Returning to work after maternity leave can be one of the biggest adjustments you make in your career.
You might be looking forward to getting back to work, you might be dreading it, or you might feel excited to use your brain in a completely different way again, while simultaneously wondering how on earth you are going to get yourself, a baby, a nursery bag and everything else out of the door by 8am. And you can feel all of those things at once.
I know because I’ve returned to work after having two children, ten years apart, at very different stages of my career. And neither experience was particularly straightforward.
My first return to work after having a baby
When I had my first child in 2005, maternity leave looked very different to how it does today, as it was only 6 months long.
At the time, I felt he was simply too young for me to put into nursery and return to work full time, so I made the incredibly difficult decision to leave my job and stay at home until he was over 12 months old.
Then came the next challenge: trying to get back into work. Being a new mum returning to the workplace often felt like something I had to explain or justify rather than simply another stage of my life and career. Once I did find another role, I had to get my “career face” back on remarkably quickly.
There were nursery drop-offs, feeding, illnesses that seemed to appear from nowhere, sleepless nights, clothes regularly decorated with substances I would rather not identify, and then the expectation that I would walk into work and perform exactly as I had before becoming a parent.
It was hard, not because I suddenly became less capable. My life had simply changed dramatically and I don’t think we talked enough about that then.
Returning to work the second time was very different
My daughter was born in 2015. By then, I was at a very different point in my career. I was working in a senior recruitment role for a large corporate agency, commuting around an hour each way into a city centre office and working a 42-hour week.
Career-wise, I was doing really well. But suddenly I had two children to coordinate. School. Nursery. Childcare. Pick-ups. Drop-offs. Illness. Work meetings. Commuting. And, of course, another round of very little sleep.
At the same time, I was meeting senior business leaders and expecting myself to walk into those conversations as the experienced recruitment professional they needed. There were moments when I genuinely wondered how people managed to do all of this.
Eventually, though, something changed. I stopped expecting my working life to look exactly as it had before I became a parent. (That was probably the most important lesson.)
Becoming a parent hadn’t made me less ambitious, less capable or less committed to my career., but it had changed my priorities, my responsibilities and what I needed from work. And that is perfectly reasonable.
Is it normal to feel anxious about returning to work after maternity leave?
Even when you genuinely enjoy your job, returning after months away can feel daunting.
You may worry that things have changed while you’ve been away. That your confidence has dipped. That someone else has been doing your role. That you’ve forgotten how to do certain things. Or that colleagues will assume your priorities have completely changed because you are now a parent.
Then there is the practical side.
- Who does nursery drop-off?
- What happens when your child is ill?
- Can you still make an early meeting?
- What if you have barely slept?
- How do you manage childcare during school holidays further down the line?
These are not signs that you’re not ready to return to work. They’re simply real-life considerations that millions of working parents have to navigate.
What are your rights when returning from maternity leave?
Things have moved on considerably since my first experience of maternity leave.
Employees can currently take up to 52 weeks of Statutory Maternity Leave in the UK. Depending on how much maternity leave you take, you will usually have the right to return to the same job or, in certain circumstances, a suitable alternative role.
Pregnancy and maternity are also protected under the Equality Act 2010, and employers must not treat somebody unfavourably because they are pregnant, taking maternity leave or because of pregnancy-related illness.
Flexible working has moved on too. Employees now have the statutory right to request flexible working from their first day of employment. That could involve changes to hours, start and finish times, days worked or where the work is carried out. Employers must consider requests reasonably, although there are recognised business reasons why a request may sometimes be refused.
There are also newer protections that simply didn’t exist when I had my children. Since April 2025, for example, eligible parents whose babies require neonatal care can receive up to 12 additional weeks of Neonatal Care Leave, alongside existing parental leave entitlements.
Knowing your rights matters. But so does having an open conversation with your employer about what returning successfully actually looks like.
My advice for returning to work after maternity leave
There is no perfect formula. Every baby, family, job and employer is different. But there are a few things I learned along the way.
Don’t expect everything to go back to how it was as it won’t, and that’s okay.
You’re returning to your career with a completely different set of responsibilities outside work. So rather than trying to recreate your old routine exactly, think about what a sustainable new routine looks like.
Do a practice run before your first day. This sounds ridiculously simple, but it can make a massive difference.
Try the whole morning routine – Get up. Get dressed. Get your child ready. Pack the bags. Do the nursery or childcare journey.
Then work out how long everything actually takes.
Because a journey that previously took 30 minutes does not necessarily take 30 minutes once you introduce a baby, a changing bag and an unexpectedly missing shoe.
Think about a phased return. Depending on your circumstances and employer, you might be able to use annual leave, keep in touch days or a temporary working arrangement to ease the transition. You can have up to 10 keep in touch days during maternity leave without bringing your maternity leave to an end.
Even simply returning midweek rather than facing five consecutive days immediately can make that first week feel more manageable.
Talk about flexibility before you reach breaking point. Don’t assume flexibility means somebody isn’t committed to their career, it doesn’t.
Sometimes a slightly different start time, condensed hours, hybrid working, part-time hours or another arrangement can make the difference between losing a brilliant employee and enabling them to continue building their career.
If you need something different, have the conversation.
Don’t underestimate the skills you’ve developed. Something I regularly see in recruitment is people returning from maternity leave who talk about their time away as though it has somehow diminished their professional experience.
You still have everything you knew before maternity leave. You haven’t suddenly lost years of knowledge, experience, relationships or expertise. Your confidence might take a little while to catch up, but your capability hasn’t disappeared.
It is okay to enjoy being back at work. You can adore your children and enjoy your career. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Going back to work doesn’t mean you are choosing your career over your family, any more than taking maternity leave meant you stopped caring about your career.
For lots of people, work is an important part of their identity, independence, purpose and financial security. You don’t need to apologise for enjoying it.
Employers need to think differently about returning parents too.
This conversation shouldn’t only be about what the employee needs to do to make returning to work successful as employers have a huge part to play.
The months around somebody’s maternity leave and their return to work can have a significant influence on whether a talented employee stays with the organisation long term. That starts before they even leave.
Keep people appropriately connected while they are away. Talk about their return in advance. Discuss working patterns. Make sure managers understand maternity rights. Don’t make assumptions about somebody’s ambition simply because they have become a parent. And perhaps most importantly, don’t automatically equate flexibility with a lack of commitment.
The Government itself is now encouraging employers to make flexible working arrangements more visible when advertising jobs because flexibility can help organisations attract a broader range of applicants and help people with caring responsibilities remain in work.
For employers struggling to recruit and retain experienced people, that should be worth thinking about. Sometimes the issue isn’t whether somebody wants to return to work, it’s whether the job they’ve been asked to return to still works alongside the reality of their life.
What if you don’t want to return to the same job after maternity leave?
Becoming a parent often creates a natural point of reflection as you might realise that the commute no longer works, the hours might not fit around your family or our priorities may have changed. Or perhaps the time away has simply made you realise that you want something different from your career.
That doesn’t mean you need to walk away from everything you’ve built. It might mean finding a different employer, reducing your hours, taking temporary work while you rebuild your confidence, moving sector or exploring a role that gives you a better balance between work and everything else in your life.
We’ve worked with many people returning to employment after maternity leave, caring responsibilities and longer career breaks. Sometimes the first conversation isn’t even about a particular job, it’s simply about working out what might come next.
And that’s a perfectly good place to start.
Returning to work after maternity leave: you don’t have to have everything figured out
Looking back, I probably put far too much pressure on myself to prove that becoming a mum hadn’t changed anything, Of course it had.
What it didn’t change was my ability to have a career, and eventually, my own experience of trying to balance work and family became one of the reasons I decided to create KD Recruitment. I wanted a career and a successful business, but I also wanted to be present for my children.
I don’t believe people should always have to choose one or the other.
So if you’re preparing to return to work after maternity leave and you’re wondering how you’re going to manage everything, don’t expect perfection.
- Work out what matters.
- Ask for the conversations you need to have.
- Give yourself time to find a new rhythm.
- And remember that your career hasn’t disappeared simply because another very important part of your life has arrived.
If you’re considering returning to work, changing jobs or simply want an honest conversation about what opportunities are available across North and East Yorkshire, speak to the team at KD Recruitment.
We recruit for permanent, temporary and fixed-term opportunities across Scarborough, York, Hull and the surrounding areas, and we’re always happy to have a conversation about what your next step could look like.