12 Tips For Going Back To Work After Baby can help ease the transition and make the experience feel a little less overwhelming—and a lot more empowering.
When you have a baby, it’s truly special to spend that precious time soaking in every coo, cuddle, and milestone.
Even if you miss your career, nothing quite compares to being present during those early moments.
But when the time comes to re-enter the working world, it’s normal to feel a mix of excitement, guilt, anxiety, and hope.
Let’s walk through 12 helpful, heart-centered tips to support you as you reclaim your professional identity while still nurturing your role as a parent. 💼👶💖
Even when you miss working, nothing beats being present for those moments. However, at some point, you may find that miss your career and want to get back out into the working world.
Whether this is right after your standard maternity leave period ends or even when your youngest is in school, you may find that it can be tricky to navigate.
If you decide to go straight back into your role as it was before you had your baby, that might seem a little more straightforward. But there are other options open to you.
If right now you’re contemplating going back to work and you are not really sure where to start, you’ve come to the right place.
In this blog post, we’re going to explore what it’s like to go back to work after you’ve had a baby, the key things you need to keep in mind, and the tips to follow to make sure that you make the right choice.
It may not be the easiest of transitions for you, but we’re hoping this will help!
1. Decide How You Want it to Go
First of all, you’re going to want to make sure that you know how you want this to play out.
You can certainly go back to work on your terms and not have to stick to anybody else's rules.
However, if this means that your current company isn’t flexible, you may need to explore other options.
But having in might what you’d like to happen is a good place to start.
2. Focus on What’s Right for You
As you’re making decisions, be sure to think about what feels right to you.
It’s important to know how you want this to go and what kind of days you’d like to work or what balance you’d like to have.
If you want to go right back into how things were, that’s great.
But if you’d like to pull back a little, make sure that you do what’s right for you.
3. Choose the Right Hours
The next step here is to decide on your hours.
Are you happy to work full time still or do you want to go back part time or only do certain days a week?
It’s important to know what will work best with the lifestyle you’re looking to create and how you’d like to raise your children.
4. Consider a Change
One of the first things that you might be keeping in mind is whether you want to change careers.
It might be the case that you aren't happy with the career or work you did before you had the baby – and that’s okay.
You may be looking for something more flexible or fancy a complete change of industry or role.
So this might be something that you want to research first.
5. Look into Going Back to School
Whether you’re thinking about going for a change or not, you may be interested in the idea of going back to school.
It can be a great way to advance your skills for future career prospects or even to prepare you for future work at a later date.
Look into options like a master business administration degree online that you can do in your own time.
This could be a good first move for you before diving deep into the working world again.
6. Get a New Certification
As a step on from that, you may even be interested in getting a new style of certification so that you can get a promotion at work or look to advance.
When you have been away on maternity leave or while raising your children, you may feel like you want a bit of a refresher or to add more strings to your bow.
So an industry-specific certification could help you here.
7. Apply to a New Company
It might be the case that you actually like the idea of applying to a new company. From here, you might want to think about making applications to a new company.
If you don’t like where you were before, your existing company isn’t being flexible, or you fancy trying something new, it might be time for you to start searching elsewhere!
8. Consider Going Freelance
Another option you have here is to go freelance.
It might be the case that you’d like to carry on doing the work that you already do, but freelance!
When you’re looking for ways to work on your own schedule, taking your work freelance is often a good idea.
As long as you know that you have the work there, it can be a great way to be flexible and find the right balance between staying invested in your career and enjoying your parenting life.
9. Start a Side Hustle
At the same time, you might also want to think about starting a side hustle.
Of course, this would sort of be your main hustle – but the premise is still the same.
You could spend a few hours a day or week building something up that will give you purpose and allow you to make some money.
10. Think About Launching Your Own Business
Or, if you want to take that idea further, you might even want to consider launching your own business.
While this isn’t always ideal when raising children, it could work well for you if you’re entrepreneurial-minded.
It might just be the thing you need right now and could become fruitful for you in the future.
11. Focus on Finding a Good Balance
Whatever you decide to do, the most important thing for you to keep in mind is that you need to find a balance that feels right.
Balancing your life as a working mom isn’t always the easiest thing for you to do.
You can feel a lot of guilt and as if you have a lot on your plate.
It can certainly be overwhelming, but this is why creating boundaries and setting priorities are important here.
It can help you to manage everything a lot better.
12. Give Yourself Time to Adjust
Lastly, you also need to make sure that you’re giving yourself enough time to adjust.
Trying to get that balance right can be hard, but it’s also not going to happen overnight.
When you return back to work after maternity leave, you do need to let yourself figure it all out.
This may mean that you make some tweaks or want to change the way you’re doing things and that’s okay.
Ultimately, you need to make sure that it’s right for you.
Final Thoughts: Making it Work as a Mom and Career Woman
Going back to work after you’ve had a baby may not always feel easy.
Even when you know that you want to be able to work and have something just for yourself, the adjustment period can still be tough.
So make sure that you’re being as kind to yourself as you can be.
At the same time, make sure that you’re choosing a schedule that works best for you.
When you know that you love your work or you enjoy what you do, it can also make a huge difference – so be sure to bear that in mind.
When you know you’ve made a decision that feels right for you, it’s all about making it work and finding the right balance between mom life and having a career.
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