Advice on negotiating reduced hours?

[straighttopudding]

I am due to go on mat leave with dc2 in a few months, too early to have to formally inform work but have told my boss as we generally have a good relationship and she appreciated the heads up.

I work FT and have done since dd was 6 months old for financial reasons. Now DH's business is up and running and doing well, I was hoping that I would be able to reduce my hours when I go back after ML with dc2.

Ideally I would like to go back every day but shorter days e.g. 8-2 as dd will be starting school and I would like to be able to pick her up every day and spend the afternoon with my kids. Logistically this makes sense for us as well for DH work as he can do school/nursery drop offs. Also nature of job means it is beneficial to be in every day.

I had an informal chat with boss today where I floated this idea and although she didn't completely recoil at the idea, she implied that it would be difficult to accommodate, which I understand.

The issue is that we are a small team of 3 FT managers excl. our boss. As I only want to drop a few hours e.g. 37.5 down to 30 or possibly 27.5 then there will be nobody to pick up the extra few hours. A job share could work but boss said it would have to be 3 full days shared with someone for 2 in order for it to work - I can't afford to drop this many hours and it would defeat the point of being able to do school pick ups.

Thank you if you've reached this far, does anyone have any advice about how I can negotiate what I want, any solutions I can put forward when the time comes? Any examples where this has worked anywhere? Or do I just need to accept that I'm asking for too much?

I work in a university if that makes a difference (not teaching).

TIA

Is the issue that there needs to be a minimum number of managers in at any one time, or is it that there's 37.5 hours of work that you need to do? If the latter, could you do either a couple of longer days and a couple of early finishes? Or could any of your work be done at home in the evenings? If it's the former then I'd imagine it would be harder to accommodate unless you're prepared to flex up to more hours to cover when understaffed.

Thank you for replying. Yes, it's the latter although our boss would prefer us to be in all the time!

I think that's the way forward, if we can't afford for me to cut down to 3 days by the time I go back then I think I'm going to request flexible working 2 long days and 3 short days, perhaps ask for one long day working from home.

I can't think of any business reasons why they should agree to me dropping just a few hours when no one can cover the work...

Thanks for helping me think this through, I appreciate it