The month I return to work

I am very worried I may burst into tears as I write this post.

This month I go back to work.  On the 26th August I shall be returning to my full time paid job.

I am really dreading it.

I love my job though! It is very challenging at times but I get to meet such a variety of people and travel along a difficult journey with them at times. 

I am going to miss my baby so much.

It also makes me sad that someone else is probably going to see all his firsts before us now. 

Baby M will be going to nursery 4 days a week.  We don't have family nearby so that option is out.  We looked and visited childminders but we got a really good feeling from the nursery he is going to.  I think that nursery will give him the opportunity to socialise with other children and I think he will learn so much.

I still don't want to leave him there though.

I have been thinking a lot lately about whether I could be a stay at home mum.  We couldn't afford to lose my wage as I am the bigger wage earner so I would have to be a work at home mum.  With my skills though what job would that be??  I would love to be a work at home mum but I don't know what I would do.

I have to return to work for 3 months due to my maternity pay.  Maybe after those 3 months I will feel different, maybe things are worse in my head than they will be.  My work have been great and agreed to my family friendly hours request which is such a relief.


How did other mums find going back to work?  Are you a work at home mum?  Are you a stay at home mum?

Finding things to keep us busy

With Mr M going back to work I found last week a little different from what we had become used to

Baby M was lucky that he had both of us around from him being born and we could do lots of family things together.  I am so pleased that Mr M is feeling better and is now back at work but it's different.

Last week I took Baby M to swimming but all the other mornings Mr M was at work during his phased return Baby M just had his bottles, we played a little then he napped.  Then Mr M was home.  By the end of the week I was feeling a little lonely and lost.

I decided to be proactive and do something about this.

I regularly try to meet up with friends but with everyone I know at work I don't see them as often as I wold like.  One of my friends has a little girl who is 2, we went to a play barn last week and whilst Baby M is too little to really enjoy anything it looked like somewhere I will definitely take him once he's older.

I have also looked into more groups I can go to.  I have discovered 3 new groups, on top of swimming, that aren't far from the house and we can go to.  That will leave us 3 days where we don't have anything on, 1 of them will be a Sunday so that will be family time, the other 2 will be during the week so Baby M & I can catch up with friends and have bonding time.  I have also looked up games we can play that will encourage his development.  As a first time mum I sometimes worry I'm not doing things right and I'm missing things that can help Baby M develop.  (Crazy I know!! It's the "wanting to do the best" part of me)

I want to enjoy the time I have left on maternity leave - everyone keeps asking me when I am going back to work- really this is the last thing I want to think about!!

I will let you know how our new plans go!

Maternity Leave - the financial worries

My maternity leave started today, I am now off work for 9 months.  I'm not due back to work until mid August 2014!  When you say it out loud it sounds like a long time but I don't expect it to be a holiday, bump will keep me very busy I'm sure.  The bad part of maternity leave is maternity pay

When we found out we were pregnant I had just been offered a new job, luckily in the same trust I was already working for so my maternity leave allowance wasn't effected.  I have to say I was dreading telling my new boss I was pregnant.  We then had to think about how much time I was going to take off work, after a long hard think we decided it would be best if I took 9 months, as much as I would have loved to have taken a year we just couldn't afford it.

I decided to spread my maternity pay evenly over the 9 months, that way we would know (roughly) how much we would be getting each month.  Unfortunately my first proper months maternity pay is the worst, what happens in Decemeber?!? Yep Christmas!  There was no way we could pay all our bills and buy people Christmas presents like we have done in the past so we had to tell people we wouldn't be buying presents this year.  We explained that we don't expect people to buy us any either and that this would only be for this year.  Everyone was understanding and we have already started receiving presents from people even when we told them they didn't need to buy us anything.  For our Christmas and New Year meals we are only going to buy basics, every year we go mad and buy enough food to feed the whole street.  There is no need and this year we are being good and only buying essentials, since it will only be the 2 of us (plus bump hopefully) there is no need to have an extravagant meal.

We have also been looking around on how we can save money on our household bills.  Sky have reduced our bill for 9 months after we said we were going to leave.  Our electricity and gas is the best deal we could find anyway so we haven't changed that.  We now do our weekly shop at Aldi, we have halved our weekly shopping bill!! Whilst I have often been a bit of a food snob you can't tell the difference from the other main brands and its such a good price!

My biggest expense in my car, although I am planning on walking as many places as I can with bump once he arrives so this will cut down on my petrol use.  We have also told friends and family who live in Scotland and those down south that we won't be visiting them for a while and have asked that they come to us instead.  Again everyone has been understanding.  Not only will this save us petrol money but the thought of a 5 hour journey with a newborn fills me with dread!

I receive Martin Lewis emails every week so check them for ways we can save money.  We put the heating on at the last possible moment (we layered up on jumpers for a while).  When we were thinking about getting pregnant we both started saving in an ISA each so we have some savings should we need to use them but we also have to think about childcare costs, etc.  We are also going to start putting money in a savings account for bump but this will have to wait until I am back to work earning a full time wage again.

People manage every day and we will manage however having a newborn baby can be a stressful time, we don't want to have to worry about paying our bills on top of that, we want to spend our time and energy on enjoying our time with bump.