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Go for it!! 100%! You are SO lucky to have the opportunity to spend more time with your little one with a guarantee of part time income and also a FT job to go back to after. You will have so many priceless memories and have years and years to make money once your kid(s) are older and busy with their own lives!

I've had friends that do this and love it! They did a job share the first 1-2 years and then back to full time when their kiddos started preschool. They also maintain some benefits so it wasn't just about the immediate monetary cost (i.e.: health insurance, retirement, etc)

@jomarma: I didn't have a job share situation but I went on a largely unpaid yearlong maternity leave after each of my two kids and then went back to work at half time. It was and is 100% worth it to both DH and I. But it did require lockdown sacrifices and suspending some savings and we remain pretty frugal in our lifestyle.

I would absolutely not do this if your husband isn't completely on board with it, however. My husband wanted this for our family and supported me 100% in taking the leaves and working part time. He was definitely hustling hard during my leaves and is still the primary breadwinner in our family and I couldn't be able to do this if my husband gave me the slightest bit of guilt or anxiety about working part time or whatever.

So in the long run it's just one year of sacrifice and as long as your husband had your back enthusiastically I would totally do it.

@jomarma: I'm not a teacher but I am a WOHM. I would pass on the opportunity. I think the idea of going back to work is scarier than the reality. If you could only swing it for just one year I'd try going back FT first and try job sharing another year. My teacher friends that tried job sharing ended up really frustrating by feeling that they were doing 70-80% of the work so that might color my opinion. A new school and new grade also sounds like it would add to the workload. Good luck with your decision. There are positives to both.

Do you guys have family around that can help? I also live in NorCal and my friends in the SF Bay Area have a grandparent day on Fridays and that saves them just enough money to be able to bridge the gap on childcare costs. Or can your husband negotiate to move to four 10 hour days?

I honestly think financially for a year it's totally doable. We extreme couponed shampoo and conditioner and diapers and wipes and I lived in PJs and I menu planned based on sales and cooked at home most days and we didn't really go on dates other than taking the baby to lunch with us because sitters weren't available nor affordable. DH and I would get ice creams or cold drinks at the drive thru and take long drives while the baby slept in the car or or we took the kids on walks to the park or whatever else was cheap and easy. Lots of snacks and wine together after the boys went to bed. All our clothes were gifts or extreme sale coupon stacks at Kohls. We hosted lots of small dinner parties on the weekends with friends who stayed to hang out after we put the boys to bed. We really do not feel like we've missed out the last few years. Yeah we didn't save a lot of money, we paid a bit more for health insurance because my job's benefits are cheaper, and there were some pension implications for me, but especially with my first who was extremely colicky with severe reflux, I am so glad I stayed home with him that first year.

However I do admit there isn't a great time to go to daycare and go back to work. I waited a year and it was still hard. I think the ideal age is like 18 months, but I couldn't hold my job THAT long. And I don't even want to be a SAHM or anything.

Anyhow, I say go through the worst case scenarios with your husband and how much he would feel like he needed to have in savings to feel okay with the pay cut or if it's just a general anxiety thing he would have at all times.

Because you're only planning on doing it for a year I would say go for it. It will be nice to share the teaching load and get that special time with your child. It sucks that it will take a financial toll, but it is not forever.

I wouldn't. I would either stay home or go back full time. Babies are so expensive and you don't want constant money related fights and stress. If it were me and you were a tenured teacher, I'd do the bare minimum for one year. I'd see if DH could start his day late and you could leave right after the bell, so the kid would only be in daycare from 9-3 or so. I'd do as much grading and lesson planning at home as possible.

I'm a teacher, the main breadwinner and I so wish I had had this type of opportunity the year after I had my LO even though it would have made things difficult financially. I just found it really difficult to give my all that year and was just doing the bare minimum a lot of the time. I would be pretty anxious to leave pretty much as soon as school over at the end of the day. Compare that to this year (year 2) and I am so much more relaxed and fine to be here after school. I know very well that there is nothing wrong with being a WOH mom and I would not like staying at home full time but the first year especially I wish I had had more flexibility. There is nothing wrong with feeling that way.

The financial aspect seems like the toughest - Do you know exactly how much childcare costs will be? It sounds like you need a more exact idea about this to make a decision. Also can you get on your husband's insurance plan? Are you paid year round or just over 10 months?

When are you due? How much maternity leave will you have?

Working part-time is challenging... I went on a reduced schedule at work after maternity leave and it did not work for a number of reasons. It sounds great in theory, but I pretty much ended up working 100% for less pay.

ETA: I now WOH full-time and don't feel like I'm missing any additional quality time/firsts with DD.

@jomarma: Like I said, the determining factor is going to be your husband's support. Time with your baby is precious and wonderful, but it is NOT worth straining your marriage over. Your child will never remember the first year of their lives but they'll feel the repercussions of a stressed out marriage forever. If there's any hint that this will lead to some kind of resentment or fighting or whatever, its not worth it.

I think if your husband says he wants you to be happy but he's stressed about the money, he needs to find ways to make more of it. My husband ran his private law practice with a full case load, worked a full time job as a law professor with a 150 mile commute on teaching days, and did an Executive MBA program at nights and on weekends for 18 months during my leaves (he got paid for doing that program through his GI Bill benefits) - so essentially he worked like 3 jobs while I had our babies and stayed home. He did it without complaint because he wanted this for our family, but didn't want to be worried or stressed about money either. So if your husband WANTS this for you, but is stressed about the money, he or both of you are going to have to hustle up some extra cash somehow.

DH worked on making more money and I worked on making what we had stretch as far as possible. I would get giant boxes of toilet paper shipped to our house on weird deals, we're still working through shampoo and mouthwash and soap I bought 18 months ago, and I took advantage of the fact that my kids are young enough not to notice what we don't have (and honestly they have everything). We cut cable, we bid out our insurance coverage at least once a year to get better rates, we don't go to Starbucks, we take food for our kids with us when we go out to restaurants to eat, we haven't gone on vacation other than seeing family, when I was home I didn't wear makeup, get hair cuts or mani/pedis, I didn't buy clothes, etc. For birthdays or Christmas our Christmas lists were things we needed (clothes, shoes, stuff for the kids in the next size up) or we asked for gift cards to restaurants so we could go out to eat for free. It was actually fun - it was like a game to see how much money I could save.

@gingerbebe: Damn. Your statement "I think if your husband says he wants you to be happy but he's stressed about the money, he needs to find ways to make more of it." is pretty harsh and totally ignored the facts of the situation. I want a yacht and a mansion, should my husband find a way to make enough money to buy them for me? That's great that YOUR husband wants you to stay home, that doesn't mean every husband should or does feel that way. I assume that when the OP and her husband agreed to have this baby, the assumption was that she would continue to work full time after maternity leave. Now the OP is changing the game and saying she'd like to work part time which would in fact COST them money (not just not make money like staying home full time would). If she stayed home full time, she would at least take the full burden of caring for the home off her husband, but this scenario leaves her still juggling two responsibilities and costing the household $ to do it. I don't think it's anywhere near fair to say that because she stated that this new scenario might make her happier, that her husband should be expected to just go magically find a way to make more money to make her happy.

@Truth Bombs: I think you're trying to pick a fight with me where there isn't one. I didn't say bro should go work double shifts to buy her a Lexus just because she wants a fancy car on a whim. And I emphatically said several times on this thread if her husband can't or won't enthusiastically support her in this endeavor she should not do it.

OP stated "he said he will support me and wants me to be happy, but I can tell he's already very anxious about the money. I'm anxious too, but I do want to have this precious time with my baby." All I'm saying is that if he is supportive of her staying home part time for one year, but has anxiety about finances in a situation where it doesn't seem like its THAT much of a cost differential (i.e. OP alluded to the fact that they would be a few hundred dollars short a month in a situation where they do have some cash savings) it seems like the easiest way to alleviate that anxiety is to have some extra money come in somehow. Cutting back on expenses can help alleviate some of those fears, but making some more money helps, too. Some people just need a concrete plan on how to make something happen and I think looking at ways to cut expenses, creating a solid liveable budget, and looking into side gigs and extra sources of income could go a long way in that decision matrix. OP herself could find a side hustle too - I didn't say she couldn't do stuff on nights and weekends to supplement the family income either. If OP's husband has anxiety about the matter, he should do something about it. Your solution for the anxiety is to not take the part-time position - fine. But a perfectly viable and reasonable alternative is to deal with the anxiety by replacing her lost income some other way. I don't see why that's harsh or unreasonable.

@Adira: agree. I didn't read the @gingerbebe comment as anything insulting. It was just another potential solution to their issue. It's not like OP said she wanted to stay home but they can't make it work and gingerbebe said "tell him to man up, he has to make more money, it's his problem". She was saying that if he feels strongly and WANTS her to do it, another possible scenario is that he finds additional income so that they feel zero strain. But if he doesn't feel like he WANTS her to do this then it's prob not a good idea.

@jomarma: To answer your question, I think it sounds like a good opportunity and it doesn't sound like you'd be in dire straits because of it. It would just be a little tight and only for a year. If you think you can both make some sacrifices or get creative to make it happen, AND your husband can confidently assure you he's ok with it, I say go for it.

@Truth Bombs: I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I'm assuming what the OP says is true - that her husband issupportive of her working part-time to spend more time with their child for the first year, but is anxious about the money. In that case, I don't believe its harsh and unreasonable to tell OP's husband to explore ways to increase the family's income elsewhere. If nothing else, because then he would be more empowered and educated about whether this was legitimately a viable option. Its simply not productive to say "I want you to be able to do this" and then just fret about the money instead of doing something proactive.

I'm not saying OP shouldn't look into ways of making extra money too (which it seems like she is) and I'm not saying the responsibility of coming up with more money is solely on her husband's shoulders either. What I AM saying is if OP's husband is worried about the money, he should do something about it. Its just math.

If deep down, he's truly just not crazy about the idea for whatever reason, then that's a whole other ball game. But if he really DOES want her to have this opportunity, then look into how you can make it happen.

@jomarma: This statement struck me as very odd, "dipping into savings for my happiness or me most likely falling into depression/resenting my husband for many reasons (namely making us stay near his family in a very expensive area when I wanted to move somewhere more affordable) and having more money"

This does not sound like a great dynamic to me. So both of you are being selfish and you're positive you're going to resent your husband if you don't get your way? Marriage and parenting are about working together and finding a compromise.