If you and your DH are both teachers, any tips with TTC/ pregnancy/ babies in general?

[ahvale]

DH and I are just about ready to TTC. He's secondary, I'm primary. I know that what will be will be, but what worked best for you? I really would like to aim for any time other than July/ August (I'm a reception teacher so it seems vitally important to me!), but is it nice to have the holidays off?

Hi, I am a mum to a 6.5month old little girl and my partner and I are both secondary teachers. For me, I think removing stress is important when TTC. I got my copper coil out in Jan 2021, went into lockdown and tested positive by Mother's Day in March. I think we were very lucky as it can take many healthy couples months! Prior to this, I had been under a consultant for high prolactin - caused by stress, which was messing up my ability to ovulate regularly. Luckily I had sorted this before I started TTC. So, definitely try and minimise stress and try to have fun (easier said that done). I also found that doing plenty of research into ovulation cycles helped. I worked from home from September and gave birth in November. So partner had two weeks paternity, a week in work and then another two weeks off for Christmas which was lovely. I am due to return to work full time tomorrow (sigh!). It's good with us both having the holidays off together. We take it in turns getting up with the baby so we can catch up on some sleep at weekends and during the holidays. I do find it hard to work and watch the baby at the same time. So we have to take it in turns when working in the evenings, weekends and holidays e.g. I was exam marking this morning whilst DH was playing her. Hope that helps a little. Best of luck to you and have fun trying! Xx

Best of luck tomorrow!

A Christmas baby must have been just lovely. Part of me would like to aim for July and then DH would have all of the holidays with us, but what will be will be!

We are both teachers. There are pros and cons to different times of the year. Avoiding a month is probably easier than aiming for a specific month though!

I mean this with kindness but it might not happen how you plan it. We had two miscarriages before DD1 was born so all that careful planning at the start was pointless! She was born in December, I finished for Mat leave quite early, just after the October holiday I think, because I went back early- the last day of summer term so got full pay over the summer holiday. DS 2 was a May baby and it was lovely to have nice weather to be out and about to do things.

My only advice is to look into shared parental leave after the baby is born, it can end up getting more money for you! This website explains more- www.teachersspl.co.uk/how-it-works

Oh I know that nature doesn't listen to our plans. Just trying to look positively at the minute and hope for the best! Thank you for that site, that's interesting reading.

Enjoy it! It's an exciting time. The good thing about both of you being teachers is that it's never long till the next holiday!

I've had a summer baby and a winter baby. It was nice having the summer baby and going back to work after a full year for just a few weeks before the summer holidays and getting to spend another 6 weeks with them. I have also taught reception and don't regret having a summer born at all - I honestly can't imagine them doing an extra year at nursery as they are already playing about a lot with numbers and letters and I think at nursery they'd be bored silly. I think if you and your husband are reasonably academic chances are if you have a summer born they'll do fine. Personally I'd have found it hard having a baby with winter stretching out ahead of me, so would avoid Oct-Dec. Once you're on the other side of Christmas at least spring is in sight! Appreciate that's totally unteacher related though.

My husband and I are both primary teachers. We avoided trying to conceive in the autumn as it means you’ll give birth just before the summer holidays and be on maternity pay whilst everyone else is on full pay and off as well 😱

We had a few months break during September-early December. I fell pregnant and gave birth at the end of august, which was great because I had 5 full weeks of the summer holidays before the baby was born to relax. Your husband can choose when he wants to take his 2 weeks paternity leave, so if you gave birth during a school holiday he doesn’t have to use his leave until term recommences.

My weeks fell well, luckily. My occupational maternity pay ceased at Christmas where I used Shared Parental Leave (see link from previous poster above) to return to work during the Christmas holidays. I then had shared parental pay instead of maternity pay after that which is paid at the same rate of about £150 a week. As you can take shared parental leave in blocks, I was also able to return to work during February half term Easter meaning I was given over 50% pay when I should have been on pennies! It’s difficult to get your head round and I had such a battle with my HR who really didn’t understand it. The woman who runs the website linked above is SO HELPFUL and responded to my queries on a Friday night, free of charge. She only asked I made a donation to her charity, which I did.

I am due to return to work in the last academic week in July. This ensures that I will be on full pay over the summer holidays. My new contract at my school (4 days a week, non-class based teacher) commences in September so I’m not losing out on any ‘accrued’ holidays that every other profession gets to add on to their maternity leave. I am hoping being a non-class based teacher will help me manage a work life balance for my family but I obviously have no clue until I go back!