Help!

The big piece of advice and one you’ll probably get 100 times on this thread is start looking at nurseries now, and figure out when you’d need to return to work / put baby in for your funded hours (if available). This will probably then influence your return to work and also how much flexibility you need to ask for x

Id get looking at nurseries, get your preferred days and times and speak to your work asap. Do you know how receptive they would be to your working request?

I’d look now and reserve a spot! I took the year but my boy was in nursery a few weeks before I returned to work. I reserved 5 full days until he started and I provided them with the days I required when I knew what was happening closer to the time of returning. It’s easier to remove days than ask for more with nurseries. That way it opened up spots for other parents when he wasn’t there 😊x

You need sign up now for nursery as they’re waiting times I signed up when was pregnant in September to start 2026 September I had her in November is very hard

I'd start now! People start looking before baby is born x

We booked our nursery place whilst still pregnant as all the local places seemed really booked up

We were advised at most nurseries that we could hold a five day week space, until I figured out whether the work would let me go back part time. My Work weren’t really open to the conversation until further along maternity leave as I knew I wanted the year, but yours might be different

After back-and-forth with work and a part-time trial agreed, I was able to go back to the nursery and confirm the days that we needed

We also started little one in nursery a few weeks before I went back to work, which at the time I hated the idea of, but it allowed us to do shorter days initially, which was great as he took a while to settle in