I have been a bit absent from my blog the past week or so and that’s due to work, I have been working so much recently. I am only contracted a couple of hours a week but I have been doing overtime which means I have been working full time hours.

Going back to work for me was really tough but reflecting back on it now it has been really good for Bea, we spent all day everyday together and she would scream if I even left the room.

Now she loves spending time with her daddy, grandparents and auntie who we are so lucky to have as they are more than happy to look after Bea if we need them to. When I first went back to work I was only doing 3 and a half hour shifts 2 days a week and then a long shift every other Saturday, this helped me to ease into going back to work.

For the past couple of weeks I have been doing full time hours. Dec tends to work in the mornings finishing around 3 and then I go into work and we do a “handover” of Bea and I’ll start and work into the evening. Sometimes my sister will have Bea for a couple of hours and now she’s on maternity leave she’s offered to have her more which is going to help us so much!

Before going on maternity leave I was working somewhere different but after doing the maths about if it was worth going back there full time and putting Bea into nursery I would come home with about £200 a month and never get to see Bea. Nursery’s around where I live are so expensive and I always said I don’t want to put Bea into one until I think she would benefit from it herself, I believe she would now but when I went back to work she was only 9 months old and I don’t think she would have then.

Dec and I spoke about maybe putting Bea into nursery or a childminder one day a week, Dec likes the idea of a nursery more than a Childminder’s. I think we need to go and have a look around a few places first, if anyone has any recommendations of a nursery over a childminder or vice versa please let me know!

Since being back at work I definitely appreciate my days off with Bea a lot more, I try and go out a lot when I’m off or if I’m working in the evening I try and do loads of bits in the morning. When Dec and I have days off together we tend to do a family day out or go and spend time with our parents as we don’t get to see them as much anymore. We’re planning on going to the zoo on our next day off, which we can’t wait as our first date was to the zoo!