7 MUST DOs For Productive Return From Maternity Leave And Successful Career As a Working Mum!
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Lovely mum!
It's been around 3 months that you've been at home, getting used to a new routine and a big change! The arrival of your little baby. Things are no longer the way they used to be for you and will never go back to the same! You are still tired and sleep-deprived, but something scarier is ticking around the corner… returning to work after a few months of maternity leave. Like… seriously, I still wonder why women get just 3 months of maternity leave in most countries, but I'd rather not start my arguments on this today…
Well, back to our topic, you are probably scared to death how to make this whole thing work? Being productive at work while you are tired and your body's clock has just gotten used to a more chilled routine; breastfeeding your baby during the day; being concentrated at work with no idea what is happening home with your baby? Know that you are not alone. Millions of working mums are going through this right now, and we all wish we had someone or a free resource out there to show us the way…
Today, I hope you'll discover new horizons to cope with a safe and stress-free return from maternity leave. So, what should you do?
- Talk to your husband, a close family member, someone you trust about how you feel and enlist their support. Do not hold these feelings for just yourself, at the expense of your mental health. The metabolic, physical, and mental experience that a mum’s body goes through giving birth is huge! This means your body will be in dire need of rest to regenerate. Unfortunately, as a new mum, you also have to deal with the frequent feeding needs of your baby every 2-3-4 hours. And there is also a lot of cleaning of baby’s stuff to do every day. Multiplying a deprived body that needs regeneration and limited chances to rest can lead to chaos. This is why you should not take this journey alone! Beyond how you feel, enlist the support of these people who you can rely on to support you in caring for your baby, starting from your husband or partner, a family member, a nanny to help you.
- Get baby used to coping in your absence. Introduce your baby to the bottle, 1 month prior to your return to work. Even if your baby is on exclusive breastfeeding, pumping milk and having someone else feed him with the bottle will help you prepare your baby to some independence and not rely on your presence to be fed. It is important that someone other than you does the bottle feeding, otherwise, your baby's brain associates you to his feeding.
- Get a good night sleep and limit night duties with baby. Go to bed almost immediately after your baby has gone to sleep, ideally, not in the same room with you, to teach your baby to sleep autonomously. Get daddy, nanny, or a family member to do night duty so you get some well-deserved uninterrupted sleep until morning.
- Talk to your manager and your employer. Discuss with your employer, possible options to make your return to work as manageable and productive as possible for everyone. Some options include:
- Ensuring you get nursing time. Labor law in many countries make a 1hour provision per day for working mums, known as nursing time until your baby is 1 or 2 years old. It is your right to work 1 hour less than usual because of all the baby care work at home
- Pumping milk at work - this requires having a closed room where you can have privacy to pump at lunch time (if you don't have a personal office space). You will have a hard time focusing on work when your boobs are engorged with breastmilk.
- Even better, negotiating work from home some days in the week. Start progressively with 1 day and prove to your manager that you produce good results still when you work from home, then progressively make it 2-3 days per week, and so forth.
- Become more productive at work. It is normal that your first days, weeks, if not months back at work feels a bit overwhelming with several emails to catch up on after a long time off, but you are a star (I hope you know it) and you will get back on top of things quickly. It normally takes 2-4 weeks in average to get back to being comfortable with the normal speed of work, so you cannot expect to do those average 50-60 hour work week yet. Just give yourself time and don’t beat yourself up.
- Limit the number of commitments you make. It's tempting to put your hand up or volunteer for a new activity from senior leadership, but this will not help you achieve the career growth you hope for if you end up messing up and not meeting your commitments. Actually, no commitments, period! Your team will understand
- Delegate, delegate, and delegate! Your team was on top of everything for several months while you were away. Do you think they will keep being on top of things? Of course! They will appreciate the trust you put in them and the growth opportunity that comes with delegation too!
- Track your time at work and limit distractions. There is a conspiracy going on for all professionals, to distract us from what is most important in our day-to-day jobs. These include emails, chats (Skype, Teams, Slack, Whatsapp and the list goes on), endless zoom calls, etc. Do your own time audit, prioritize what is absolutely most important in your day and get it done before 11 am. Set chunks of times for when you look at emails (I hope you don’t have those notifications pop up when a new email or message comes in). You will be amazed at how much more productive you will become.
- Take a good nap each day. You cannot suddenly let go of everything your body got used to while you were on leave. A good 30-mins nap helps you re-center and refocus your day and make your afternoons super productive.
- Hire and train a good nanny. For all of the above to work excellently, you need to feel reassured that someone is in charge at home and that your baby is well taken care of. This is the only way you can concentrate and be productive at work. If there is one thing you should start acting on right now, it is making sure you hire a very good nanny.
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