Pitfalls to Avoid When Returning to Work

This week's blog is brought to us by Lori K. Mihalich-Levin, JD. Lori is the founder of Mindful Return and creator of the Mindful Return E-Course.  She is also a health care partner at Dentons, and mama to two beautiful red-headed boys (ages 3 and 5).  Lori holds a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center and completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.  We hope you find her blog helpful as you contemplate a return to the work force from maternity leave!
~ Doula In The Wild

If you’re anything like me, the prospect of heading back to work after maternity leave comes with a jumble of emotions, spanning the gamut from terror, to uncertainty, to fear, to excitement.  But when I had my two little redheads (now ages 3 and 5), there were strikingly few resources out there to ease with this transition.  No one at my office (of 500+ people!) was talking about it.  And there were courses on how to give birth, breastfeed, massage your baby, and puree baby food.  But *nothing* about how to go back to work without losing your mind (or at least reassure you that all mamas are struggling, too).
As I started researching the experiences new mamas were going through and thinking hard about what I would have wanted to know on my way into and out of maternity leave, I discovered many pitfalls women face with this experience – that can all be reduced or avoided through education, support, and planning. 

Here are my top four pitfalls I’ve seen, and a few thoughts on how to overcome them:

(1) Letting anxiety and worry spiral out of control.  There is so much to be worried about in new motherhood - not to mention in heading back to work - and it’s easy to get overwhelmed and lose perspective.  What if my childcare arrangement doesn’t work out?  Will my baby take a bottle or eat for anyone other than me?  What happens when my baby gets sick and I have an important deadline?  How will I get to the 100 things on my to-do list today?  (Sound familiar, anyone?)  

• What to do?
  • To slow down those crazy thoughts, you first need to be aware of them.  And learning some breathing and meditation techniques (even if you only use them for a few minutes a day) really helps.
  • Play my friend (a clinical psychologist and anxiety expert!) Megan Hughes-Feltenberger’s favorite game: “Best, worst, most likely.”  If there’s something you are incredibly anxious about, think hard about what the best possible outcome would be (exaggerate here), the worst possible outcome (exaggerate even more), and what outcome is most likely.  The exaggeration usually leads to some laughter and a re-gaining of perspective.
  • Build self-care, even micro-self care, into your daily routine.   It does wonders for slowing down crazy thoughts. 

(2) Not doing the logistical planning necessary to avoid complete overwhelm.  If you haven’t taken the time to figure out how exactly you’ll get to work with all the pumping equipment you need or who is responsible for pickup and drop-off of baby on a normal basis or in the event of illness, you’re likely to feel overwhelmed pretty quickly.  To be able to be mindful – present at work when you’re at work and present with your baby when you’re with baby – you need to do the advance planning.

• What to do?
  • Educate yourself on feeding, pumping, and nutrition tips.  Research how much milk to send with your baby.  Read books like Work, Pump, Repeat by Jessica Shortall, if you’re pumping.  And do meal planning to figure out how to put food on your own table.
  • Plan in advance for who will cover any given potential sick day or snow day.  My husband and I have done this through weekly meetings around our so-called “Saturday Basket” so that chaos can be consolidated, and the number of surprises reduced.

(3) Viewing your own value as an employee as somehow “less” than before you had a baby.  Perhaps you now need to leave work at an exact time at the end of the day (and perhaps that time is earlier than when your colleagues head out the door).  Perhaps you feel like you missed out on opportunities or are somehow less valuable an employee now that you have another very important competing priority.  All of this can lead to feeling pretty crummy about yourself and your professional prospects.

• What to do?
  • Take charge of your return by showing enthusiasm at work about coming back.  Schedule meetings with each of your key stakeholders for your first few weeks back in the office, so you can get filled in on what happened while you were out and ask how you can help move the ball forward.
  • Take credit for a well-planned leave and return.  You probably did a significant amount of work to get ready to go on leave.  Don’t let others forget your commitment to your team, and be sure to raise this effort during your annual performance review.
    
  • Focus on – and talk about – all the new skills you’ve gained as a mother that are useful in the workplace.  And there are OH so many!  

(4) Isolating yourself.  When I went back to work after having my second child, I found myself alone, in tears, on the kitchen floor night after night.  I felt so alone in this experience, but I realize in retrospect it didn’t have to be that way.

• What to do?
  • Find other working mamas at your office, and schedule lunch with them for your first days and weeks back.
  • Consider forming a working mama posse at your office.  It doesn’t take a huge amount of extra effort, and the rewards can be huge.
  • Join online communities like Mindful Return and Facebook groups for working moms that can help you through this and show you the power of “me too.”

I set out to help mamas avoid – and work through – these pitfalls by creating Mindful Return to fill the void of information out there and to create a community of amazing working mamas who are all going through this transition at the same time.  If you are worried about any of these issues, I’d encourage you to join one of the upcoming sessions of the four-week Mindful Return E-Course to boost your confidence and connections to other working mamas.

Good luck with your return!