Congratulations! You’ve had a lovely baby, well done.
Now, you’ve had quite enough time off work looking after the baby, so if you could get on with the business of going back to work on top of looking after the baby, asap, that’d be great…
If you’re heading back to work after maternity leave, I’ve been there! Here are my top tips for getting prepared:
- Set expectations and boundaries early
Start as you mean to go on with your manager and your colleagues. If you’re going to be unavailable on Fridays because you are doing childcare, make sure you actually are unavailable on Fridays. As soon as you start ‘just having a quick check’ of emails, you will get dragged into work outside of your work time.
Make sure your work calendar clearly shows when you’re working and not working as well, so that people have no excuse for booking meetings outside your working hours.
- Be prepared for ups and downs
As you settle into your new routine, some days you will feel absolutely winning; the childcare transition will go smoothly, you’ll kick ass in all your meetings, and even manage to drink a hot cup of tea.
BUT… be prepared for everything to be thrown out of the window in an instant when you have to stay home and rearrange twenty meetings because your bub has a lurgy. This will happen, take each day at a time.
- Don’t expect everything to be the same as when you left
No matter how long you’ve had on maternity leave, it’s highly likely that there will have been some changes at work since you were last there on the reg. This might include changes to structure, people, processes, maybe even location. Try to be open to the changes and treat it a little bit like a new job – you’ll have new people to meet and learn how to work with, and new things to learn how to do.
If you go in expecting to just slot right back in where you left off, you may be in for a bit of a shock.
- Remember you are also not the same as when you left
Since you last went to work, you have birthed an actual human baby. This is a pretty major life changing event, and whether you realise it or not, you are still getting to know your new identity as a mother. Now, going back to work, you’re layering on to that another new identity as a working mother – and likely you haven’t figured out exactly what that looks like yet.
That’s ok – you’re in the process of finding out. Don’t worry if things feel different to you about work than they did before, this is totally normal and part of building your new identity.
- Write everything down
If you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have ‘baby brain’ – I salute you. If you’re like everyone else after having a baby and can’t remember if you’ve even brushed your teeth today, try getting into the habit of writing down as much as you can.
Set up reminders on your phone, write to-do lists, jot down the shopping etc. The more you can write down to help yourself remember later, the more you will free up your brain to concentrate on bigger things.
- Cut yourself some slack
Going back to work after maternity leave is tiring. You might still be doing night feeds. You might still be breastfeeding and literally giving your physical being to nourish your child. So, if you do forget something, or a meeting doesn’t go as well as you’d hoped, or you don’t have the energy to go the extra mile like you used to, be kind to yourself, it can be a very exhausting time.
- Try not to let the mum-guilt get you
Ahh mum-guilt. Hands up if you can relate? My son suffered from separation anxiety so dropping him off at nursery was a regular meltdown hell just before I went to work. After the staff had prised him from me, I used to sit in the car park for a bit genuinely considering just quitting work.
Except; we couldn’t afford to do that, and I actually enjoy my job, and he is lucky enough to have a lovely life where he is loved and safe and cared for all the time. I had to remind myself of these things out loud to stave off the mum-guilt, but it did help. If you’re feeling the guilt, remind yourself that you are a great mum (out loud) because you are.
- Someone will tell you they’re tired and you’ll want to punch them in the face
One morning, when you’ve been up five times the previous night with an irritable teething monster in your child’s bedroom and you feel jet lagged, someone with no children will casually do a big yawn and tell you how tired they are. It will happen. You will want to punch them in the face.
Consider that they probably don’t know you’ve been up five times. They may also have a genuine reason for being tired. Also – punching colleagues is usually frowned upon to say the least. (Plus, I bet you did it before you had kids…)
Aside from that, enjoy having hot drinks while they’re still actually hot, and going to the toilet by yourself. Those were some of the highlights for me!
Did you find these tips helpful? Do you have any other back to work tips? Let me know in the comments.
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Thanks for reading!
Juggle Struggle blog 