Maternity leave - Is what I being offered a good idea.

[DueInJun23]

I am 33 pregnant with my first child due in June, I have worked for my company since I was teen part time and full time since my twenties.

I told them I was pregnant last week, I was offered full pay for 3 month with the agreement I would not be available for any work related reason in that time, then for the remaining of the maternity period I can work from home with flexible hours as long as the work was being done.

I and my partner think this is fair, we live in London and rent privately with no chance of social/cheaper housing once the baby is born and currently the statutory maternity pay is less than my half of the rent let alone anything else, my partner is on a decent but nowhere near high wage and if he was to take on more of the financial burden there wouldn’t not be much left at the end of the month after rent, bills and the new unknown (for us) expense of the baby.

As I said we think the offer my work made is fair but this is also my first child so I feel a little jaded, although I may think this or that will the reality be different? Has anyone ever been in a similar situation and gone either way? I know a lot of this comes down to me and how I feel, but is three months enough time? Working from home a looking after a small baby is one aspect of that going to suffer?

There is also another woman at my work a few months ahead of me in a much senior position who’s work is much more demanding and time consuming than mine, she has been offered the same and is taking it, she also when we were discussing this reminded me that I have rights and nothing is set on stone. Any advice especially if you’ve been in a similar situation would be appreciated.

@DueInJun23 how much time do YOU WANT to take off? As @PurBal said, you are legally entitled to 52 weeks statutory maternity leave (39 weeks of that will be paid at the statutory rate). Your employer cannot get out of this statutory obligation, so if you want to take longer than 3 months, you are absolutely entitled to. They cannot call the shots - you decide.

the 3 months full pay is usually offered over and above statutory. But if you choose to take longer as part of Statutory maternity leave, you won’t be able to work during that time.

Is this a really small company? No HR or Occy Health? Have they had many people have maternity leave? This plan put forward by a man?!

I couldn't have done it with either of my kids.
They are still tiny at that point and lots of people are just coming out of the fog of the very early days. But they are still very dependent and many mums feel very tired and also have very different priorities compared to pre baby. Friends who have gone back that early have either had grandparents very close or have employed a nanny/put baby into childcare.

We had to rejig our finances. So stop seeing it as 'your half of the rent' but look at a budget with what your partners salary plus statutory maternity pay will give you and how you can pay for the essentials. You'll probably find that costs like dinner/drinks/trips away go right down for the time your are on maternity leave and there are lots of cheap/free things you can do with a tiny baby.

I'd really look at your joint budget between you carefully before agreeing to their plan

Pre baby this is the type of thing I thought would work.

I now have a one year old. I went back to work at 10 weeks, as I’m self employed. It’s a lot harder to get anything done now. There have been whole weeks when not much got done on the work front, because there’s been so much other stuff; and I have my husband to help.

The “as long as work gets done” bit will be a noose.

I wouldn't have been ready to return to work at 3 months. I know some women do but I wouldn't have entertained the idea until at least 6 months and even then for me personally it would have been too soon.

By 6 months the baby (well mine at least) was sleeping more - although I still felt tired a lot, and I felt a little more like myself. At 3 months I was still hormonal, emotional, exhausted and in no way able to function at home and at work.

I took just short of a full year for both my mat leaves- it worked out around 10.5 months maternity plus my accrued holiday and bank holiday allowance tacked on.
I saved like mad to make it work but it was so worth it.

I think this could work. It depends on your job though. If you have to be on work calls etc then it might not as if the baby cries you would have to ignore it until the call was finished.

One thing that would be a life saver for you would be one of those electric swing chairs, they rock the baby. I was studying alot and working after my first baby and it was a lot but totally doable.

I think with one baby this could work, with two or three though nope.

A solution might be to get an aupair (cheaper than nanny or daycare) that can help with the baby.

I could have gone back to work at 3 weeks with my first, easy.

How much will you work? How many days a week?

Mat leave can be boring, so maybe 1 day a week would break up the routine. I think if you did much more you might 'miss out' on maternity leave

I absolutely couldn’t have gone back after 3 months. Could you negotiate a split offer between full and half pay and get longer but at the same cost to the business?