Shift work or Mon-Fri after maternity leave?

[TheBeastReleased]

Hi all, looking for some advice if possible. I am due to return to work after maternity leave in September and have been offered the choice of returning to work either in community working Monday to Friday 8:30-4:45 (which is what I was working prior to mat leave) or shifts in the hospital (7-7:30, including days, nights and weekends). I am completely torn between the two.

I am a midwife, so work can be pretty stressful either way. I have done both types of work and whilst I preferred Mon-Friday hours slightly more than shifts, I'm not sure whether this would be better with childcare. The community work does also include working the occasional weekend (approx one in eight) and also an on-call commitment for home births where I could be called out at any point in a 24 hour period (I might be on call maybe twice per week, for up to 4 weeks at a time, 4-8 times per year). My husband works Mon-Friday with flexi start and finish times, so if I did go back to shift work, he is more than happy to do nursery drop-offs and pick ups when needed. We have no other family nearby, so essentially our childcare will be whatever nursery we get our son into, and my husband who's job is reasonably flexible.

My thoughts are that doing shifts would mean I was only working 3 or 4 shifts per week, and could therefore save on childcare costs and also be there for my son more than if he was in nursery every week Monday to Friday. But on the other hand, it would mean working nights and weekends which would be quite difficult and may mean we get fewer weekends together as a family. At the moment my son is breastfed and in the habit of feeding to sleep (I know we've got a few months before I go back so hopefully we'll be out of that pattern by then!) and my concern is that if I was doing long shifts and nights, my supply would disappear completely and I'd have to give up breastfeeding. (On the other hand, this may happen with Mon-Friday hours too as my supply is pretty rubbish at the best of times so I have a feeling that if I go for 9 hour stretches without feeding it'll disappear anyway!)

I'd love to hear your thoughts about what might work best? Those of you who have gone back to either shifts or Monday-Friday hours, what are the pros and cons of each? Is it possible to still breastfeed whilst working shifts? Any opinions greatly appreciated!

I did both when my kids were little and proffered the shift work.

With the mon to fri 9-5 job I realised I was only getting the stressful parts of the kids - getting up dressed breakfast usually in a rush, then when I got home it was tea, bath, bed etc with tired ratty kids.

Much preferred the shifts as I had more quality time with them and could enjoy them much more.

It depends on your childcare - some places you will need to pay for 5 days a week childcare even if one week you only need mon and tue and the next Thur and fri as you need to pay the nursery to keep the space open for when you need it

Yeah as pp said I would see what childcare you can find first. Getting someone to have them different days each week could be tricky

I do shifts, but I have an arrangement with the hospital for them to be on set days because of childcare. It does involve regular weekend and night shifts, but it's been great that DH gets time completely on his own with them then and I love having full days in the week with them too. Nights work out much cheaper for childcare! My hospital also has an arrangement that you don't need to do on calls or nights if you're breastfeeding up until the age of 2 so that may be worth asking about.

Thanks for your responses - it's good to hear what other people have found better.

In terms of nurseries, I have found two locally that can provide different days on different weeks, you just have to give four weeks notice which should hopefully be OK as off-duty is supposed to be made up six weeks in advance for us (although I do remember from working in the hospital previously that often this didn't happen and we had to chase our ward managers for it!). If course, no guarantee we'll get a slave for him in either of these as think they both fill up pretty quick. Thanks all again.

And by getting a slave for him, I actually meant getting a space for him. My apologies.

9-5 would be easier in terms of childcare.