Return to work after maternity (standby / on-call)

[ScarlettWitch616]

This could be fairly niche, but was hoping for some advice or examples from other work places =]

I plan to return to work after 4 - 6 months maternity leave, and I was wondering where I stand with being made to return to standby / on-call duties when I’ll have a young baby and be breast-feeding. Much of my on-call / standby work can mean being woken up during the night and responding to stressful issues in work (this can also go on for a number of hours), and then doing my normal work duties between 9-5, which I struggled enough with during my pregnancy, and the thought of doing this with a small baby (and limited sleep) is filling me with dread.

I’ve tried looking at the Working Time Directive etc. and my work places maternity policy, but this particular issue doesn’t seem to be covered anywhere, so interested to hear if anyone else has had a similar issue?

Is this your first baby? Be prepared you may not feel at all ready to leave baby at 4-6 months. It is a very individual and personal thing. Breastfeeding is really hard for some women and takes months to establish for many of us. Also some babies will like cup feeding or bottle feeding expressed milk, others will just want the boob!

In terms of your question, my colleague has had to delay returning to work until 1 year. She submitted a flexible working request to not do the on call rota at night (there is a day one too) for the first three months back and it was denied. She wanted to take 9 months.

Sleep deprivation is not just grim it can be dangerous and unless you get lucky and have a good sleeper textbook baby, your brain function will take a hit those first six months+!

Totally get why you're worried. I am typing this with my almost seven month old on top of me who still hasn't settled once in her crib this eve. And the night has barely begun . Her sleep is so bad. No way could I function on call tonight and then work tomorrow.

Pregnant then screwed and maternity action may have advice.

I do on call work, we don't always get called, but if I do 95% of the time I have to go into work. Sometimes its an hour, sometimes 3. However, if called out after midnight we can show up late to work the next day, that makes a big difference.

Can you see about delaying your return to the on call rota citing a family friendly policy? I know when I returned after ML the first time I got a maybe 3 months to get back up to speed, but I'm on ML again now and the staffing situation is dire so I'm not sure I'll get that again when I go back in Sept.

I was breastfeeding, but there was barely an overlap of on call as DS caught oral thrush, we thought it was teething and by the time we figured out it was thrush he had no interest in feeding from me again. That was at about 10 months old.

Best of luck, it was a shitty year till DS started sleeping later in the morning though!

Is the conditions of the on call rota you have issue with or is it doing after returning from maternity leave? I’m guessing that you can make a flexible working request then can agree to or decline. I’m assuming it will depend on the needs of the business, especially if other colleagues need to do their share of on call as well as yours