Take all the time you can w your baby. You can’t get that time back.

Anonymous wrote:Go with daycare. Nannies are overrated.

+1. Same are for half the price.

Will you be able to maintain your part time hours as part time or will there be hours creep ( will require you to work longer than agreed time in order to complete work)?

When I went part time with my first child, I ended up working longer than agreed upon hours and so wasn’t worth it.

I like the idea of staying back for 5 months and gradually transition to work by month 6.

We get 3 months paid leave at my office and also have generous PTO. With my first I tried to do PT after 3 months mixing in PTO but it just didn’t work. I still had to get 40 hours or more of work completed in the part time schedule. Plus we had to pay for full time care because as others have pointed out if you want eventual high quality care you need to pay full time at the get go. Few nannies will work PT even if they know it will eventually be FT, that’s lots of lost wages for them.

With my 2nd I tacked on a whole extra month using PTO. I much preferred it this way. I think I’d just do 6 months and then go back full time if I was in your shoes. It’s not that crazy of a transition back to work unless your job requires lots of hours, mandatory meetings, etc. Both times my return to work kind of felt like I never left other than adding pumping. But maybe that was me?

I would take the 6 months and then go back personally. I think it will be hard to find a high quality nanny that wants part time for two months when they really want full time and to add to that while in theory I would have liked to do part time the first month, I also think I would have struggled having one foot in the door at work but not really fully. Just hard to get used to the new routine etc. really either way will be good though OP, I think it’s pretty personal. I prefer to have my brain on one thing so would have liked to just savor a couple months not switching between work and baby. But if you think you can do that fairly easily in your line of work it could be nice.

Go with daycare. Nannies are overrated.

If you have to be full time at 6 months, and can extend until then, then do that. There's no way I'm giving up precious time with my baby if I don't have to. If i felt I really needed a transition then I'd go back part time at 5.5 months, but not any sooner than that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extend maternity and then try to go pt at 6 months if you can. Or full time then if you can’t do PT.

OP here. I have to go back full-time at six months.

Take an extra month then and part time for a month to transition and then full time at 6 months.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I would start back at 4 months part time. Hire the FT nanny now, and have everyone start getting used to the arrangement. Then you should be ready to go at the six month mark.

Why would she hire a FT nanny when she is going back PT? That’s just lazy and a waste of money. I think the whole point is OP wants to spend more time with her child. When will she do that if she has a FT nanny?

Most nanny's will need full time pay, so that they can pay their own bills. If a nanny is ok with PT pay, it's probably because she only WANTS or is able to work part time.

So if OP limits her search to candidates who are ok with only having PT for a couple months and then switching to full time, she will not find many candidates.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I would start back at 4 months part time. Hire the FT nanny now, and have everyone start getting used to the arrangement. Then you should be ready to go at the six month mark.

Why would she hire a FT nanny when she is going back PT? That’s just lazy and a waste of money. I think the whole point is OP wants to spend more time with her child. When will she do that if she has a FT nanny?

Part time now with the nanny. Sounds like a good way to ease back into working.

Honestly, I would start back at 4 months part time. Hire the FT nanny now, and have everyone start getting used to the arrangement. Then you should be ready to go at the six month mark.

Anonymous wrote:Extend maternity and then try to go pt at 6 months if you can. Or full time then if you can’t do PT.

OP here. I have to go back full-time at six months.

Extend maternity and then try to go pt at 6 months if you can. Or full time then if you can’t do PT.

My husband and I have an almost 4-month-old. I was originally planning to go back part-time ( 3 days) a week until six months, but I have the option to extend my maternity leave until sex months, then go back full-time. I like the idea of staying home longer, but part-time will be a nice transition and I think will be an easier step than going back full-time. We plan to hire a nanny and I know most don't want part-time, but we think it should be fine since it will to full-time. We will probably get someone to a couple of days just so I can some time to myself to run errands, etc. Would you g back part-time, or wait to go back full-time at six months?