Considering starting mat leave earlier
I am due to go on mat leave at 39 weeks, which is just over 6 weeks away. I work in quite a high stress and pressured role. My manager and team are supportive, but my workload is higher than ever right now. In all jobs in the past, I've just absorbed it, stayed late, worked through lunch etc. But I'm just not willing to continue doing this while pregnant. I have a risk assessment in place, but it doesn't really protect my workload as it's so broad, and difficult to articulate and define some of the tasks that are hard right now as they are not physically, but mentally demanding. There is talk of me winding down and handing over patients and staff soon (I am in a clinical and management nursing role) but no actual sign of this happening yet.
I have to give 28 days notice to change my mat leave date, so earliest I can leave is in 4 weeks, I will be 36/37 weeks by then. I originally wanted to leave as late as possible, as the later I leave, the later I need to return which would help, as my husband will be deployed March 2025. However, I think my wellbeing now is more important, and my husband agrees.
I think I've answered my own question while writing this at 3am, awake worrying about work today/tomorrow 🤣 but any thoughts?
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Hi from a fellow pregnant insomniac😅
I work in social care and stopped working at 32 weeks pregnant for similar reasons. I am in a manager role and the service I work in is currently going through a particularly rough time. The excessive workload was having a detrimental impact on both my physical and mental health and I often found myself having to go against my risk assessment. My pregnancy has been quite difficult anyway and I reached a point where I was becoming pretty much unable to do my job.
I was like yourself and wanted to work as late as possible, but decided to take all of my annual leave ahead of my maternity leave and it has been the best decision. I can now relax ahead of baby’s arrival and am taking my time to get the last bits organised.
Do you have any emergency leave you could take? Alternatively, you could get signed off sick x
I think you’ve answered your own question but in terms of taking leave early, from 36 weeks if you get signed off sick with pregnancy related symptoms then they can start your maternity leave early. They might not! They might treat it as sick leave and you get lucky but if you’re wanting to go early anyway, that’s an easy solution.
I’d hope that a conversation with them to incorporate more breaks and deal with the fact you’re just going to get through what you can, without causing yourself stress would go down well. But failing that, you 100% need to do what’s best for you and the baby.
I’m in a similar high stress job role and I start first day of maternity leave on Monday 2nd. I’ll be 36 weeks exactly then.
I’ve had a huge client deliverable go live yesterday and I knew by the nature of my job role there would be no slowing down as such in the run up to mat leave. I was right 🤣
Trust your instincts and like Rosie says, it might be wise to just go on sick leave now. You and your baby are the most important here. Not work x
I’m in a different sector however have a stressful job as I’m relied on so much to ensure the smooth running of the business. I was planning on working up until I’m in labour however I’ve decided to finish end of Feb so I’ll be 37/38 weeks. Mainly because my LG’ childminders is shut first week of March so it’ll only be a few days until my due date when she goes back. My job is just becoming so draining and demanding, I’m more worried I’m going to miss something as I’m not really sleeping. But like you said you’ve answered your own question and should defo do that’s best for you and the baby 🩷
Whatever you decide to do, please know the way you feel right now, will be incomparable to the way you feel in a year. In a year, you'll have been a parent for 10-12 months, and you'll surprise yourself that you will be more ready to go back than you might have thought pre birth! Taking care of you now, is much more important, than going back to work when baby is say 10 months instead of twelve.
Right now everything changes astonishingly fast whereas a baby at 10-12 months will have started to slow down in terms of how quickly they change. I hope I'm making sense? You'll be so capable my march next year 🙂
I just wanted to add that I work in HR and the 28 day rule is not followed. I would never deny a request to bring maternity leave forward. What would be the benefit? They’d just go off sick and get the same outcome.
Just about to say the same as Emma! I work in hr in a school and often have teachers who have planned to stay right to the end struggling and ask if they can start their mat leave straight away usually when they come back after a school holiday and have slowed down and struggle to get back into it. We always just agree and sort but otherwise they'd be off sick so either way we would have to sort cover x
Thanks so much all! I didn't want to make a reactive decision today after 1 particularly bad day, and will speak to my manager tomorrow and hope I will be reassured about the plan to wind down. I do also have a little bit of AL to use. As you say, any sickness within the last 4 weeks will likely trigger mat leave anyway, so always have that as an option! X
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