Fed up of hearing "you'll feel differently when the baby comes"

[Greeneyegirl]

Just venting really. Is anyone else having this problem related to mat leave? Where i work everyone has always taken 13.5 months off. 12 weeks full pay, 6 months stat pay, 3 months unpaid and then tagged bank holidays and annual leave to the end.

All my friends and family have also taken this amount of time off, albeit with different packages. I know of one person at my work who, 4 years ago, took ten months.

I started saving for maternity pay during the first lockdown, not loads a month but a little maternity fund and have upped my saving in pregnancy. However with cost of living, currently remortgaging, having a newborn in Jan meaning we will have to have our heating on etc. im going to struggle after 10 months. My plan is to take the 12 weeks full pay, 6 months stat pay (adding £1000 a month of my savings to this so i have roughly £1700 but this needs to cover my share of mortgage and bills) and then tagging on bank Holidays and annual leave. When i say this EVERYONE (co workers, friends, my mum, HR at work) laugh and say "oh you'll feel differently when the babies here, you'll want that 13.5 months". Im sure i will! I want it now, doesnt mean i can have it. Its like people havent watched the news. Our mortgage is looking like an extra £500 a month. Plus food and heating going up. Its driving me mad and im struggling to bite my tongue.

The other day i mentioned that i was so glad to remember child benefit as i hadnt thought of that and a friend said 'oh yeah, that will be nice, you can put it aside every week and buy yourself a treat at the end of maternity leave'. Erm, i was thinking yay we might be able to have the heating on so our newborn doesnt freeze but okay!

Anyway rant over. Im just fed up of people being so out of touch.

Completely agree! We’re currently TTC and having looked at the sums I think I can only take off 10 months at a push.

Its so frustrating as a few years ago I probably could have taken the full year, but despite earning more now the cost of living is wiping us out.

I think people are well meaning but it’s so annoying! Especially if they have higher earning partners.

When my ds was born 22 years ago all I could afford was 4 months. I was lucky with 6 months when dd was born. You’ll be fine. Ignore them.

I got 6 weeks off in total when I had mine and I was a single mum.
And the bitch of a ward sister gave me a run of 10 nights on my first 2 weeks back.

Unless your on a high income or have family help then the childcare pretty much wipes out the return to work. For me it does anyway. I will go back for future career progression but there’s little financial benefit tbh. Probably part of the reason people take the whole time off.

Some people massively lack imagination.

"Oh I couldn't imagine leaving them after only 6 months" I was told when I said I was going back to work (shared leave with dh, not leaving them in a ditch). Which was fine really, because I was doing it not them.

Dh was the lower earner and we had bills to pay, so it was a no brainer to me that I should go back once my enhanced mat pay stopped and dh should take the remaining leave.

In my circles only 3 of us have taken the full year, some because they wanted to return to work, some for financial reasons. I'm burning through my savings being off right now and don't blame people for not wanting to do that!

I went on May leave 1 week before DD was born and went back full time when she was 9months. Yes longer would have been nice, but if we wanted to eat and live inside then I needed to go back to work. Just try to let everyone's opinions wash over your head, you know what they say "opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one and some of them stink".

Ive always wanted 12-13 months maternity leave as i had to go back at 7 months with my first due to financial issues. I progressed in my career, started working with the NHS whose enhanced maternity is quite good in my opinion... And we planned to try for our second around now... But an unplanned (still wanted) pregnancy happened a month after starting and now im not even entitled to SMP (miss out by three bloody days!) and with cost of living going up and up i will probably have to go back quickly again.. Honestly i was heartbroken about this as we are not planning on having anymore and we waited 4 years. I am grateful that i can have children and two too but still... Just want to share i feel ur pain 💕

With my eldest I was only entitled to 6 weeks paid, returned when she was 9 weeks old to a new job.

Next only only got 16 weeks so returned then.

Next it was 6 months.

Honestly I think due to separation anxiety 6 months is far easier than 9-12 months!

People are gits about your parenting choices whatever they are. My mum has always told me that SAHMs are boring. 'How could they possibly enjoy being at home doing nothing?' Etc. I now tell her that only boring people get bored
However long you are off, you'll get comments. I took 14 months with my first but had a lot of comments about going full time. 'Oh I could never...' etc.
This time I'm coming back part time - cue 'oh it's alright for some..'
Don't know why people bother!
After a few months, when people were judgey about my hours I would say 'oh yeah, I'd like to work less too, but I need the money!' It was awkward enough that people stopped eventually

When I had my youngest I was the main wage earner and paid all the bills. I was working as a contractor and my contract finished 4 weeks after his due date. I needed to be there to hand everything over. I worked till I was 41 weeks, had him and was back at work 18 days later. I did 2 more weeks, finished the contract then took 6 weeks off and then went back to work. He wasn't my first child and although I wanted to be at home I had no choice. He's now a strapping teen and is a lovely lad so it didn't do him any harm!

You talk about you saving up for maternity leave and our mortgage. Is your partner not financially contributing to your maternity leave?

To clarify, my mother considers taking mat leave as being a SAHM

Why don't you just say you'll play it by ear, saves people commenting on your decisions.

I think it is true that your perspective might change when the baby comes, eg if sleep is a nightmare and your DH gets a payrise, you might decide to take longer. You might also find your spending patterns change a lot, mortgage might stay the same but bills for things like food, transport, leisure spending change.

When I had my first mat leave was 6 months and notary people worked beyond 34/35 weeks. I went back when ds was 4 months.

Yup, this is what I was coming to ask too @upfucked !!

@Greeneyegirl I’m assuming you have a partner as you talk about you saving to have to pay your half of things. I really hope your partner is contributing to this as well!! Completely sensible to tighten up as much as you can before and during pregnancy to save for when you’re off on mat leave - but the same should be going for your partner too. This baby and all associated costs should be a joint expense!

Also btw you can get away with not having the heating on all that much with a newborn because they're mainly on you and can be snuggled in a blanket. Bit different when they're 5 months ish and get to crawling and spending lots of time on the floor.

We brought DD home when it was December and minus 8C outside, we had a single portable heater we used in one room to keep a bit warmer rather than heating the whole house.

What is your DP's leave entitlement? We did shared parental leave and managed to chop and change so that we got as much full pay from both our works as possible!

Most people I know went back when the money ran out, me included. I hardly know anyone take the full year.

I've only taken 6 months with both of mine, but planning to take closer to 10 with this one as it's our last so want to make the most of the time with all 3 while they're little and before they're off to school, but honestly, for me at least, 6 months was enough, I could have taken more but why be out of pocket 🤷‍♀️

I'll admit we don't have enough details to know, but I've seen too many threads on MN with women on maternity getting into debt/paying on credit cards while their partner sails on as before with masses of disposable income not to be suspicious!

Sorry if this doesn't apply to you, OP.

Yep 4m in 2000!

I too am wondering why you are drawing on savings so you can continue to cover half the expenses. Is baby’s dad going to do every second of parenting from 6pm to 6am so he covers 50% of parenting since you’re still paying 50% of bills? Or does he get a baby for free while you do all the pregnant and birth and home with baby while paying like you don’t do any of that?

YANBU. Lots of people aren't able to take that amount of leave.

Thanks everyone, glad to know its not just me getting annoyed with it.

DH is contributing but i suppose we may be unusual in that i am the higher earner. Around 65% of our household income is me and then i do 50% of cooking. DH earns less but does all the cleaning and laundry and 50% of cooking. When i go back to work i want to do 4 days and DH also do 4 days. Family will cover 2 days so will leave 1 day in childcare. That will almost wipe out DHs salary that day a week but no where near mine.

We did think about shared parental leave but i admit i wanted the 10months off, shared parental leave would only male sense financially if i took less and DH took more.