Baby Care

If you’re like most other new parents you’ll likely have little choice about whether or not you return to work after your baby is born. Figures show that more than 25 percent of mums and 90 percent of dads with babies younger than 12 months of age work. And the first weeks after you return to work can be traumatic as you cope with the emotional fallout of leaving your baby in someone else’s care and with the exhaustion of disturbed nights – after all, your baby doesn’t know you need to get up for work in the morning!

You’ll feel guilty about these things, more so if you love your job and don’t want to give it up. So how can you best ease the transition and get the best of both worlds as a working mum?

• Ease back in if you can

See if you can negotiate part-time hours in the first few weeks after you return to work, or perhaps even work from home a couple of days a week. This helps you to get used to the idea and to the new system and will also help your baby get used to new childcare arrangements, be it a nanny, childminder, a relative or into daycare, as it means she won’t be spending all day without you. At the very least, even being able to get to work and hour later and leave an hour earlier will help you and shouldn’t cut too much into your productivity. In fact, because you’ll feel more relaxed you might get more work done in your reduced hours. Talk to your boss before you go back about reducing your hours on a trial period, say for the first month. After you’ve eased back into work and you and your baby are getting used to the new arrangements you can start to work a full day again.

• Organise your mornings

Mornings will need to run like clockwork and parental teamwork is essential to achieve this. Start preparing the week before you return to work so you can work out any kinks before day one, and arrange for your baby to go to her carer or daycare for a couple of hours in the morning that week so you can get your mind around what exactly you need to do in order to leave on time. It’s also essential to get used to being apart from her and saying goodbye. Your routine needs to be as simple as possible so pare it down by leaving out anything you can possibly do later, such as putting on your make-up – take five minutes to do it at your place of employment if you can. Even sorting out what you are going to wear the night before can save you valuable time and probably stress in the mornings.

• Share the care

If you’ve been at home for some time with your baby you may have both fallen into the habit of doing most of the household chores yourself simply because you’re at home to do them. Be prepared to have to ask your partner to pick up his share again once you return to work – it might not be something that occurs to him automatically! He needs to step in with dropping off and picking up your baby from her carer. If it looks like it’s going to be difficult to keep up with chores while you both are working outside the home, look into the possibility of hiring someone to assist – even if it’s just to do laundry and change the beds, it will help make things easier all round and hopefully stop any tensions that may develop between you and your partner.

• Be smart with your time

Set your alarm clock 15 minutes earlier than you need in order to spend some time with your baby before you leave for work and be sure to carve out some time for her in the evenings too. And keep up with the friends you made while you were at home with your baby – they can be a great emotional support for you and if any of them are stay-at-home mums they may also be a good source of practical help if there is a problem and your baby needs to be picked up early from nursery, or if her nanny is unwell and can’t look after her.

There are some good aspects to going back to work, obviously having a wage again is going to be important, but many gurgle mums report that having a lunch break in the middle of the day where they have a whole hour to themselves can be really valuable; if it’s for a quick shop or running errands, not having your baby with you will make things quicker and easier. It can also be handy if you have a gym membership and can scoot off for a quick work out during your lunch hour – perfect to help regain your pre-pregnancy figure and help you feel good about yourself.

• Stay alert at work

You’ll miss your baby terribly at first but if you can, try to keep your emotions in check and separate home and work issues. Your boss needs to know she can rely on you to be 100 percent at the office, so if you feel a few tears coming on, take yourself off to the bathroom for a few moments! And think about how you do things at work too – if you’ve always been a micro-manager it might be time to step back and delegate more jobs to ease some of the pressure.

• If you are breastfeeding…

Breast milk is best for babies and experts recommend you breastfeed for at least the first 12 months of your baby’s life. However this can be tricky if you’re working outside the home. In order to continue breastfeeding while working, you’ll need to get into the habit of expressing breast milk at work if you can – either in your office, if you have one, or in a room set aside for the purpose. You’ll also need a small refrigerator to store your breast milk. Start pumping a month or so before you return, so you’ll have a supply already stored, and if your baby has never fed from a bottle, get her used to doing so (this might be easier if your partner tries it first – if you do it, your baby may refuse and want to nurse instead). Once you’re at work you’ll need to take two or three 10-15 minute breaks during the day in order to keep up your milk supply. If your boss is dubious, let her know you can schedule one of these in your lunch hour and are happy to substitute the others for refreshment breaks or screen breaks if you use a computer. If you have work colleagues who smoke you might also want to point out that the time you take to pump milk is likely equal to the time they take for cigarette breaks!

• And finally…

There are some things which are guaranteed: you will miss your baby like crazy when you first go back to work and you will feel incredibly guilty for having to leave her. This feeling won’t last forever and whilst you’ll always feel a little guilt, you will get used to being back at work and away from your baby. The important thing is that you are both happy. Seeing your little one enjoying daycare and you starting to enjoy your job again is a wonderful feeling. Many employers love to employ parents because they are hard workers, excellent at multi tasking and rarely turn up to work with a hangover! Even if you work part-time or leave earlier than your colleagues you’ll probably work just as hard to get your work done on time.

• Quality time

Working parents also report that the time they do spend with their children is always good quality time. Once you do get home from work, make sure you spend all the time with your child, doing the bedtime routine and reading bedtime stories together. Make sure you tell your baby that you can’t wait to get home from work and see her every night. Also make sure you put aside housework until she is in bed. Stay-at-home mums probably have to do a great deal of housework whilst looking after the children, but your luxury is that you can get home and dedicate the next few hours to your baby and think about housework later. It is a great feeling to walk in to the house after a busy day and see your child’s happy face beaming at you, so pleased to see you. It’s not only good for you to go back to work, but also as a good role model for your children. As long as you get the balance right and get to spend quality time with your baby before and after work, you’ll shock yourself by actually enjoying being back at work.

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