Working from home with a new born??

[Shiny95]

This is my first baby and i have no idea what to expect once it's born. I'd like to do some work from home if possible once the baby is born but i don't know how many hours i should try and comit to with my employer and how soon after the baby is born.

Any suggestions or experience you can share with me?

[A&Omummy]

This is my first baby and i have no idea what to expect once it's born. I'd like to do some work from home if possible once the baby is born but i don't know how many hours i should try and comit to with my employer and how soon after the baby is born.

Any suggestions or experience you can share with me?


Hi there.

Well I went back to work when bub was 3 months. I work in CC so she was able to come with me. She is in the babies room and I am upstairs in Juniour kindy room. Its great cause I am able to continue to b/f and work. She is now 5 months and loves kindy. I can see her when ever I want but it's good cause I dont have her all day. I do 22 hrs. Some times it's hard as she is still waking through the night and next day I am a wee bit tired at times. But the hrs are great still get lots of time at home with her. I do 4 days.

Well good luck with things. Oh yeah from my personal experience I found it took me around 2 1/2 months for her to settle into a rountine. But once they have got into a routine things are so much easier. You kind of know what your day will be like and can plan the day around feeds and sleeps. Well not always if ya know what I mean.:laughing:

Diana

[xkwzit]

Hi
I thought I'd be able to come back to work part time when DD1 was 3 months old. I thought it would be easy to work a 6 hour day from home.

:laughing: I really don't know what planet I was on:laughing:

It took me 3 months before we had BF sorted out and another 4 month before I got around to doing all the stuff I'd put off while pg. DD1 didn't sleep more than 40 minutes at a stretch during the day until she was 8 months old.

I'm not saying that this will be you, but my advice would be to be flexible. I had told my employer I would be back part time at 6 months (I was only a month late :D ). I would formally advise longer leave and less hours than you think you can handle, that way if you can deliver more, it should be a pleasant surprise, not an unpleasant one that also stresses you.

Cheers

[draught]

The other thing to think about when planning to work from home is that babies are a full time job on their own, so any hours that you plan to work you will need to have someone else there to watch the baby for you. Some sleep a lot......but many don't. There are a range of in home carers you can employ - from family through to nannies, but please don't think that you can do both at the same time - as both motherhood and work will suffer and therefore so will you.

Public service employers are not allowed to let you work from home unless you have a carer for your child, in order to cover them for all sorts of OH&S issues - and to ensure that they get the work they are paying for. Planning to do it in the evening when your partner is home often doesn't work either - because babies in the first few months love to work on their "witching hour" techniques well into the evening, and because you are often tired after a full day looking after a baby who may have decided that this was the day to not sleep, or eat, or do anything you want it to do.

(don't get me wrong - lots of baby stuff is delightful, but if you are planning an early return to work and doing it from home you need to be aware of the whole picture!)

[~Emmylou~]

I can't imagine trying to work from home with a newborn. The fact that you won't be able to sleep longer than a few hours at a time for at least two months alone is enough to scare me LOL.
Not trying to sound like a downer, but it will be really hard unless you have lots of support and preferably someone to take care of baby while you're working.
Life with a baby is totally different from one day to the next and totally unpredictable. You never know when they're going to send everything to hell!
I think it would be best to start off really, really slow and as someone else said, try to build as much flexibility into the arrangement as possible. I wouldn't even consider starting anything before the baby is three months old and hopefully sleeping longer at night (if you're lucky :fingerscrossed: )

[Sarie]

We bought a shop just before DS1 came along and DH was offered a great job at the same time, so I started full time work with a two week old baby. I took him with me every day as I didn't believe in child care and it was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. He stayed in the shop every day with me, most days we were there for nearly 12 hours and we worked weekends as well. As soon as we found out I was pregnant with DS2 we put the shop on the market.

[Shiny95]

Hmmm, ok, i had a feeling i was being a bit unrealistic. Thank you for your responses. As mentioned, i think flexibility is the key and luckily my boss is quite flexible. I shall take your advice i think, not promise too much and hopefully be able to over deliver. I know i won't want to return to work after bubs comes along, unfortunately that wont put food on the table though.

[kerrin]

DD was 8 weeks old when work approached me about helping them on a major project from home. It is hard, but I am learning how to work with DD asleep on my lap and typing with one hand. The hours I have had to work are very low at the moment and I don't have any scary deadlines (this will change as the ball gets rolling).

Because I know the project so well I think both work and the client (I am a graphic designer) would prefer me to take a little longer than have someone new try to get their head around the job.

I am also hoping that I can prove to my boss that I can be just as effective working from home and thereby avoid the whole childcare issue.

Unfortunately for the other designers at work, they haven't got anyone to replace me while I am on maternity leave so 4 people are doing the work of 5 - they look more exhausted than me!!!!!:D