Open Thread: Work After Maternity Leave
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What are some of your best tips for adjusting upon returning to work after maternity leave? What do you wish you’d known, or what did you come to realize?
For my own $.02: Among my friends, the end of maternity leave has loomed large in all of our lives — but on a kind of sliding scale. Women who had to go back to work at 10 weeks (or even sooner) dreaded it terribly, while women with longer leaves — 6 months or more — typically felt much better about it and almost welcomed the end of their leave. A few bits of advice along those lines:
Get the very best childcare you can.
Feeling confident about your baby’s caregivers will make your transition easier — as will sending him or her to childcare a week before you go back to work, if you can. Two notes on this: first, don’t stress too much about the expense or long-term viability of childcare at this point, because a year-old baby (heck, even a 6-month old baby) is in a totally different ballpark from a newborn.
If you can, plan for your spouse to take delayed paternity leave to be home for a bit after you go back to work. If you have a family member you trust who can take time off to be a caregiver for your newborn, that may reduce your stress as well. On the flip side, you may find yourself less stressed if you go with the fancy daycare where the teachers all have degrees in early childhood education and there are cameras in the classrooms.
{related: here are all of our childcare tips!}
Ask for flexibility at work after maternity leave.
A lot of the stress around returning to work is about nursing or pumping on that crazy schedule newborns need — ask your office about working from home, at least temporarily, or ask for other accommodations to make the transition feel better and go more smoothly.
{related: see all of our tips on flexible work arrangements}
Allow yourself to feel all the feelings.
You may be crying; you may be angry; you may be frustrated with your job or your life choices (even if your leave was ideal). Between the hormones, the lack of sleep, and the situation, it can be a perfect setup for drama. Be aware of this going in, accept that you may be overly emotional, and know that it gets much better, at least for most women.
Focus on why you’re there — whether it’s because you love your job, believe in the work, or need a paycheck, you’re there for a reason; let that loom large.
{related: here’s what to wear to work after maternity leave}
Ladies, what are your best tips for returning to work after maternity leave? Did you do anything in particular the first week (or day) back that helped, such as setting up lunch with a friend, or taking a break to visit your little one?
For those of you second-timers (and beyond), did you feel better or worse when your second (or third, or fourth) maternity leave ended? Have you joined or started a working parents’ group for support?
Further reading:
- Back to Work After Maternity Leave [Parents]
- 14 Moms Share the Truth About Returning to Work After Baby [The Stir]
- Advice for Successfully Returning To Work After Maternity Leave [Modern Mom]
Some of the best books for working mothers include:
Pictured: Shutterstock / Ollyy. I’m sure we allllll felt as sleek and put-together as this model when we returned to work, riiiiight?
I just went back after taking 12 weeks off, last week was my first. Some things that helped: my daycare insisted I bring the baby in for a few hours four times over the two weeks before we started full time. This was SO helpful. The daycare also happened to be closed on Thursday so my husband had taken that day off to stay with baby. This was great because she saw so little of him Mon-Wed that she’d stopped smiling at him when he’d pick her up in the evening! Now, he will adjust his schedule to wake up earlier and say bye to her before I drop her off in the morning. The thing we are struggling with is bedtime. We get her home at 6 and she wants to fall asleep by 7. Morning is mostly business with very little playtime so we barely get any time with her during the week. Any thoughts on this from seasoned moms? Should we just be grateful for the “free” time? It makes me feel sad to miss 5/7th of her life each week.
Related question: what about coworkers gunning for your job while on maternity leave? While on paper I could take 4 months paid leave, realistically the most I can take is 4 weeks before the vultures circle. If someone else takes over my team while I’m gone, I won’t have a job to come back to. Any advice for how to defend my turf while I’m away?
I went back part time after two months. It was really ahrd that first day, but knowing I would have off the next day made things much easier. I worked M/W/F for a few weeks, then M/T/W/F for a few more before going back full time.
If you are going to pump, make sure ahead of time that your pumping situation is locked down and works for you. I joined a new firm upon returning to work and didn’t want to rock the boat so used the “lactation room” — i.e., storage room. I should have made plans to put up some sort of privacy screen so I could have pumped in my office (which has glass walls) to maximize productivity. I think also socializing your coworkers somehow to the idea that you will be pumping and unavailable would help too, and I wish I had done it. Probably obvious, but I was the only person in the office who’d had a baby and was stupidly shy about it.
Agree on childcare but then again who volunteers to sign their kids up for childcare they don’t feel good about if they have the option? That said, if you can have your partner take off from work a few days or have a parent come stay with you to help out, it’s very helpful for working out kinks in transition.
If you plan on pumping, try to figure out the logistics ahead of time. If you don’t have a private office where you can do this, maybe stop by and check out the lactation room or whatever arrangement your office provides. In general, depending on your workplace/office culture, I think stopping during your leave can be good (obviously, not for everyone but worked for me). Also, for pumping – I find wearing some kind of button down and skirt/pants is the easiest. Nursing friendly tops, on the other hand, are not useful for me. Also, bring a big shawl. It’s weird sitting in your office with your boobs exposed even if no one can see you! Shawls help. Especially in the beginning.
Also, bring a spare shirt – whether its spilled milk or spit up you didn’t notice till after you got to work, you will appreciate it.
Finally – if you have baby pics on your phone, try to arrange a couple into a folder (I just “favorite” on the iphone). People will ask you to see pictures all the time and a) it makes it easier to pull up “that cute one” but b) you’d be surprised how often they will either inadvertently or on purpose slide to see your other pictures (I know!) and it’s nice to have a work appropriate bunch in case that happens.
Agree with going back mid-week and finding child care you trust. Texts/photos/videos/posts of the baby while I’m at work are a double-edge sword: I love seeing the baby and seeing that she’s doing well, but I get jealous and sad, too. I went back at 10 weeks, and my husband struggled as a work from home dad for a few weeks until we got the baby into part-time daycare that we love. So, along with allowing yourself to feel all the feels, know that your plan or routine could change.
I’m going back shortly after almost 6 months off. I am shocked to find that I absolutely can’t wait. I’ve already cleaned out my email inbox and am setting up my ‘catch up’ meetings. I’ve planned my outfits for every day like a kid excited to start school. I have a full freezer and organized closets and am as ready as I will ever be.
My husband will be home with our kid for the next 2 months and he’s totally psyched to be a SAHD.
I live in the US and I realize just how rare a 6 month leave is, and I think it’s made me going back that much easier.
Paternity leave? Hahahaha. I think this is a bigger joke than most maternity leave policies.
Baby and I came home from the hospital on Thursday. Hubs was arguing a motion in court on Friday morning. He’s a shareholder at a small firm.
Anyone else’s husband been able to 1) take off more than a few days, 2) have paternity leave option, or 3) feel like they could use paternity leave without consequences?
I will second the advice to have your significant other take a delayed paternity leave, if at all possible. It was so much better (for me) to start back at work knowing that my LO was at home with my husband for 2 weeks. It really helped the transition because I was getting regular text messages. Of course, it made me a little jealous too!
Would love to hear how advice changes for 2 kids, 3 kids, etc. I’m having #3 in early July. Returning to work EARLY – September?? Have no idea how to even get out of the house in the morning.
Second the getting the best childcare you can get, including a plan for great backup care. Nanny agencies that focus on long term placements sometimes have a good pool of nannies available for short-term placements while interviewing for long-term jobs. The nanny agency should be able to provide notes from its reference checks.
Other tips: figure out easy food options and optimize pumping arrangements if pumping (I like Freemies, a wardrobe that doesn’t require any undressing with Feemies, and small fridge in office).
Set up Outlook rules to get through the email backlog.
If possible, start on a Wednesday so that you and baby only have to get through half a week initially. Bonus if you can do a four-day week the second week.
Put baby in daycare for a half-day on that Monday or Tuesday before you return. It’s a good for baby to get a slow entrance, but it will also give you time to shower, prep, run errands, etc.
Do not expect yourself to be 100% on day 1. Allow yourself time to catch up and ease back in. Don’t pressure yourself to produce major results initially. If possible, shorten your days a bit for the first week or two.
If you have direct reports, connect with them individually for 15-30 minutes (longer depending on their role, if appropriate) to find out what’s been happening, good and bad.
If you have a wicked office that won’t give you much leeway that first week, you can try doing what a friend did recently: come in for one or two Saturdays to rev up before you’re publically back. Obviously not ideal, but better than having to go 0-60 in one day.