Working mums!
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I work compressed hours so I have Wed off (I wanted to reduce to 4 days a week but work wouldn't allow it). I also work from my parents house on Fri so I can see her between meetings/during lunch while they do childcare. Besides looking for a new job, I think the first step here would be if you can enforce your working hours so you're not working late. Then, once you've shown you can manage your time well/enforce boundaries you're in a good position to ask for reduced/compressed hours as you have the evidence that you can make the workload fit into whatever you need it to.
@Helen hiya, thanks for the response! Yeah I have only been there for a few months and am struggling with the work load as it is. The company is a rapidly growing start up so everyone puts in more work than they are contracted for. They hired me knowing I have a child but the brain fog is so bad and I get overwhelmed so quickly whereas before I could handle it! So yes I think I need to prove myself before asking for reduced hours.
@Jade thanks for your message, I have some holiday to take before April and have booked off every Friday this month and already has made such a difference I am dreading the return to normal!
Have you tried asking for support from your manager? Because if they put the work in to get things right for you, they will have some ideas/a framework for future parents rather than risk losing talent to parenthood. Whether that's addressing the lack of boundaries for working hours (benefits everyone!), or organising your work differently.
I dropped Mondays and it makes a world of difference, having a whole day just me and him. Then we have weekends as a family. I then also work 1-2 days in London , those days I have long days and I don’t get to see my son before bed, but my home days I always go collect him at 5 / or on Fridays I try for earlier then I just log back on if I need to get more done once he is asleep. It’s hard but I just basically try to see him as much as possible.