'I went back to work too early after having a baby. Here's why I regret it.'

Like many women, maternity leave was the first significant break I had from working since I started. Even through university I tutored and worked as a nanny, before graduating to teaching full-time.

While pregnant I did stints as a causal relief teacher and then worked three days a week. I had always been working.

But as any parent can tell you, having a baby is certainly no break from work. In many ways I was working harder, with longer hours than I ever had before in my life.

So when — at eight months post-partum — I went back to part-time work (as a reading tutor), going off to my job a few afternoons a week felt like a reprieve of sorts.

Watch: Is extended maternity leave good for parents and employers? Post continues below.

I had financial reasons for going back to work so soon, but the truth is I also wanted to. I wanted to use my brain and feel like a person outside of being 'mum' even just for a few hours a week.

I felt proud that my husband supported me to do this and had flexible enough hours that we didn't need to pay for childcare. A modern-day woman, balancing home and family and work. I felt very empowered. At first.

After a few months, I was exhausted. I felt like I was stretched too thin, with my attention in too many places at once.

Despite my husband being an incredibly capable parent, I found myself worrying about my baby when I wasn't with her.

I sometimes got so anxious I would get my husband to text me pictures of her to reassure myself she was fine and happy. Then I would feel bad she was fine and happy without me.

I started to feel like I was missing out on key moments. I would leave for tutoring while she was down for her afternoon nap, and get back when she had already had dinner, was bathed and was asleep for the night.

Of course, as her sleep was still terrible, I still saw her throughout the night. The sleep deprivation added to my general feeling of overwhelm.

I tried dropping hours, but it barely helped.

The company I worked for, who had promoted itself as family friendly and flexible, seemed to again and again not understand the difficulties I was facing, asking me for more hours and more time given in return for minimal pay.

Eventually, one day on the bus home from the library story time with my daughter, I had an epiphany.

Why was I doing this?

The money yes, but realistically I wasn't getting paid big bucks.

Because I enjoyed it? I have always loved teaching and working one on one with students on reading improvements was very rewarding, but not at the cost of my mental health and family life. If I felt like I was doing too much and being pulled in too many directions, I could simply… stop.

The truth was I was working because I had always worked. Despite the exhausting first year of parenthood I had been through, part of me still didn't feel the job of raising my daughter was real work. When people asked what I do, I would say 'just being a mum right now.'

There was no 'just' about it of course. I was taking my daughter to playgroups and music groups and library story times every day of the week, getting home in time for nap time, feeding her three solid meals a day, cleaning up what went on the floor, changing nappies, reading stories, playing games and preventing her from running headfirst into danger a million times an hour.

To then turn around and add paid work on top was too much for me.

I'm aware how incredibly privileged I am to have the option to not do paid work outside of the home at this stage of my life. My heart goes out to the mums juggling it all, not from a sense they should work, like me, but from genuine need to make ends meet.

But my need to return to paid work came mostly from a sense that I wasn't doing enough. Wasn't contributing to the family enough. Because I wasn't doing what society had told me since university days was the true mark of success: getting financial compensation for my skills and labour.

It's very convenient for our employers and workplaces if we as a society forget that identity outside of work is valid, and there are a range of ways to add value to the world and enjoy your life beyond your title and pay check.

Perhaps especially for 'helping' professions, like teaching, we can easily think that a particular job is the only way to help. But work is bigger than a job, and identity is bigger than employment.

Now when people ask what I do, I give a more accurate answer — being a mum is my main job at the moment. There's no financial compensation but I am definitely using all my skills and labour.

I am still super grateful for other opportunities I have to use my brain and skills – like the occasional spot of freelance writing.

But removing the pressure of a job where I have to turn up at the same place, same time, week after week, no matter what chaos is happening in my home life, has made all the difference.Feature Image: Supplied.