AIBU? Absolutely dreading going back to work after maternity leave. Tips?

[Jenniferb21]

Hi all.

DS will be nearly a year old in April when I'm due to go back to work. It's a stressful job I'm a manager and often took work home and was expected to travel to London for meetings. I earn about £30-40k (depends on bonuses) annually and DS earns £50k annually. Our mortgage is reasonable but we have £4K on a credit card left to pay off. We got marrie and spent all our savings and got pregnant within a month and didn't have much time to save for our first baby. So that was basically for furniture, travel stuff, decorating and buying baby items.

I understand that £4K is a lot of money but it's on an interest free card for now and I think on £50k he'd pay it off quite quick on his own and id obviously have to pull back on going out for coffees and that sort of thing I've done on maternity leave.

I just hated my job in the end and we're planning on getting pregnant next summer. I also had terrible sickness and was sick up to 20 times a day even with medication. It was an hour commune there and back and we've still not found a nursery or CM in the area we like. DH agrees the only one we like doesn't have spaces.

So I've said this week can I just not go back? He's said no because of this £4K and he wants to save for another baby. I really think this is silly given our plans for next year and because we can't find childcare we're happy with.

AIBU? Anyone else been in this situation? Any tips?

Two ways to look at it.

For some people it's financial calculations of the here and the now which allow one person to stay at home because it works better for the here and the now.

For others short term financial losses and struggle are the way to keep both careers going so continuing to work now is an investment in the future

Some might then say looking after your own kids at home is the best thing for them

Others will disagree

The choice is entirely yours and is best done keeping the longer term in mind than pennies in and out now.

Well if it is only the £4k debt which he is worried about then it should be possible to pay that off over a reasonable period of time. However, it is quite a drop for your family income to go from c£90k to £50k, particularly with the additional expense of a baby (I know someone is going to come along and say babies can cost nothing but realistically there are endless nappies, outgrown clothes, activities, toys, then pre-school etc.) Balancing that out however will be the money saved from you not commuting, less money on business wear etc.

You both need to sit down and look at your outgoings on a spreadsheet, put everything down, see what you can cut back on or drop completely and then assess if it is manageable on a reduced income. Your DH may legitimately be concerned about assuming all the responsibility for the income for your family. You got married and had a baby in a very short period of time and now this is another change to get your heads around.

Don't forget to count the other costs of giving up work, principally in your case the lack of maternity pay if you are pregnant again next year. Do you have benefits with your work which will have to be replaced - health insurance, pension payments, death in service benefits? Also what about the intangible benefits of working - access to training, networking - what will happen if you want to go back to work in 5-10 years? Will you be completely out of date in your field?

Apart from all that, do you actually want to be a SAHM or do you just not want to go back to this particular job? Could you go part-time or do some days from home to cut down on the commute? Lots of think about!

Thank you v much for your reply I think a spreadsheet is a good idea. We have our outgoings on excel anyway so we can easily look at that. I don't want to go back to this particular job due to the nature and structure of the company and the management style of my boss it's a very stressful environment. I used to struggle to sleep worrying about the next day or issues we had. Nothing's changed since I've been there and because I've not been there and they didn't prepare for my absence well the branch is in a worse position than when I left (financially and in terms of team morale etc). My problem is we don't have family around to look after DS so my job has to afford nursery which is £50 a day and all part time jobs I found in my area were for cafes etc which isn't enough money.

I will want to go back to work at some point but not in that field (I have 2 law degrees so I'd probably go back to the legal sector) when our kids are at school I can be a trainee solicitor as my income won't matter as much not paying for childcare. Eventually then I'll be on a wage similar to what I'm on now and in the future hopefully more.

I'm just finding it really hard picturing going back to that job I hated. I'm stressed already thinking about it which I know is the wrong atttotide to have. I haven't found anything similar to what I'm doing now that pays as well I went for an interview in the higher education sector but lost that to someone with HE experience that was the only job I've found advertised I thought I'd enjoy. I singed up with 3 local recruitment agencies and they haven't found anything that pays as well as my current job.

I know it's not the worst thing but hating your job isn't very enjoyable. Coupled with not finding childcare we love