No sure I can face going back to work! :(
Hi ladies
I am due to go back to work in April but really don't think I can face it! Don't get me wrong I used to love my job despite the daily battle I would face and the joy of bitchy staff. I had a great little team that worked well together. Since I've been on mat. leave however things have changed for the worse - my team of staff has changed and new members have completely changed how things are done and the atmosphere is awful. The staff hardly speak to each other and it is generally not a nice place to work any more. Not exactly what I want to hear faced with having to leave LO in a few months. I also have to go back for at least 6 weeks as otherwise I'd have to pay back all of my contractual maternity pay (some ??3500!) To top this off I work an hour (on a good day) away from home. Before going on mat. leave I was leaving at 7am and getting home at about 5/5.30pm and if I was having to drop LO off at a childminder/nursery my working day would only increase and my time with LO decrease. I hate the thought of being so far away from home should anything go wrong (it has taken up to 3 hours to get home on some occasions). My mum was going to look after LO as she is a chidminder but due to lack of work she has had to find another job so am also looking at finding alternative childcare which is likely to be much more expensive than we had originally planned for. Financially I will have to go back to work but all this aside I am finding the thought of a complete stranger bringing up my LO just unbearable at the moment. I know most other women must feel like this but it just tears me apart thinking about it - I just don't know what I'm going to do!!!!!!!!!
I am due to go back to work in April but really don't think I can face it! Don't get me wrong I used to love my job despite the daily battle I would face and the joy of bitchy staff. I had a great little team that worked well together. Since I've been on mat. leave however things have changed for the worse - my team of staff has changed and new members have completely changed how things are done and the atmosphere is awful. The staff hardly speak to each other and it is generally not a nice place to work any more. Not exactly what I want to hear faced with having to leave LO in a few months. I also have to go back for at least 6 weeks as otherwise I'd have to pay back all of my contractual maternity pay (some ??3500!) To top this off I work an hour (on a good day) away from home. Before going on mat. leave I was leaving at 7am and getting home at about 5/5.30pm and if I was having to drop LO off at a childminder/nursery my working day would only increase and my time with LO decrease. I hate the thought of being so far away from home should anything go wrong (it has taken up to 3 hours to get home on some occasions). My mum was going to look after LO as she is a chidminder but due to lack of work she has had to find another job so am also looking at finding alternative childcare which is likely to be much more expensive than we had originally planned for. Financially I will have to go back to work but all this aside I am finding the thought of a complete stranger bringing up my LO just unbearable at the moment. I know most other women must feel like this but it just tears me apart thinking about it - I just don't know what I'm going to do!!!!!!!!!
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Replies
I went back to work when ds was 6months old and had to use a nursery. It was awful until I got my head around it and nursery are great and look after him fabulously.
I have always enjoyed my job but just recently the atmosphere has changed here too and I keep being reminded of my lack of commitment (I won't come in early or work late due to I would rather be with my son!!) and they seem to be making me a scapegoat for everything at the moment!! I hate being here but have to work as my hubby has just been laid off yet again!!!
I don't have any solution for you apart from doing the lottery!!! it is an awful situation to be in and one of my friends told me I shouldn't have had children if I couldn't afford not to work but I don't see why I should miss out of the joys of being a mother just because I have to work
Hope things work out for you x
There have been changes in my team too including redundancies but I am not listening to the 'gossip' and will see how things are when I get there. I suggest you ignore the rumours and see how you feel when you get there.
I can't help with the financial aspect of childcare but if you set yourself a goal i.e. stick it out for the first 3 - 6 months at least you can 'see how things go' both at home and at work.
I think most new mums feel like this when they go back to work. At lot of my friends do and some of them are only doing 2 days a week, or even working from home. Afterall our lives have changed massively.
Keep your head up and hopefully things will settle down.
I'm so lucky that my mum is a childminder & takes care of Lily & she's only round the corner but I still find it so hard that I only see her 2 hours a day at the most.
I like my place of work & the people are lovely so that helps too.
I am going on mat leave again 1st April with 2nd & I feel so releived!!! Next January is going to be tough leaving them both though.
It really pisses me off when my pals moan about having to work 16 hours (they only have one child each, some of them in full time school anyway!) and i'll be doing 38 hours with two.
I just make sure the weekends really count & we have plenty of 'Lily time'.
It's crap isn't it? I said to be hubby that if a stranger had to look after Lily I would have got another job that meant I could work from home, I just couldn't have done it xxx
I was devastated when I had to go back to work. I didn't want to go back, I didn't want to leave LO and I was in tears every time I thought about it. I felt like he'd think I was abandoning him and that he would be distraught. I've been back 3 months now and I still find it really hard, but nowhere near as hard as I did when I first went back. It is a shock to the system but I think the separation was a lot harder for me than LO to be honest. I found him a good nursery that I felt confident about and he has settled in really well which helps the stress. I also realised once I was back at work that no-one can replace my role as his mother and to him no-one even comes close, even if I do have to work 4 days a week and leave him in the care of someone else.
Long term though I have decided to quit my job (office based) and retrain as a midwife! I start training in September and while it will still be long hours and hard work and i won't get to see anymore of lO, I will be away from him doing something I really want to do which makes it that little bit easier. In my head if I have to be a working mother (which financially I do really) then I want to be doing something I feel passionate about and not something that just brings the pennies in.
I hope the return to work isn't as bad as you think. Just take it a day at a time and keep talking about how you are feeling as bottling it up will just make it worse! I cried at my OH pretty much every night for the first month and a half when I went back, it didn't change the situation but did make me feel better! xx