New York Nesties
MrsDe2008
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Mom's/Mom's to be/Thinking of being a mom...
Just a few questions I was wondering about...
If you are a mom or a mom-to-be or are planning to have a rugrat or 2, do you stay at home/plan on staying at home or work/plan on working? If you plan on working, what will you do with the kid(s)? Daycare? Family/friend watch 'em? Just curious if most moms work or stay at home. Also, if you do work, do you wish you could stay at home?
Re: Mom's/Mom's to be/Thinking of being a mom...
I will be going back to work. I can take up to 6 months maternity leave via short-term disability, but I think I will only take two or so - I just started my new career in academics, I don't want to take a half a year off so soon!
My dad will be retiring in January and has already volunteered for full-time day-care duties. Being that he only changed one diaper in his ENTIRE LIFE, that should be interesting (it was the 80's - dads didn't do that kind of stuff!). My mom will be retiring in 2 years and will be very happy to join them.
While our not-yet-existent baby is small, I am fine with leaving him/her with my parents every day, as long as they are able and want to. But when she/he gets a little older (like 1.5-ish) I'd like to sign them up for at least 2 days a week of nursery school. I want them to start socializing with other kids at a young age - hanging out with only the grandparents all day every day can probably get boring for a little one! And I want them to be used to going out of the house and being away from family for the day, so that when it's time to go to school, we don't have large-scale melt-downs.
Edited to add: As of right now, I do not have a desire to be a SAHM. I love my career and I think I would get bored being home every day. But I am sure once I have a baby I'll be changing my tune!
In future-land...
I don't know what we'd do! It depends on if i finally have a career that i enjoy. Cuz if it were right now and i had the same job, i don't think i'd come back. But i'd have to look for something else cuz DH doesn't make enough. 
But at this job i'd get 3mos off, incl short term disability, but i could also add my month of vacation days to give me an extra month. But i don't think i'd do that...
DH has also mentioned that he wouldn't mind staying home with a LO, like his oldest brother has done with his 2 kids. I'm sure he'd use whatever downtime he could find to write plays! (he has also *never* changed a diaper, so that would be verrrrrry interesting!)
But in my daydream land, i open a very successful yarn store/cafe in Brooklyn and i take the baby with me everyday cuz i'd be the boss and i can do that!
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Being I did all this asking, I should have put my 2 cents in...for anyone that cares. lol
The DH and I were discussing if we have just 1 child, then I can stick with the part time gig that I have now or possibly stay home for a little while, but if we decide to have more than 1, then I'll have to go back to work fulltime 'cause kids are so damn expensive. lol =/
I'm pretty sure I can hit my parents up for babysitting 5 days a week while I do the part time deal, but if I have to go fulltime, I don't think they'll go for it and I really wouldn't want to have to put my kids in daycare 5 days a week from the time they are little.
Also, I meant to ask. Would you want to go back because you love working or would you have to go back for financial reasons?
I don't really know what we'll do with the kid with the time comes. We'll need both incomes so I definitely have to go back to work. My ILs are retired so they'll probably babysit, at least while the baby is small.
I'll be going back strictly for financial reasons, I would love to be a SAHM or just work part time somewhere.
Since this is going to apply to us in a few short months!! here's the current Baby L plan:
I'm going to take off 8-12 weeks of maternity leave. I work freelance so all of that will be unpaid leave - I'm not planning on applying for short-term disability, I researched it and contacted someone, but decided it would be more realistic to just save the money ourselves.
I've discussed returning to work - they definitely want/need me back - so the plan is for me to return and work part-time and do half-days. I found someone in our neighborhood who worked as a nanny but was flexible and was looking to add an extra baby/kid to her stay-at-home-care. Her rates are very reasonable (in that my salary would pay more than what we'd pay her) and if she's not available next June, she knows a lot of people who would be looking for work.
I like the idea of working part time - I love my job. I love what I do and the people I work with, but I also don't think I would love to be at work all day 40hrs a week. Who knows how I'll feel when the baby arrives, but I think I might get a little stir-crazy if I was home all the time with LO.
oh, also, we don't have family in the area - and I'm not really feeling the whole daycare (crazy) admissions process for our neighborhood so I'd really really really like to find someone similar to the above woman/situation I described. fingers crossed!!
As you can see from my ticker I am due with my first child in 5 weeks. I was a lawyer but gave it up to be a stay at home mom, which is something I have always wanted to do. Fortunately, DH and I will be fine financially with me not working so that is a plus.
I understand people wanting to pursue their career and that there is a possibility of getting bored at home. However, I can't imagine leaving our little guy all day every day. A part time job might be good, especially once he begins pre-school, but I feel that for now, being home with our baby is going to be the most important and most difficult job I have ever had.
To add to my post...I'll be going back to work for both reasons - financial and because I want to. I doubt we could survive just on DH's salary, so that's not really an option. But I spent too much time getting to where I am in my career to just give up on it now anyway! DH could give up his I guess - his BS cost less than my JD! Just for my law school student loans alone, I would want to keep working. It would *kill* me to keep paying off my loans for the next 25 years and not actually be using my degree!
Not that being a SAHM isn't awesome and hard work, it's just not something I ever saw myself doing, especially when I decided to become a lawyer.
My job allows both mothers AND fathers to take up to 3 years off for infant care leave while guaranteeing your job. It's unpaid, but knowing that my job will be there up to 3 years later is nice, so I might take advantage of that when the time comes. Two incomes would be nice but with daycare costs, I have to wonder if by the time we starting talking babies (probably around 5 years from now) whether it will pay for me to work FT. I have a solid income which will only go up, but it's one of those things I wonder about since daycare can be so expensive. My mom and ILs are all fairly local but I wouldn't want to just give them a baby to watch every day - they've been long done with baby-rearing and probably don't want to start back up with it!
And because I don't plan to have kids until age 32-33, I can either see myself having just one kid, or two if I have them one after the other so I can take more advantage of the 3-year infant care leave we have at work.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DOh, also, as long as DH works at NYU (and i'm trying to get a job there too!), they offer some *amazing* benefits and plans for families! Like, as long as he makes less than $100K (man, i wish we made that much!) we can basically get our daycare needs *paid for*! (up to $5000/year) I'm not sure what their maternity leave looks like, but i was trying to do some research. Nor do i know if DH would be allowed any extra time for paternity leave...
So that would be a huge help and is something to keep in the back of my mind.
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Our New Home! Renovation Underway! The Law Nest
TTC Journey
7/2008 - begin TTC
7/2009 - began charting
9/2009 - Dx Endometriosis
10/2009 - HSG/SA (Normal)
12/2009 -6/2010 - Lupron #1 & 2
Sep-Nov 2010- Clomid Cycles #1&2 = BFN
Dec 2010 - Clomid Cycle #3 = BFP (1/11/11);no h/b (2/10/11); D&C (2/23/11)
5/11-6/11 - herbal tea regime = BFN
7/24/2011- herbal tea regime = surprise BFP
Oh, yep, i'm confusing myself. (NYU has a first time home buyers benefit of up to $5000 for closing costs
) I looked it up online and their daycare benefit is scholarship based, so i guess it'd depend on how much it costs v. how much scholarship money is avail. But any help would be awesome!
I've also thought about propositioning my mom and MIL about spending a few months with the (future) baby after i'd be done with maternity leave. I'm sure they'd chomp at the bit to help out!!
My Craft Blog
My Planning Bio
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Work. I don't want to stay at home.
Kid will go to daycare if we get a spot otherwise nanny for a while then daycare (depending when and if I get pregnant again). While the in-laws are fine for one night of babysitting I would never be OK with them as the full time childcare. It would just be too weird. My sister works full time, my parents are moving to CA in 8 months.
I'll be honest I don't know that many people who can do the single income thing in NYC so most people I know would be/are working moms. I do know one SAHM mom, but to make it work they live in a really small place. It works for them and I think she is happy.