Hi mums. Im wondering what age your kids were when you went back to work. I am a single mum with a 7month old. I dont have a career to go back to as i had just started it when i fell pregant and i am wanting to go back and start again but i am very nervous. My son was very sick from 4-7 weeks old and spent time in icu. Im concerned about having him around other kids that may have a cold or flu. I know it eventually has to happen. Just wondering other mums stories and what age their kids were.
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I went back right on the 4 month mark, as soon as my Centrelink payments ran out. I work 4 full days a week (8am - 4.30pm) but thankfully we don't pay for childcare as we have family who look after him. It is a massive struggle at first leaving them, but it gets easier.
Usually when he hits a milestone (i.e. got his first tooth or crawled) I bawled my eyes out going to work as I wanted to be there every minute of the experiences and it hit home. But we've been really lucky and he got his first tooth on a weekend, sat up on a weekend and also crawled for the first time on a Sunday! So we were able to see it all happen in front of us :)
You just do what you have to do
I went back from birth but I only worked a few hours a week and family cared for my son and I found expressing and giving him a bottle didn’t impact breastfeeding. So it worked well getting my hand in.
He went to daycare from two years old but if we hadn’t had family support it would have been much earlier.
Is there potential to ease back into it? Could you work part time? Study?
Normally I encourage single mums to get into the workforce cause that 8 year old change over can happen quickly and the longer you are out the harder it is BUT in your case you have plenty of time. Perhaps find out if you can afford a day of daycare a week to see how your child copes.
Can you hold off until he's had his 12 or even 18 month immunisations?
I feel like that may give you a little more comfort knowing he's as protected as possible from the really harmful stuff.
Whenever he starts, it's likely he'll be prone to picking up all the lurgies going around for a while so I personally would wait until he's at least 12 months if you can!
This is what i was thinking, waiting till then. I know he will catch bugs from other kids that cant be avoided im just so paranoid, from when he was new born and went into cardiac arrest. Just nice to hear another mother say the same.
First was 2 months and i quit because it was awful. Then at around 7 months i was ready but couldnt get a job. At 18 months I began fulltime study. Second was 10 months and went into fulltime daycare and it was just right for all of us, but I was fortunate I could wait until I was ready and it all went so smoothly.
I had a year off maternity leave both times before I headed back to work after my two but luckily we could afford for me to have that time off. I love that I was able to and both kids have been sick kids because we weren’t in childcare from an early age.
It’s personal. If you need to go back to work financially, you have to make it work. But if you can stay home, I would for as long as you can.
Mine were 10 weeks and 10 months, and I went straight back into full time work for both. Mind you I also have a 10.5 year age gap.
With my first, my hubby and I were very young, not earning much, in fact just enough to cover rent and food, nothing else. We were lucky we had family around us that took care of our son while we worked. It was a struggle and I felt so bad and guilty for leaving him so young but knew he was in good hands. After 18 months, he went into child care.
Fast forward to our daughter. We were both in better paying stable jobs and we were able to save enough money to cover the mortgage and some living expenses while I took time off. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I had with my daughter. Family helped again for the first 2 years, then she was in child care too.
Being around other children may also build up your childs immune system. Granted, you haven't said why they were in ICU, but thats what I found after both my kids entered the child care centre phase. They both rarely get sick now and they are 27 and 16.