Hi,

My DH and I are TTC#1 this Jan 2009.

I am currently working FT, looking at having a year off from the birth of our child then returning to work in a part time capacity once the year is over.

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself seeing I'm not yet pregnant but I'm wanting to know other people's experiences etc?

I appreciate any feedback thanks!!!

It is very hard to set anything in stone as you don't know how the pregnancy, the labour etc will go. How your child will react to separation, how you will feel about going back to work! But in theory it sounds like a great plan. 12 months maternity leave and back to work part time, definitely!

Good luck with it.

It's exactly what I did.

Left DD1 with family when I was at work.

After DD2, I had 12 months off again, then back to work using preschool and childcare this time.

Then after DD3, dropped my hours even further.

So all you need now is to get your work to agree to part-time, make sure you can get childcare at the right time (mid year placements can be hard) and oh, yes, get pregnant

Good luck with it. I think p/t work is a lovely balance.

I did it twice. I fine for us. One (potential) problem (which we didnt have due to having Jan and March babies) is that it is more difficult to get child care in the middle of a year then at the begining. Therefore I found that my Jan baby started car at nearly 12 mths, but my March baby was 10.5 mths old (we had moved and I got a different job)

I actually have never gone back FT, my girls at 5 and 2.

1st year- I am taking the year off.
2nd year - DH is taking the year off. I will be back FT.
3rd, 4th & 5th year I will work FT, DH PT and PT day care until school age.

Worked well for us last time.

Thanks everyone for the fantastic feedback, great to hear everyone's opinion as I do not have many friends with children that work.

Good luck to everyone TTC!!!

I honestly think you won't know until you progress with your pregnancy/birth. I was exactly the same though and figured I would have 6 months off and then return to work part time.

Unfortunatley finances became tight and I gave up my job (shouldn't have done this!) after the birth of my daugher and started waitressing when she was 5 weeks old. The hours at the time were terrible for me as my partner doesn't get home from work till around 7pm. I would be finishing work at around 10-11pm and either picking up my daughter from MIL or making sure she was back at home.

I think I lasted about a month and a half before ringing my previous employer and asking for my job back. From there I went into 40hrs a week and our manager had left so I was left in charge. I kept saying that I didn't want to do it and it was to much but no-one listened! I ended up doing around 50hrs a week with my dd in child care this whole time.

In the end childcare and working just wasnt worth it but I couldnt afford to be a sahm. I told my area manager that I din't want to do my job anymore and I needed to go to 3 days a week, it was just to stressful.

I ended up doing 3 x 10hr days and still couldn;t handle it. By this time my daughter was 9 months old. I felt so damn guilty and each day was just a struggle.

I applied for nightfill work and got it instantly. I have been doing it for 3 months now and love it! I feel like a sahm! I feed my daughter her tea and then she goes to nan's for a play until dad picks her up, she has a play with him and is off to bed for the night. She doesn't even know I'm gone!

It still gets hard though, I miss having dinner with my fiance but this is the best thing for me. I had a huge struggle dealing with the fact that I am not some huge career women, but who cares, I'm a mum!

Long post here but I guess my point is just take it as it comes. Save as much money as you can and try not to stress about what the future will hold. Chances are whatever plans you have, it'll turn out totally opposite. But in saying that 12 months off and returning part time sounds brilliant!! Just depends how you are feeling and how your baby handles it.

Sorry for the huge post!

Thanks for the post Alliras Mum, 'take it as it comes' seems to be good advice. DH and I have a mortgage so we are paying off as much as we can before we are blessed with a little bundle of joy.

I thought I would take 6 months off and then return to work full time but once I fell pregnant and thinks were progressing along I started to feel different - more emotional about the whole decision, I decided I would take 12 months off & then maybe full time. The first few months of my maternity leave were bliss but then the months seemed to roll on and all I kept was thinking was oh no the time is going so quick and I am so attached to baby there is no way I could be apart from her! When the 12 months hit - reality set in and I decided I was only prepared to work 3 days a week. The first few weeks were hard being apart from the baby, wondering how she was settling into creche and also just getting into the mindset of working again and having to focus on the job at hand. As the months rolled on, things got better. I accepted I was back in the workforce & baby had adapted to the new routine.
Having said that I feel 3 days is plenty & feels like the right balance for me. I get to earn some money and interact with adults/customers and baby gets to interact with other kids & enjoy all these new activities at creche. On the 2 days I am home - we get to enjoy each others company & I try to fit in the washing/grocery shopping, run errands, swimming lesson. Although I had decided flat out that full time work was not for me - I also factored
in finances when I was considering part time work. I worked out that 2 days was not going to be enough of an income for us, 3 days seemed better but when I worked out 4 days that was no good because although I would earn more I would actually only be marginally better off because another day of creche would have cost too much.
You'll be surprised how easy it will be to decide as the time comes....

good luck!