Easing back into work after a maternity break
Going back to work after maternity leave is often emotional: the pull between leaving your child and going back to a job you left months ago is exhausting.
What is the ideal maternity leave? The answer to this question differs so much from one person to another, but also it can be so hard to predict. Usually you need to announce how long you want to stay at home with your child beforehand, while you are still pregnant and don’t know how life with a child will look like.
Here in Switzerland, we have 14 weeks of maternity leave. This is a relatively short period of time, you’ve just gotten out of the fourth trimester, you may just have found some kind of routine between sleep and feeding, your little one may finally have overcome any colics or evening screaming and you are still recovering from birth. Many mothers take additional unpaid leave to stay at home with their child and this can vary from a couple of weeks to a longer break. But how will you know what is right for you and when is the right moment to go back to work?
From my personal experience, I think it’s a very difficult question to answer, especially if you need to plan it all before the baby is born. With my first son, I initially planned 6 months off after the birth. However, once he was born, I realised that I did not want to go back to the job that I was in, because I was unhappy for various reasons. I felt that if my child was looked after by another person, then it would need to be so I could do something that I really enjoyed - and that was not the case! I also wanted to spend some more time with my son and have the flexibility of travelling to Luxembourg to spend a bit more time with my parents and my friends back home.
So when my baby was three months old, I decided to quit my job and stay at home with him for a bit longer. The aim was around a year and in the end, I was lucky to get a job offer starting just before he turned one. This meant that we started nursery at 11 months and could really take the time to get him adjusted in this new environment. He is a very curious kid and though he was not walking yet, he was crawling super fast and loved exploring, so the adjustement period went really well. For me, the timing was perfect to go back to work because I felt that after a year at home with my baby, I was ready to focus more on myself again, meet up with friends from time to time, get back to regular exercise, etc. Unfortunately for me, the pandemic hit just 2 weeks after I started work and everything changed, but that’s a whole other story!
With my second baby, I decided to take 7 months off work. I knew that I would only go back to work for a couple of months because it was a fixed term contract, I only worked 30% and though I did not want my son to go to nursery before 11 months (just like his brother), it felt manageable for a couple of months. My husband is home one day a week with the kids so we just had to organise another half day for the first 3 months when I was back at work. I worked from home a lot especially at the beginning, as I was still breastfeeding and it made it easier.
It all felt well-planned and easy: I had already gone back to work after having a child, it was a job I liked and was familiar with, we had a solid plan for childcare and our son was with people that really loved him and could give him their full attention while I was working. However, maybe because I assumed it would be easy, returning to work this time round was not. I felt stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted. I had to deal with several changes at my work place and in my work tasks that had happened in the months when I had been gone. I was still breastfeeding at that time, so the first couple of weeks, I mostly worked from home, but that also meant that I did not get to see my colleagues, have a coffee break together or go out for lunch.
In hindsight, if I hadn’t known that I’d only go back for 7 months because of a fixed-term contract, I probably would have quit relatively soon after returning to work. I had a supportive boss and lovely colleagues, yet some internal changes made that the work I was doing was not very interesting anymore to me. At the point of my life that I was in, I desperately needed some time for myself - and that could be at work - to do something that I enjoyed, and unfortunately, my job did not offer that to me at that moment. I pushed through the seven months, took all the leave I still had accumulated and was really happy when my contract was finally over.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have taken more time to reflect during my second pregnancy on what it was that I really wanted and how we could make this work as a family. Life felt very stressful being pregnany with a toddler - and once the baby was born, the lack of sleep just overwhelmed me so quickly that I didn’t really have the time or energy to reflect any further. It would definitely have saved us some stressful moments and long discussions as a family if we’d had taken some time to think this through before the baby arrived. But then again, in hindsight you’re always a bit wiser :).
If you’re unsure if and when to return to work, try reflecting on these questions for some clarity. Take a moment of calm, a pen and a notebook and write down what comes to your mind when reading these different prompts.
Why am I going back to work? What other options do I have and how do I feel about these?
If money was not an issue, what would be the best possible scenario for myself and my family? What can I do that is manageable in my current situation in order to move a step closer to this?
What do I need in order to make the transition back to work smooth and find a balance between my job, my family, my partner, my needs?
What am I looking forward to when I’m back at work? What will I miss?
What am I choosing not to look at at this point and how is it relevant?
If you’d like to dive into this topic further, I offer a Back to Work Coaching package for mothers which can also be booked after you’ve returned to work if you feel unhappy about the situation. Alternatively, a 90-minutes deep dive session might help you explore the topic a bit further and find some clarity. Book a free discovery call to learn more about myself and how I can support you.