Maternity leave.. help

[daiseyduck]

Currently 30 weeks pregnant & considering moving my maternity leave up closer, currently I'll be going off at 35 weeks but I'm experiencing burn out by the afternoon and just have no motivation to push through the rest of my work, my job is home based and I am on my computer all day so it's nothing strenuous but I am struggling with the mental work load. Thoughts? Is it too early? I will be taking a year off.

Completely up to you of course, but I did my desk job up to 38 weeks because I wanted to spend every possible day with my baby before I go back to work. In the end baby was 4 days overdue and I was absolutely bored silly by then.

That said, I had a healthy straightforward pregnancy and slept ok throughout. I may have done things differently if I'd had any medical issues or insomnia.

I went off very early with DS1 (mainly to have teacher DH’s summer holidays together but expecting a mid September birth ‘because DM had me two weeks early). What a fool I was. DS1 was two weeks late and I nearly chewed my arm off waiting for his arrival.

I WFH in a desk job, I have little motivation now at 33 weeks but I'm planning to go as long as I can, ideally til 39 weeks. You could have the baby 2 weeks "late", so you are already 'losing' 7 weeks with the baby, and more if you go earlier. I'm just doing the bare minimum, having a lunchtime nap and no one seems to care. Unless you are really struggling with health issues, I'd keep going as long as you can, I'd be so bored if I stopped working now.

Have you got holidays left to take? You could use them to give you extra time off before maternity starts or use it to go down to a 4 day week for the last month. I did this with DD1 because I was exhausted by the Friday.
Also if home based can you ask if you can take a longer lunch break so you can nap then work later to make up for it? They're supposed to make reasonable adjustments for pregnant employees

I'd echo going as long as possible. I had 4 weeks leave with ds1 so I did finish at 34 weeks however, I had hime at 38 weeks, 2 days before my mat leave was due to start.

With ds2 I didn't have much leave so my mat leave started at 37 weeks but I had him at 39 weeks anyway!

Totally up to you.

With my first I originally planned to stop at 36 weeks but had to stop at 34 weeks as I was just exhausted.

I thought of it slightly differently after my mother pointed out it's the last time I'll ever have to myself 😂
I took 2 weeks hols and 2 weeks maternity, baby was a week late. I enjoyed myself...cleaned, chilled, went for coffee, ate out a bit.

I WFH at a desk job and I worked till 39 weeks so I had the most amount of time off after the baby was born. Can you speak to a manager about lightening the load in these last few weeks?

Totally up to you but if it’s just 4/5 weeks left I’d keep going and do as little work as possible without getting in trouble. I worked at home up to 37 weeks. My last few weeks I really couldn’t be bothered but most of it was spent preparing my handover so I dragged that out and did a lot of goodbye calls with colleagues. I also ended up having so many appointments towards the end it really broke my week up.

More time off now = less time off with the baby. I would prefer my time off to be spent bonding and enjoying him/her rather than sat on the sofa on my own.