Maternity pay

[Lrose89]

Hi all, we are based in the UK and I will only be entitled to 6 weeks of pay at 90% and after that, statutory maternity pay. Unfortunately we really can’t afford for me to take much time off. I should add I work from home, so this does make things easier. Is anyone in the same boat? And am I being unrealistic to think I can go back to work after the 6 weeks? I would work for 3 days and have 2 off to do classes and visit friends etc with my baby. Thank you 🙂

Hiya, I also only got statutory, and this time will only get maternity allowance, so even less.

How long until your baby is due? Can you make some savings now that will allow you more time off?

At 6 weeks postpartum, I was still struggling to sit comfortably for long periods of time, my baby wanted to contact nap on me, was eating every couple of hours, and not sleeping through the night. I would not have been very useful back at work, even if only for 3 days a week. Depends a bit on your job I suppose, but I am also full time from home and wouldn't have been able to do it really.

I understand if there are financial commitments that mean you absolutely cannot take any more time off, and I also understand that there are women who go back to work at 6 weeks and get through it, but my advice would always be to take as much time as you possibly can, even if that means making sacrifices now in pregnancy to be able to save a bit more money.

Best of luck!

Are you expecting to work from home 3 days a weeek while also caring for your baby? Or putting them in childcare? I could definitely not have done the first option, unless you have a very easy baby and a very easy job!! 6 week olds do nap a lot but also require a lot of attention and spend long periods feeding and stuff. If you’re thinking you’d put them in childcare, that be aware lots of nurseries don’t take babies under 6months or a year. A nanny would work but would be prohibitively expensive based on what you’ve posted.

A lot is going to depend on your childcare and your birth and recovery.

Childcare is an easier one to start with. Are family going to be doing it? Or do you need a nursery/childminder? If the latter, you will be able to rule out going back at 6 weeks as the earliest a nursery will take them is 3 months and most will be later than that. And then you’d need to find one with space, so that’s going to depend on how far along you are in pregnancy currently and what waiting lists look like in your area.

If childcare is sorted (and it does need to be because you can’t work from home and also be solely responsible for a baby - it’s not fair on your child, your employer or you and will most likely be against your employment terms), then the harder one to plan for is your birth and recovery. If it’s all straightforward then you might bounce back. But you can’t really plan for that. I’m having a baby in September and couldn’t imagine feeling ready to go back to work that early, but I know a lot of women in the US in particular have to do it. Are you planning on breastfeeding? That will make it harder to go back at 6 weeks I think as you’ll likely still be establishing a good feeding pattern and may find expressing interrupts this or is another challenge. I think you have to give your employer notice too of your return so you either need to say now that you are coming back at 6 weeks or you might have to do it almost immediately after the birth. My employer needs 8 weeks notice if I want to change my return date. They could probably accommodate less notice if I wanted to come back earlier than planned, but they might be less happy if I gave them 2 weeks notice that I want to return later for example.

I appreciate SMP is so low. Can you explore other options, like saving during pregnancy to give you a buffer for a bit? Then maybe you could take 4 to 6 months off? Giving you time to sort childcare and recover. Or even a loan if you have to.

Good luck figuring it out. It’s a challenging period for sure, and financial worries don’t make it any easier! But I hope you are able to find a way to take more time off if you can.

my employer requires 8 weeks notice to return from maternity leave, so you’d have to check this and consider when you give this notice, as if you want to go back after 6 weeks, you’d have to give notice before your baby is born. Also consider that you have to start maternity leave by your due date, and baby could come up to 2 weeks after that. Do you have savings you can use to cover the shortfall? We saved up during the pregnancy to cover the months I’ll have on statutory.

Is there any way you can cut back/sell anything/get some money saved up beforehand?

My baby is nearly 16 weeks old now and truthfully I wouldn’t even want to go back to work now, away from her, and definitely couldn’t focus to work at the moment. I also work from home.

When she was 6 weeks old there’s no way I could have gone back to working. I had only just finished 6 weeks of blood thinning injections needed after delivery, I was still uncomfortable, still bleeding, still living on about 3 hours of broken sleep, still establishing feeding & routines etc.

Sorry OP you are being unrealistic - at 6 weeks you could still be sore/bleeding, your baby won’t be sleeping for long stretches, feeding could still be unpredictable and not at all in a routine, and you won’t have any time to actually enjoy your baby. As other posters said some women do it but it’s extremely difficult.

Depending on your circumstances you might be entitled to universal credit while on SMP - I’d be looking into that before planning for only 6 weeks leave.

Can you do a side hustle? What if you took a years maternity leave, what would be the shortfall that you would need to make up over the course of a year (instead of working part time). I think it might be possible to do a side hustle from 6-12 months, as that's when baby starts napping for longer and has a regular bed time and also can be looked after by your partner at weekends. If you don't have a boss you can just put the hours in you need.

As others say, you need to work out childcare. It might be that once you've factored in paying for nursery from your wages, you'll take home less than SMP so it's not worth it.
You need to be building savings during pregnancy.

Really wouldn't recommend trying to go back before 3 months in any event x

It is easier to work with a newborn and less than 6mth as all they really do is sleep - it gets harder when they nap less