Preparing to Come Back to Work after Maternity Leave

My maternity leave is coming to an end, It’s an emotional time. I could surely spend longer with kids enjoying cuddles and the beautiful baby smell that comes with all the hard work and sleepless nights. But I am also ready for a change, ready to have a bit of life of my own and to do something different in a day. And you know what, my kids are ready too. Of course, they are not ready to separate with Mommy, this is the hard part. But they are ready to have a bit more adventures, a lot more social interactions, and for all the rapid learning that comes with more experience and nursery life.

So do I need to prepare? Yes, I believe preparation is the key for things to go smoothly and for me to enjoy the comeback. Since it’s my second maternity leave and the second comeback, I will share my previous experience and how I am preparing for the second comeback in this post.

Planning the logistics

Childcare

It is probably natural for a mother that the childcare question comes first to mind when I think about going back to work. I chose to use a nursery for my daughter three years ago and I absolutely loved it. It even exceeded my expectations. It may not work for everyone as a childcare option. I’ll share from our experience what I love about it and the downsides too.

What I loved:

• The social aspect. It’s amazing how early my daughter was able to have friends she chose herself. And her preference stayed the same as she navigated from one to another nursery group growing up. I also loved that I could meet other mothers at nursery events and socialise with them.

• The educational aspect. Being nursery and having several carers helps them to combine individual attention with fantastic educational activities. The activities, group, and individual, focus on various sides of development following the early years’ education framework. There were things I didn’t think needed attention, or simply didn’t know about as a first-time mom, and also it’s hard to take care of the little ones all the time and actively educate them every day. I found nursery education very very helpful and tried to follow and complement it at home.

• Copying as a way of learning. Sometimes it’s hard to teach a child to do something as an adult. The copying effect when they see other children do things is amazing. They see other children doing something once and they are motivated to copy! Eating with a spoon, dressing, potty training, and more is much easier when they see other little ones do it.

Challenges:

• One challenge is a continuous build-up of the immune system, meaning kids get ill constantly in the first year! And us adults get ill too. It has a good outcome at the end of a more resilient immune system, but it’s a hard process. And working out how to take care of kids and yet perform well at work is a challenge too.

• Fixed pick-up time: The nursery means a commitment to pick-up time in the evening. It means you have to stop doing work and go no matter what unless you have someone to help on a regular basis. This requires good communication at work and finding ways to make sure work gets done despite having to leave. For myself, it means occasionally logging in to work after kids are in bed, but I also try to stay disciplined and not do it too often.

Working pattern/flexible working

OK, I have an honest confession to make here, I always wanted to work four days a week. I felt it would provide a much better balance to my life overall even before having kids. I never was brave enough to ask before having kids, but I was certain that’s what I wanted coming back from my first maternity year.

It worked great, having an extra day with my little girl was fantastic and it felt like a perfect balance between workdays and days off. I found that in the evenings after nursery my daughter was shuttered and the best thing I could do is read her a book and put her to bed. So having long quality evenings together was not an option. An extra day off worked much better for us.

This only became clear once I actually tried it. And so I know other moms who prefer to have time working from home a few days a week and otherwise work five days. I also know moms who work three days a week and find that works better. Combining some half days with some other full days is another option. Having some idea of what you want to try and also being open to experimenting is what I would advise.

Pick up and drop off

This topic is something to discuss at home, especially if like us both parents have a long commute. We found that taking shifts works well and when one parent does drop off, another parent does pick up. We also found that our nursery allowed babysitting for staff, and so we had our favorite nursery worker helping with pick up when we both needed to stay late at work. This option is great and I would recommend building a similar relationship with someone at nursery if babysitting is allowed.

Making it pleasant

Workspace

One thing I am planning to do this time is to prepare my workspace at home and make it nice and attractive, I need to buy a desk and a monitor but also I will think about pictures and perhaps a plant to put on my desk. And a new coffee cup to enjoy quiet coffees at my home office, I want to enjoy my workspace and doing my work.

Wardrobe

Another thing is my work wardrobe. I love fashion and I love to dress up and so even working from home I will enjoy choosing outfits for the day and doing zoom calls in pretty summer dresses. I think my work wardrobe is going to become a bit more casual perhaps. But I will not retreat to wearing jeans and a t-shirt, I promise. In the post-pandemic world, and if you are looking for a confidence boost post-maternity, there are stylists that can help with shopping and choosing flattering outfits. It’s a service worth considering and investing, as it will make all the difference coming to the office after a year off and after a body transformation that pregnancy makes us go through!

Rachele Gonzaga is one of the stylists specialising in making women feel confident post maternity.

Preparing your mind

Preparing the mind often gets forgotten in the middle of practicalities and logistics but is so important. I like to use books and read to get my head thinking and to help my mind go outside of the maternity bubble. The books I read before were “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead“ and “The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have Children and a Career and Stay Sane(ish)“. And the book I am looking forward to reading this time is “THINK LIKE A CEO Act Like a Mom: The Pursuit of Work & Life Integration“. These books don’t necessarily have ready-made solutions for building a career and combining it with being a Mom, but they do help to understand some of the issues, anticipate what’s coming, and think about working moms’ lives in a new way.

It also helps to catch up with work colleagues to learn about what’s going on at work, and with other working moms to see how they are doing.

I hope you, my friends, find this helpful. Please leave a comment and share your thoughts on coming back from maternity leave.