Returning to work as a new parent

Art by Ily Phelps

I was recently asked about my transition to returning to work after having my baby. Originally I thought I had it pretty easy since I work from home full time. But upon further reflection, while I didn’t struggle with where to pump or physically being away from my son for eight hours a day, understanding how to manage new work expectations, pressure I put on myself, and overall emotions of returning to work after a huge life event was still a difficult challenge I needed to level-set.

For context, I went back to working full time 4 months postpartum. My husband and I both work in tech in the Bay Area and at companies that have semi flexible parental leave policies.

We are both manager levels and more established in our careers, so it allowed us to afford a nanny vs daycare until he turned one. Having him in the next room made the transition much easier.

In terms of support, I have a sister who lives 30 miles away and she visits on weekends. Otherwise, we’re on our own unless our parents fly in to visit from out of state.

At the end of the day, everyone’s experience is very different and unique to each person. There’s a lot of different factors that play into each person’s decisions to return to work, whether that’s finances, family or partner support, desire to go back to work vs stay at home… the list goes on. While I can’t provide guidance on the logistical aspect, like how to pump in an office setting, maybe this article can help you from an emotional perspective.

Tip 1: Give yourself a break

Returning to work after the longest extended time away I’ve ever had in my career was already daunting.

How my brain works. Why am I like this?!

I was already overwhelmed with all things motherhood, but I was so hard on myself when I came back. I saw how well my team flourished without me and immediately doubted my purpose. I saw how well my colleague ran things in my place and wondered if I’d soon get cut. I saw how much great work was accomplished and immediately was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff I needed to catch up on, all the time thinking I needed to fully understand everything immediately to show my value — even though no one was saying that.

While back at work, I also found I was actively listening for my baby. It would distract me from the stuff I was trying to get done, making things take longer than they used to. This gave me additional guilt as I was sure I was underperforming. I first tried to balance this by working late to “catch up”, but was so exhausted at the end of the day I would basically collapse unconscious before my head hit the pillow. Then I’d wake up and feel guilty about not working and the cycle would start over again. Or I would work late and literally not remember what I did the next day or was so out of it that I was making stupid mistakes.

I also apologized and gave a lot of excuses for things outside of my control. Whether I needed to end a call early because my kid was screaming bloody murder in the next room, or he joined a meeting and was fussy during it (or even if he wasn’t). It all gave me anxiety and I felt bad for the interruptions, even if they were minor.

My brain

Ways to combat this destructive mindset:

1. Be honest about your struggles. They helped to level my warped perspective into something more productive. It also just opens communication and adds additional empathy for different situations.
2. Therapy. My postpartum depression didn’t hit right away. It appeared almost immediately after I started work. Talking to someone about my transition that was fully removed from the situation was a great outlet for me.
3. Think positive. This seems obvious but as a more negative person (I call myself a realist), it’s something I’m still struggling with. Surrounding myself around positive people has been really helpful.

Tip 2: Allow yourself to be productive

Because I work from home full time and my child is also in the next room, I hear everything — from his toys jingling, to his cries, to his sound machine when the nanny puts him down for naps. It’s all very distracting.

We also have cameras throughout the main portions of the house so I was constantly checking in to make sure he was doing okay or that his nanny didn’t need anything. It started when his nanny first joined as I wanted to make sure we made the right choice in care, that he was doing well, etc. But the habit of checking in stayed with me even after all was established. It just became another distraction.

Ways to be more productive:

1. Move my phone physically out of reach and out of sight.
2. Keep my door shut at all times to help dampen the noise level.
3. Invest in good noise canceling headphones.
4. Block time in my calendar for focus time. This sort of worked for me as I wasn’t super consistent with it but I’m leaving it here in case it’ll help someone else.
5. Setting a timer for completing tasks. Some tasks I gave myself X amount of time to complete to ensure I got it done.
6. I wish I could separate my desk from my living space. But with our small home, my desk is in the bedroom. I keep the space very clean, I only work from there, and keep morning routines like always getting dressed in “work clothes”. I honestly wish I could do more to separate my work station from my living space but our place is tiny.
7. If the weather permits, set up a space outside that you can work at. The change in environment is really refreshing.
8. Intentionally see your kiddo. Being intentional is the key to this one. Setting time to spend with them — even if it’s 5 or 10 minutes can allow you to focus later when you need to. It can help address any feelings of guilt and you don’t feel like you’re missing out (as much).

Tip 3: Focus on you

In the newborn stage, it’s all about the baby. Is he eating well, is he pooping, how does he sleep, googling every strange sound to make sure he’s doing okay. There’s such a huge learning curve to parenthood, it’s easy to forget about you in that process.

Whether you’re the mother or the father, it’s a huge life change and unfortunately work doesn’t slow down for you. If anything, it’ll feel like it’s ramped up because you’re now moving slower than pre-baby times.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform at a high level when returning to work. But I was always exhausted and that affected my attention, my ability to perform and complete tasks and support my team.

I found I needed to take time for myself:

1. First off, I came back from maternity leave with hundreds of emails and slacks. I could spend days and maybe weeks sifting through it all. Instead, I mass deleted everything and figured if it was important enough, they’d reach out again. (Pro-tip: drop a public slack message so people can re-reach out if urgent).
2. Naps. In the beginning days when my son wasn’t sleeping through the night, I’d scarf lunch down and then take a nap. Sometimes I ended work early to get a nap in before his nanny left.
3. Take a walk. If I didn’t have time for a nap, a walk around the block (or even just the backyard) was a great wake up. The fresh air, the different sights, the physical world vs digital screens in front of me, all helped to re-energize myself.
4. Exercise. This was the hardest for me. I didn’t start going back to a physical gym in a regular cadence until about 7 months postpartum. Before then, I’d change into workout clothes and do some basic workouts in my room. Sometimes I’d do yoga stretches in larger all hands where I wasn’t required to contribute or be on camera. This allowed me to actively listen to updates while moving my new postpartum body.
5. Good food. Anything is better with good food. On a hard day, we’d order in. This allowed me to take one thing off my plate (making dinner) and it felt like the day balanced out a bit then. This was really just me trying to trick my mind, but you really can’t be upset when you’re stuffing your face with good food.

6. Caffeine. Just getting up to make myself a cup of tea — getting me out of my head, away from my desk that I’ve been sitting in for the past X hours, was enough of a switch up in routine sometimes. But also, caffeine helps.

7. Massages. My company has a wellness stipend and I used that as excuses to get massages. Time away from even thinking about work, time away from being “mom”, was so lovely. I found I had a lot of new tension and stress from coming back to work. This was really great to help release some of that from a physical perspective.

8. Daily you time. I’m really into skincare, so I give myself time every morning and evening to ensure I keep that routine. It helps to level set my day and set me up for success.

Tip 4: Ask for help

From family and your support system, to your colleagues you work with on a daily basis. Our products are really complex. Asking for help definitely made me feel weak when I assumed pre-baby I wouldn’t need it, but it was essential in getting back into things. My colleagues were all supportive and more than willing to walk me through things — sometimes multiple times. I will always greatly appreciate that.

Seriously, why am I like this?

At least it’s not just me… 🤷‍♀️

Some tips that helped me here:

1. Having great relationships with my core team allowed asking for help a lot easier. I didn’t necessarily think it was always a weakness to say I didn’t understand or still didn’t understand after initial explanations, but I definitely felt I was bothering people. Having stronger relationships dampened those feelings.
2. Having a good manager that can help you set goals and expectations for your transition back. Maybe even establish a 30, 60, 90 with them to help ease back into things. I wish I did this but my awesome manager was also out on maternity leave when I returned 🙃.
3. Slack message questions were a lot easier to send because that lack of face to face, quick typed message you send has so much less pressure than physically opening your mouth. Also it’s there for you to refer back to in case you forget.
4. Asking for show and tells in the beginning was a multi-level win. I asked my team to present show and tells of the projects they worked on while I was out. They got to work on their presentation skills, got that positive response from everyone on how great their project turned out, and I got additional insight into the work that I so desperately needed.
5. My team offered help and support. From write-ups that I could go back to reference later on everything important that I missed and needed to be aware of from a team perspective. To just saying, I’m happy to set a meeting and walk you through this again as I know it’s complex. I was very appreciative every time this came through.

Phase 2: Daycare

Now that my baby is a toddler 😭, he’s started daycare to get that much needed social interactions. While this is good for his development, it poses a lot of added complexity now that we don’t have a nanny coming to us and instead need to balance work with drop-off times.

My husband and I work with Europe and India teams so we’re both in early meetings which now conflicts with kid stuff. He has more meetings than I so I generally do daycare drop-offs and he does the pick ups.

I now set blocks in my calendar for kid stuff

1. I’ve started putting repeating blocks in my calendar as it adds a level of transparency on my availability. Any overlapping meeting lets my colleagues know I might not make it. If it’s important, I either coordinate with my husband to switch responsibilities for the day, or I ask the meeting host to record.
2. Checklists. I have them for everything now in personal life and in work. Being able to cross stuff off helps ensure I don’t forget anything, especially now that my day starts more hectic than it use to.
3. Prep everything the night before. This ensures I can grab and go without thinking about anything. Or if there’s a last minute meeting I can join before my son wakes up, I can take it and it won’t affect the rest of my morning.
4. Illnesses. 7 days after my son started daycare, he came home with a fever that kept him home for two days. We eventually all caught it. There’s no way around this but I’ve started adding that extra layer of transparency to my teams. I do this in two ways: Dropping a notice in a public slack channel that my main cross functional teams use. And changing my profile status for extra transparency for anyone outside of the main slack channel.

In the end, having a baby and then reshaping what your work and life looks like, takes time and constant iterations. Be open about your struggles, give yourself some credit and definitely go easy on yourself, even if it’s easier said than done.

Remember: You’re doing great even when you’re not.