Returning to work - your top tips please!

[Haarlemmer]

I will be returning to work (4 days) at the beginning of May when DD will be 10 months old. Would love your top tips and things you wish you'd known to help me plan and prepare over the next 7 weeks. If it helps, I'm esp keen to hear on the following:

1. Breastfeeding: DD has been exclusively BF to date (but will drink water from a trainer cup). How many feeds will she likely be on? Should I plan on expressing at work? (I plan to continue BF morning and nights)

1. Childcare: Due to real difficulties where I live, have opted for 3 days with CM (all consecutive), and 1 day at a nursery. Have others had problems with lack of continuity? How long does it take to settle in?

1. General organisation! Will be commuting an hour door to door. DH is away from home two nights a week (1 will be the day I'm off) but will pick up and drop off 2 days a week.

1. Getting back to speed and feeling/being 'professional'.

sorry for long message!

you need to be extremely organised. have everything ready the night before, eg clothes, bags and allow an extra half hour in the morning for problems. Get into a routine as quickly as possible on a morning and stick to it. i do exactly the same basic things every day in the same order and that way i am not thinking "have i done this, have i got that".

Let the breastfeeding go - too difficult. Find a local grandma as emergency cover when your baby is sick.

Breastfeeding is not a problem. I've expressed for the first few weeks, then realised that the daughter wasn't interested in EBM, so continued only feeding evenings/nights to this day (she's now 15 months).

Can't say that I'm overly organised. I get up at half six to have breakfast and get ready, wake the daughter at 7, get her dressed and leave for nursery 20 minutes later. She gets breakfast there.

I work four days and I breastfeed morning and night too. The latter has never been a problem unless she is a little late waking up and I need to get a move on to get to work (that is on the days DP takes her to nursery)

She also has breakfast at nursery which helps. I get everything ready the night before, my lunches, clothes, her clothes, nursery things.

Get a slow cooker. That has been a lifesaver for me, I get everything ready the night before and chuck it in in the morning and switch it on.

Do your supermarket shop online in bulk to save irritating dashes to Tesco after work. I don't meal plan for the week but I do get the meat etc out of the freezer the night before to save time.

I bulk cooked loads of DD's food and froze it in pots so I can just whip them out so her meals are sorted.

In an ideal world I would get a cleaner but we can't afford it but that is my dream!!!

I also try to have fun with my DD on my "bonus" day off each week. I save the chores for another time so she feels she has had some quality time with me.

And good luck, if you can be as organised as you can then it isn't so bad. I am far more organised now I am a mum than I ever was before!

Just re-read your OP and my daughter took longer to settle in at nursery than I thought she would as she is very sociable normally.

So leave plenty of time for the settling in sessions before you go back to work.

She is at nursery two days, with me one day and with family/friends on the other two days. I actually think it helps break the week up for her and gives her a change from one setting.

And it was VERY weird on my first day back at work, it is like going back in time to a job I had left. But by day two it was like I had never been away. It is strange when people refer to things/changes that happened while I was off but I get used to that. And it is nice to have a reason to leave work on time every day, it makes me more focused than I was before ML.

Top tips passed to me by friends and some I have found.

1. Childcare near home so if you are told to be somewhere else for work you don't have to get back to office/hospital/power station.
2. Go out to various groups on your days with DD. Network Network Network make real friends with SAHM, P/T Mum's and WFTM. You can help each other out.
3. Offer to babysit now and start to ask babysitter now get into a habit. Do this now instead of waiting for that emergency.

I have a SAHM who doesn't like evening babysitting but will look after DS during the day. I take her kids on a Saturday or Sunday when she is having a dinner party, Birthday party or wants to going shopping alone. Another SAHM we swap evening babysitting & daytime days out, two full-time working Mum 's, we swap half-term days outs with kids. We sometimes even go out together without kids Must get on with some work now. Good luck

ops! lots of mistakes in the above. Pls accept my apology.

I think my top tips would be Ocado (or other online shop of your choice), Amazon Prime (so that you can always do next day delivery of presents that you have forgotten), buy more clothes than you would need normally for DD so that the washing isn't crucial timing, and don't stress.

It really isn't that bad though - and breastfeeding doesn't make it more difficult.

Make sure house and child things are split equally with you and DH - don't get in the place where you are the one responsible for organising everything.

Our only babysitter/help is one of the staff from nursery. But she is a total star, and means that if one of us is away, the other isn't totally locked out of late meetings

If you are driving to work, fill your car when you can, not just when it's nearly empty.

On one of the days that your DH is picking up, use this as a day to "clear the decks" at work and stay as long as it takes. Saves you having to bring work home and makes the short days easier.

Plan your work days carefully, guard your time carefully and don't be afraid to say no. Start leaving 15 minutes before you have to go and put a timeslot in your diary protecting this time if you need to - saves you getting drawn into something and making you late.

Make time for you and your DH too, esp if he is away. Date night is a great idea so you can get out and not think about all the things that you could do in the house.

Good Luck!!

at 10 months they can cope with only 2 feeds a day (first thing and last thing). i did this with dd1.

it's easier to get back into being professional than you might think. just learn to trust whomever is caring for oyur child so you dont need to call every 5 seconds.

start as you mean to go on though and if you need to leave at a certain time and dont check blackberry in evenings etc. be efficient and enjoy the balance it brings to your life!

a cleaner is just so fab.