Other mums returning to work full time- want to support each other?

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I just wondered if there are any other mums returning to work full time in the next few months who want to start a support thread? I am and I'm feeling really anxious. I'm also fed up at the shocked looks I get when I say I'm going back full time. It's not a choice but a necessity.

So anyone want to join and we can talk about how we are feeling and give some virtual hugs when needed?

Everybody wobbles sometimes! Just keep in there. I went thru this and came out the other side. Arranged with my employer I would express in the Firs Aid room, kept (manual) pump there and bottles in the fridge. A few years later the building burnt down the fridge was rescued from the ruins, they found my stuff in there and returned to to me...Nostalgic as must have forgotten it there after stopping expressing. I was the first senior person who had returned to work after DC - very supportive bosses in an environment that was unused to working mothers ( typical employee was male with supportive/trailing spouse...). keep going - it is worth it, when the DC are grown, are happy with good role models and no guilt about 'abandoning' their parents, to go to uni, have independent lives etc 'cos the 'rents are busy and happy themselves.

I work full time not in a really high powered job. Im with my kids 90% if the time but would never feel any guilt at leaving them. I love getting rid of them and Im not ashamed to say it

Stoke, rather nippy comments. Why are you posting if you're a happy sahm? If you read through post a lot of us are returning out of necessity.

It's great you had opportunity to stay at home, perhaps not best thread to boast about it though.

And indeed,I know I've made right decision for me,for family.no qualm or guilt
But what undermines some people causes wobble us the precious moments mamas
The face,the expectation you'll feel guilty.and if you don't it's considered you must be avaricious husk

End of the first week and I've had quite a positive experience. Being at work as been nice, people have been pleased to see me back and I've felt more like me again. I've been asked my opinion on things and to do a couple of interesting things coming up. My classes are all good, which is a huge plus.

DS is enjoying breakfast club and doesn't seem bothered by the longer day at school. DD has settled in exceptionally well at the childminder, she has a little sob and stretches her arms out to me as I leave but even by a couple of days it was half-hearted and every time I picked her up she was playing happily.

Outside of work I seem to be spending a lot of time shuttling children around and am a bit alarmed by how little time is left for household stuff. On Thursday it really hit as for the first time I had marking to do in the evening (which I will have every week night from now on). It feels like the weekend will now just be spent catching up from the week and sorting things out for the week ahead.

I'm knackered! DD has been up at least twice every night. I bfeed and she isn't having milk when I'm at work (11 months) she seems to want to catch up by feeding lots in the evening and then when she wakes in the night she only wants me.

No wobbles. Being at work has been good for me, despite the hassle it creates, and I'm looking forward to having some money.

Those of you who do online grocery shopping, how does that work with use-by dates? If I've planned sausage and mash for next Friday, then I'm careful in the supermarket to buy sausages that don't go off before then. What if you get a big delivery for the week and it all goes off by the Wednesday?

noblegiraffe - we do two small(ish) online deliveries per week, rather than one big one, for exactly that reason. Milk generally doesn't last a full week, and we get through loads of it. We use Ocado and have a delivery pass, so we pay the same amount no matter how many deliveries we get.
Glad your first week has gone well - it'll get easier as time goes on and you gradually find ways to save time (little things here and there make a huge difference overall). Well done!

Hi all, signing in! I've only read the first 100 msgs so will have to catch up on the rest later.

I'm returning on 26 Feb to my civil service job. I've got a team of four to look after, and we project manage about another 50 people's work. It's a lot of meetings and badgering people to stay in line with outrageous levels of bureaucracy (in their view!) and I really identify with whoever said that sometimes the day feels like just moving pieces of paper around and agreeing with the boss!

this is my second and last mat leave. I went back FT after having DS, took six months leave but foolishly started it at 38w and he finally deigned to make an appearance at 42w so a whole month of leave was totally wasted. DD was also late, but I was wiser and worked up to due date this time, so she will be 5.5 months when I go back and if the childcare place (that we went on the waiting list for before she was even born) isn't available then it will be DH staying home with her.

I take particular issue with the "leaving them with strangers" accusation. Even granny is a stranger the first time baby meets them. Good childcare professionals have a strong bond with their charges, aren't chopping and changing all the time, and certainly my son loved his nursery staff like they were all his best friends. I've no regrets and no shame that he knew Amy and Hayley better than grandma and grandpa, and the food was better there too! Over his childhood, family will be constant, so I don't mind that for a year or so he actually spent more of the week's waking hours with nursery staff than with us.

Good, everyone is positive. Mrs Y and I who went back full time a good while ago (my oldest are in their 20s) can illustrate how well it can work. The children go off to university as said above sure their parents have full working lives (and the parents both have the money to help fund them which let us not forget is pretty important these days). They are not crying into their pillows as teenagers because their parents changed only 4 nappies a day not 15.

Any parents who does not co sleep and who does not co school is leaving their children / and leaving them with strangers. None of us really leave a child with a stranger. The children's lives are enhanced by having good relationships with a mother, father and a nanny/childminder/relative or nursery staff. I have never found their lives were damaged because mother and father cares for them or mummy and granny. The extra stable figures in their lives make their lives better not worse.

On sell by dates families just differ. You have to take your own decisions. I have loved internet grocery shopping for years as I hate all shopping. I have just about never checked a sell by date from a delivery in my life as the food is usually good for a good while after that. I am probably at one extreme. I look at food and also smell it to decide if it's edible. The other advantage is you are not tempted to buy foods you cannot afford or don't need if it's delivered to you and children cannot so easily pressurise you to buy junk once they are older. Or if sell by dates matter and your own store supplies products with short dates you could buy only the non perishables on the on line order and go out once a week or better still send the husband or older children or nanny out once a week to buy a few extras that might otherwise go off.

Since I stopped working in the City and am based elsewhere, inner City Tesco expresses etc have grown up and it will be easier nowadays I suppose to pop into one of those on the way home if there are vital things to buy. A good plan is to put the husband in charge of all shopping and cooking and you do another task though - that's even easier and get the nanny to cook the children's dinners and our plan that worked well was not bother with an evening meal - just cook something for yourself only when you want it whenever that might be.

Re online shop - I do one every fortnight and meal plan. So I know what day we're having sausages and mash. Potatoes keep fine, sausages go in the freezer and come out the night before. Meal planning and online shop go very well together, as does batch cooking. In week 2 it is usually defrosted stuff eg bolognaise one night, pork steaks another night etc. It doesn't mean you can't eat healthily. Frozen veg (peas, broad beans, green beans) can be very good too.

I do a top up from the village shop or the Tesco garage on the way home for milk (we also get through loads) and fruit/veg.

A lot of it comes from being organised and planning. I also find a second fridge freezer (or just freezer) in the garage/utility is a godsend for batch cooked food.

noble we do online groceries and tend to do 1 or sometimes 2 shops per week. we have ocado pass so no delivery charge as long as we spend £40 - tend to order nappies with any small shop to bump it up to £40! Loads of stuff goes in the freezer (we bought a spare small freezer) and that means I have room for batch cooking too, for the nights we both have to work in the evening or there is always frozen pizza.

noble glad your first week back well. I remember when I came back after Ds2 being asked my opinion on something really boosted my self esteem and made me feel valued again. I had really missed that on maternity leave.
We don't menu plan properly and it is dp who does most of the cooking, but we have a well stocked freezer so there every week there will be some fish, some chicken and some mince in there and plenty of frozen veg. Dp does consciously make food on double quantities when he has time eg curry and pasta sauce so we have something available mid week . We eat with the dc Saturdays, Sundays and maybe once during the week . But the rest of the week they have hot food at nursery and school and a snack in the evening

Hi - I start a new job next week after 3.5 years as a SAHM; and it's just hit me today what a big change this will be!

I am looking forward to going back - it will be great to restart my career, earn my own money and get my pension contributions back on track.

I am reading all of your tips and advice - and making notes like mad! .

Good luck ruby. There is al ot in the press and on line about women wanting not to work and being at home and you rarely see women writing about the benefits of work so this thread is a nice change.

Congratulations on job ruby,in week before you go back practice the journey
Cook some meals that you can freeze,sort out kids clothes into sets
Sort out your own clothes into bundle for each day.catch up laundry etc

Work out now with do,who'll collect etc if you get call
If possible try get dp collect in your first wee while,let you settle

Well done and good luck Ruby!

My favourite advice from this thread is 'don't complain, don't explain'. And don't feel that you have to feel guilty - or let others try to pin these feelings onto you. As Scottish puts it, ignore the 'precious moments' head tilts

Loads of good practical stuff here too. And if you have any concerns or challenges please ask/say because there are some very wise posters around here who've done it before!

Phew - first day back at work over with! I do contract work and left my job when I had DD a year ago. Today I started a new role (3 months initially) with DD at nursery full time.

I have followed most of the advice in Scottishmummys post - have driven the route a couple of times before starting and am really glad I did as it's a bloody awkward drive. Not terribly far in miles but slow A/B roads and have to cross a city too, plus doing nursery drop off in opposite direction!

Have eaten a home-cooked meal out of the freezer - DP works away so I bagged up everything into single portions. All my work clothes are hanging up on a temporary clothes rail so that I can make selections easily. One thing that shocked me was how few clothes I had that fitted properly and didn't look bobbly/well-worn etc. DD's clothes are in about 8 bundles in her wardrobe, all set for the week too.

I feel like the only way I've survived is constant lists - what time to get up, what to pack, when to leave house etc. There is absolutely no margin for error re getting to work on time after nursery drop-off. DP did the drop-off this morning but I forgot to warn him DD gets clingy but then is fine. His last memory is of her grabbing him and crying. She was fine a couple of minutes later but he cried all 100 miles to work

I left work a bit early to get to nursery pick-up in time, but took a different route to save time and it was congested so ended up 15 mins late. Burst into tears when I arrived there as felt so bad for DD (who was fine).

So, survived first day in new job, looked reasonably competent, and just hope it gets easier each day. Right now, I feel like my life is being devoted to this job!

Well done on getting your new job Ruby - agree it's very nice earning money again. I'm sure you'll be back in the swing of things very soon - once I was sat at a desk today, that year away from an office environment just disappeared.

Well done on making it thought your first days ruby and eagle.

I came across a couple of reassuring articles that I thought some might like:

Forbes

Guardian

Have a great rest of the week!

through, not thought . typo!

Thanks for the links T.
Eagle you did it. As I've worked full time for 29 years I must be on something like day 9900 of working full time whilst having children (rather than day 1) - youngest are teenagers - and I promise you it all gets easier. You get into a routine. Even so I was just on googlemaps directions with one teenager looking at the distance from where I have to drive on Thursday as to whether I will get back to collect him from his tennis lesson so it certainly continues as they get older but it gets a lot easier.

Eagle, it looks like there is not much slack in that schedule. Hopefully once things settle down it will be easier. When I do contracted things I always try to allow at least 30 minutes for delays so I arrive early but your routine would make that rather hard. (We had 3 under 5s at one point so paying one day nanny for that was cheaper than 3 nursery places so we did not have quite the same time constraints).

Don't sweat being late,we've all done the 17.59walk of shame.it happens,no biggie

Well I've lost 3lb in a week and two days of being back at work. I wonder whether it has anything to do with no longer being around the biscuit cupboard all day!

Day 2 done and dusted! Some good news on the timings/nursery pickup front - I had a look at the working hours and the rules associated with them, and it turns out that there's an hour-long lunchbreak, which is way longer than I need. So have asked if I can just take half an hour and leave at 5, which gives me plenty of time for nursery pick-up at 6pm. They said no problem at all, so that's going to make things much easier

I'm in a fairly male-dominated work environment, and although I haven't gone on and on about having a baby at home, I've found there's been a lot of empathy and understanding from colleagues as quite a lot of them have young children too and so understand the pressures. However, as it's a new job, it's also nice to have a clean slate as it were and not have people talking about returning to work, baby etc all the time.

When I got home from work this eve, I took my work clothes off immediately as learnt the hard way last night that babies can cover them in snot and sick in a matter of seconds!

Well done on the weight loss Noblegiraffe - I've actually got the opposite problem as they are feeders where I work! Was told yesterday that putting on a stone is all part of the induction process thanks to all the calorific horrors in the office. Only been there two days and there's already been a cheesecake competition, a birthday cake handout, christmas chocs left in the kitchen, plus there's complimentary biscuits on tap AND a tuck shop

Most people seem to spend lunchtime in the pub so it would be very easy to have a typical working day like this

Humph. I'm still at work, I've had to ask DH to scramble to get home for our nanny at 7pm for the second day running (usually Monday and Tuesday are my days to get home) because I'm mega busy at work and can't do it from home. Well I could but it's too late after 8pm which is when DD goes to bed.

Not sure how this will work longer term if this keeps happening (which I suspect is likely). We shall see.