Returning to Work After Pregnancy

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Once you decide to have a child, the next most difficult decision you make is likely to be about returning to work. Many mothers don't have a choice about returning to work since economic necessity often demands it. Once you decide to have a child, the next most difficult decision you make is likely to be about returning to work. Many mothers don't have a choice about returning to work since economic necessity often demands it. Those who do have a choice may be torn between seeking fulltime and part-time employment, or may wonder how long to wait before going back to work.

Whatever the circumstances, try to plan as far ahead as possible. If you need to return to work soon after the baby is born, start planning during your pregnancy. Adjusting to dual roles as mother or father and working parent takes time. And there will never seem to be enough time to accomplish everything you plan. In their book The Woman Who Works, the Parent Who Cares, Sirgay Sanger, M.D., and John Kelly define role satisfaction as the degree of happiness or unhappiness a woman feels about being a working mother. Their studies revealed that the dissatisfaction some women felt was not due to ambivalence or conflict about work or motherhood. Rather, it was because these women had not yet learned how to organize their support system or to structure their time more effectively.

Thinking through the following issues may help you accomplish the back-to-work transition with more ease and less stress.

  Finding Support

  Managing Your Time

  Selecting Child Care

  Deciding When to Go Back to Work

  Making Time for Yourself


Finding Support

During pregnancy, start thinking about the support systems that would be available if or when you return to work.

? If you're part of a two-parent family, make sure your partner supports your decision to return to work. Discuss the pressures of each parent's job and how you will deal with those stresses.
? If you're a single parent, you'll need to seek out other adults who can give you reassurance and comfort. Your child will also need other adults to help provide a sense of family and to serve as alternate sources of comfort. This support system will benefit you and your child in many ways throughout childhood, not just on matters related to work.
? Get support from your employer. Your supervisor has to recognise that no matter how much you like your work and are considered valuable, your child is now your first priority. Talk to your employer to review how the workplace can accommodate your new role. Investigate flexible work schedules and your company's policies on sick leave, family leave and holidays.
? Find support to help you continue breastfeeding once you're back on the job. Even though this may seem like one more job to do, you may find great satisfaction in providing your baby with the best possible nutrition. It is also very satisfying to come home after work and have this special time with your baby as you feed her. Find out if there is a private place at work to pump your breast milk and a place for storage. Consider going home at lunchtime to feed if it is possible.Investigate support from grandparents, other relatives, or friends nearby who can help at short notice, especially when the baby is ill.

Managing Your Time

Even when support is there and everyone's intentions are good, however, a two-career family or a single-parent family has to deal with practical problems that do not arise in other families. On a daily basis both parents may feel so divided between family and career obligations that they have little time for a social life or for each other. Both should cooperate on household and child-care responsibilities so that one will not end up doing most of the work and being resentful about it. Single parents not only have to do all the daily tasks involved in raising the child and maintaining the household, but most often they alone have to stay home or make alternative arrangements when the baby is ill.

The following are just a few suggestions for using your time more effectively:
? Plan ahead for meals, and simplify those meals. Make several batches of a main course and freeze in meal-size portions.
? To save time in the morning, choose clothes for yourself and the baby the night before.
? Plan the weeks' activities with regard to transportation. Who will pick up the baby from child care/nursery? Plan for additional child care or babysitters who may be needed during the week.
? Prioritise household chores. Maybe everything you used to do before having a child doesn't need to be done quite as often. Share household chores and errands with your partner, and as children get older include them in simple chores. If everyone in the working family helps out, then time together is increased and enriched.
? Accept offers of help. Ask relatives and friends to do specific tasks for you, and explore ways that you can share jobs such as shopping and transportation.
? Plan some time each day to spend with your child when he gets your undivided attention?when you're not thinking about work, the laundry, or dinner. This should be in addition to time spent in routines such as bathing and feeding. Even a young infant can sense when his parent is distracted and not really tuned in to his needs or cues. Most important, stay flexible and keep a sense of humour; otherwise you'll never get through the emergencies or stresses.

Selecting Child Care

Working parents have concerns about loss of time with their child, missing important milestones, separation issues, and ambivalence about their roles. Difficulty in separating from your baby may be the biggest hurdle to overcome. Parents may need the baby more than they feel the baby needs them. Parents may also feel jealous of their caregiver. You need to prepare for these feelings, which are normal responses, and learn how to separate your own needs from concerns about your child's welfare.

A primary concern for parents working outside the home is the availability of high quality, reliable, and affordable child care for their children. Use this list to guide you in choosing the best situation for you and your child.
? Take a lot of time in selecting your child care.
? Make several visits at different times.
? Ask questions of the caregivers and check references.
? Stay involved with the nursery staff and ask for feedback daily about your baby?her routines, any new milestones achieved, her ups and downs, etc. Most everyone agrees that the first few years of life are very important in shaping a child's personality, but this does not mean that parents are the only ones able to do the shaping. A child's world is enriched if it is filed with loving, sensitive care providers. An ideal child care setting would make parents' needs as important as the child's.

Deciding When to Go Back to Work

If you have a choice about when to return to work, ideally it would be after the first or second year of life. During the second and third years a child can handle playmates or a group situation more easily than during infancy. If you have to return to work before the end of the first year, the ideal situation would be for each parent to work part-time or to have a provider come into the home. This is important for the parent's development as well as the child's.

If staying home for a year is not possible, try to stay home at least three or four months so parent-child attachments are firmly established and care patterns set. Attachment is the term used to describe the special bond that develops between a parent and his/her child. Attachment is what makes a child feel loved and secure. When a child is 3 months old, most parents and babies have formed a secure relationship. The 3-month-old infant is ready for new experiences and for new levels of interaction in which he can take some control and is more likely able to accept a substitute caregiver. Also, by 4 months most babies are sleeping slightly longer stretches at night, most maternal postpartum fatigue and blues have resolved, and fussy periods that are so common the first three months have usually lessened.

By the time a baby is 3 or 4 months old, most mothers also feel more secure in their parenting abilities. They know the smile the infant gives is for them! What babies give to parents is just as important as what parents give to their babies.

Before you go back to work, take time to prepare yourself and the family for this change. Start work part-time if possible. Try to time your return to work so that stress is minimal. Your return should, if at all possible, not coincide with another major family change, such as moving or changing schools, or a personal crisis, such as an illness or death in the family.

Making Time for Yourself

Even with this daunting list of things to do now, you still have to think of your own needs as well as those of your partner and your child. You won't be able to do a good job at home or at work if you don't have some time for yourself, even if it's just 10 minutes a day for a warm bath. While you're at work, try to take some breaks?maybe slow your pace a bit so you can be ready for the demands at home when you get there. When you're stressed, try to work out that tension before you get home.

Don't forget about the other important relationships you have. In two-parent families, you have to make time for your relationship?whatever is realistic for your situation. Single parents have to work even harder to cultivate relationships with others, but doing so is crucial for maintaining a healthy emotional life.

Finally, have realistic expectations of yourself and your child?you are one person and there are only 24 hours in each day. Try not to compare yourself with other mums you see who seem to accomplish even more than you do. Every child is different and special. Try not to compare her with your niece who slept through the night at 2 weeks of age or your best friend's son who is rarely fussy. Just do the best job you can and take the time to enjoy your child each and every day. And don't forget those hugs and kisses, even when you're exhausted; they will give you strength.
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• Working parent



• Article Tags:
• return to work
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• child care