitches).
It is possible to make a professional change during maternity leave but it’s not easy, not just because of how tired you might be and the baby admin. My old work have offered to negotiate to keep me. There is obviously a reason that I have looked for a job on maternity leave and I have to keep reminding myself of those reasons because returning from maternity leave to a new job is quite daunting. I want to make a good impression in a new job but I don’t know how DD will be sleeping, how many bugs she is going to pick up from nursery, how well she’s going to cope at nursery and how well I’ll cope with her being at nursery - even though I’ve already accepted that I can’t stay home with her, I’m not cut out to be a SAHM. Plus the mum guilt. It’s so tempting to negotiate for a better salary and stay in my job because it’s easy, I know what I’m doing and I don’t have to prove myself. Even with that job, I think there’s a question of if I’ve missed too much in the 9 months that I’ll have been gone. It’s a huge shift. Your brain has been used mostly for nursery rhymes and baby books, feeding and Netflix, it’s hard to comprehend that it’ll just switch back on and be firing on all cylinders as before. I’ve done some KIT days and my knowledge of projects was excellent but I just don’t know how much stuff has moved on. With a couple of months before going back to work I’m now trying to actively look at LinkedIn every other day and read up. I feel like I need fo try and catch some webinars too but I just don’t have the energy.