All in a day’s work

The wonderful Cat from Yellow Days is returning to work this week, having been off on maternity leave since last November.  Understandably she is a little nervous but, having known her for over twenty years now, there is really no need as she is entirely capable, competent and can organise stationary like no other…although I don’t think that is really what they pay her for.  That she does purely for the joy of it!

Anyway, she has asked us all to link up and share a little of our own experiences of work and motherhood.

Work had a massive impact on how I approached the first few months with W.  Being self-employed my maternity leave was always going to be short and sweet as it was not financially viable to be away for long.  I worked pretty much right up until the end of my pregnancy and planned to return after four months.  I also had an extremely important conference, away from home, which I was expected to attend seven weeks after giving birth.

For me, this probably influenced my approach to feeding W the most.  I wanted to breast-feed initially but knew that he would need to be able to bottle-feed well by seven weeks as I was not going to be around for a day.  I have to say that the advice I received regarding mixed-feeding was, I feel, horrendous.

I attended a breast-feeding class prior to giving birth where we were encouraged to discuss our options and seek advice from a number of midwives.  There we were, all sat in a circle nervously glancing at each other wondering who would speak first.  It wasn’t me.  Once we had gone through the various topics of best ways to hold your baby, feeding in public, expressing and storing milk I eventually plucked up the courage to ask what I really needed to know.  What is the best time to introduce a bottle if you want to mix-feed. Ideally I wanted to still breast-feed when I could i.e. first and last feeds of the day, but needed W to accept a bottle during the day.

You would think I had suggested selling my baby to the highest bidder.  There was an audible intake of breath before one of the midwives answered.  She felt that there was NO good time to do this as it would lead to nipple-confusion, resulting in W only being able to bottle-feed and we didn’t want that did we! I promptly shut-up and dared not ask anything else.

I later talked this over with the lovely Cat from Yellow Days herself who gave me actually the best advice of all.  Do whatever you need to do because, at the end of the day, most babies like to suck.  Pretty much anything.  She was right.  I began introducing a bottle at four weeks, gradually switching another feed from breast to bottle with no problems at all every few days until he was fully bottle fed  by the time of my conference.

Returning to work at four months I had mixed emotions about.  As it drew closer I began to worry a little about how W would get on at nursery.  How I would feel being away from him.  However, the week before I was due to start some lovely friends came over to visit and take me for lunch.  They were friends I have known for years but neither had children.  Off we popped to a local bar with W sleeping peacefully in his pram.  Within half an hour I began to panic as I suddenly realised I had absolutely nothing to say to them.  And I love these girls.  But try as I might all I could think of was nappies, sleep or lack-of it, poo and feeding.  And to listen to me rave on about any of the above I figured was pretty much equivalent to having to politely look through someone else’s holiday photos.

I had nothing to say.

I then realised.  I needed to go back to work.

I am lucky enough that I only work two to three days a week.  The first morning I leave each week I always do feel a twinge of sadness leaving W, but by day two I am happily back in the swing of things.  I also now find that then, after a few days at home, I am ready to go back to work.  Interacting with other adults and discussing things other than childcare I find is good for my sanity.  It helps me to appreciate and enjoy more the time I have at home with W but also gives me back a little of, well, me really.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mum and a wife, and my time at home with my family is precious to me.  But motherhood can occasionally for some, like me, also feel a bit isolating and my work helps to counteract that.

I also get to play with one of these a lot…

I guess we are all different but for me a balance of work and family life is important. I am lucky in that it is possible for me to have that.  I should remember that more.

How about you?  What is your experience of work and motherhood?

To see how Cat is getting on with her first week back at work, and to join in this blog-hop simply linky up via the magic button above which will transport you to the wonderful Yellow Days.