When did you go on mat leave?

[Babybear260]

Just curious… FTM and feel like I really need to maximise relaxing, and preparing for the arrival of baby. And to just enjoy the last few weeks before life changes completely (of course in a good way) but I can’t even imagine working from home beforehand. I need to be completely stress free. At least a month beforehand I reckon. I currently don’t plan on returning to work so from that perspective it doesn’t matter if I have more time before or after the baby…

I went at 35 weeks + a few days with first baby - well, annual leave for 2.5 weeks then mat leave from 28 weeks.
We were mid-kitchen extension, house was in absolute chaos and WFH was becoming challenging due to having to switch off electrics to do certain work. Plus the project I was on wrapped up about that time & I didn't have the brain capacity to dive into something new

I'm not sure this time - I'm only working 3 hours/day around nursery run, but have to drive there and back. I kind of want to push through to maximise time at the other end but not actually sure I can afford to go back. Tempted to go at Christmas though (I work in a school) but baby isn't due till 4th February...

38+0 and then labour started at 38+1 and I wish I had had a week to relax from work. There was zero down time

34 weeks. I left the office on the Friday and DD was born 72 hours later. We hadn’t even bought a pram!

Tomorrow! Elcs in 2 weeks. In previous pregnancies I’ve worked to a couple of days before, but this time I’m struggling.

Too late. Twice.

FTM - full time mother? So you have an older child?

No! First time mother :)

Dc1 38 weeks, I was a ward nurse on my feet all day was physically struggling but wanted as much time off afterwards (this was when you only got 6 months mat pay).
Dt I was put on sick leave 8 weeks before as had to go on bed rest. That was converted to maternity leave at 36 weeks, had them a week later.

About 36 weeks the first time, this time around 29/30 weeks by using holiday allowance to take me to 36 weeks then Mat Leave. Much needed earlier the second time round

I finished at 35+3 and baby came at 38+5

I took annual leave at 34 weeks as i was struggling to walk with PGP. My mat leave officially begun at 36 weeks.

Im now 39+4 days and still no sign of baby, so ive literally been relaxing and finishing the odd touches for baby in the last 5 weeks ive been off. Eg. Putting uo the next to me and getting used to it being beside the bed and having to get out of bed with it in the way, i have to shuffle down the bed to get out.
Got all babys stuff washed and dried and organised in the drawers, got a caddy organised for downstairs, washed and sterilised dummies and bottles and bagged them up (i will be sterilising them again before use!), packed my hospital bag, wrote my birth plan. Making sure everything is literally ready including having a clean house so i dont have to mess about after giving birth, i can just come home and not think about how messy the house is, or i should have done this before bringing baby home blablabla. Its worked so far, im just keeping up with the tidying while im in the last stretch!😁

You can go as late as you wanted, but you need to be prepared that you will want some rest before giving birth! Thats all the advice i was given from people. Go atleast 2 weeks before your due so then you can just relax! X

It's all subjective (and personal preference) to be honest and really hard to predict! I took A/L from 38 weeks with my 1st and then when the full 2 weeks overdue and I was honestly climbing the walls! There's only so much relaxing/nesting you can do (for me anyway) and I spent most of that time fielding multiple texts a day asking if baby was here yet. I honestly did not enjoy it at all!

Due my 2nd on 9th March and planning to work until end of Feb to maximise mat leave afterward. I appreciate I may go early this time, but like I say, so hard to predict and going to use time off over Xmas to get things ready for baby and keep stress to a min Jan/Feb!

You just need to do whatever feels right for you, but just bear in mind that if you do finish 4 weeks early, you may be off for 6 weeks before you have your baby - that's how I'd look at it - what's the minimum you need vs the maximum you can tolerate. If 6 weeks sounds ok for you, then just go for it!

To add a different perspective from most other replies, I wanted maximum time off with my baby so I worked to 38 weeks and had ELCS at 39. I did some batch cooking in that week, prepared the nursery and watched a lot of TV. A week was plenty for me, it wasn't a relaxing time off as I was nervous/impatient. That being said I worked from home exclusively for the last month, and I had HG so had got used to feeling terrible throughout my whole pregnancy.

The day I gave birth. It worked out really well for me as I got to maximise my time with the baby (our companies’ policies weren’t great so we did a year of shared parental leave).

My waters broke at 34 weeks before I had even finished work or packed my hospital bag. I had planned to take a couple of weeks off prior to an ELCS, any more and I would have been bored but I WFH full time so was lucky that way.

The day I gave birth or the day before I gave birth each time. So as early as 39 weeks and as late as over 42 weeks. I needed to maximise my time with the baby as I could only take the minimum leave available(2 weeks) but I did manage to stretch it to 6weeks by the time I had my youngest. Worked out ok. But I wish I’d had longer (albeit returning flexible hours/with baby/part time)

I worked to 40 weeks both times - and my babies were late both times too!

So I am glad I did it, I didn’t take a long maternity leave so preferred to save the time for with the baby.

My work is office based however, I may have felt differently in a more physical job.

I didn't stop until 7 days before my due date.

But - that suited my specific circumstances. The weather was hot and my office had air conditioning, it was a desk job, and I was feeling incredibly well as my pregnancy had put my endometriosis into remission. I was going to be on statutory maternity pay only, so we were trying to maximise the post-birth leave.

I'm finishing up 2 weeks before my due date, figured if baby is late then I don't mind having a bit more time to prep and chill - my job involves a lot of standing and a fairly long commute so I'll be pleased to not be doing that!

As someone who also knew that I wasn't going back to work I went on mat leave as soon as I could. For me it was because I was struggling with my job and wanted to leave anyway and I was expecting I'd be signed off with pregnancy induced hypertension (family history) at some point anyway.

Yes this is pretty much what I intend on doing for pretty much the same reasons as you! Good luck for your arrival veryyy soon :)

Also a FTM and I work from home. Mine starts 38w+4 but I'm using annual leave to finish a week earlier. Wanted to balance resting/prepping with possibly being a bored and impatient. Also wanted to maximise my time off. Hoping she doesn't come early though!

First time, 2 weeks before my due date and then baby was 2 weeks late (which I understand is unusual, they shouldn’t have let it go on that long). I ended up twiddling my thumbs and wishing I’d worked for a bit longer. Second time, hospitalised 8 weeks before my due date and stayed in hospital until baby was born (when my sick leave switched to mat leave) so the decision was taken out of my hands.

This is what I’m thinking - it says legally I can take maternity leave from mid December but I the only reason why I wouldn’t is because I guess I need to train my mat cover … but my manager hasn’t even mentioned this so I’m going to mention when she feels I can train this person by (my work place is maybe too relaxed!)

I worked up until 35 weeks and baby was born at 37 weeks!! Those two weeks with just me and my bump, pottering around were just gorgeous!

My manager made it clear that they weren't happy with how early I went on mat leave, they expected to have more time to find cover. My workplace was quite toxic though which is partly why I didn't want to go back. I think early mat leave is very unusual in some places which is why my old boss took for granted that they had more time though I did give plenty of notice though.