Is It Worth It to Go Back to Work After Having a Baby The first thing to consider is that your paycheck is not pure profit. After considering many factors like taxes, travel expenses, expenses in work clothes and accessories, the cost of lunches and of course the cost of child care and items that you will need because you are separated from your baby, like a breast pump, bottles and cooler you may find it is not in your interest to work because you are not making a profit or the profit that you are making is not worth the time that you are away from your baby.	Breastfeeding Reading

Is It Worth It to Go Back to Work: Financially and Emotionally

Sometimes the only way that you can determine if something is worth your time and more importantly determine if it worth the time that you are away from your baby is to crunch some numbers. It isn't enough to look at the yearly income that you have before taxes. Also factoring such things as commuting cost, work clothing expenses, lunches cost and of course the cost of child care can help you know if it worth your time financially.

When both parents work the United States government takes about 40% of the second income in taxes. The is about the equivalence of of $25,000 earnings of a second income would be taxed 10,000. Unless you working a skilled trade or were working for a company for a long time that you had built up raises in your hourly wage, if you were salaried or if you were employed by a company that hourly wage was sufficiently higher than federal minimum wage, it would be unlikely that you would even reach $25,000 a year working full time.

In 18 states the minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25) and the other 32 states either have a minimum wage that is equal to or less than the federal minimum wage, or they are a state without a minimum wage law and federal minimum wage that applies to them. Even if you live in the highest paying minimum wage state, Washington with $9.04 you still would only earn about $16,500 at minimum wage working full time. As a second income that would only be $9,900 after taxes and that is before the cost of commuting to work, the cost of child care, lunches, etc. Source: Federal and National Minimum Wages

In the United States the national child care cost for babies and toddlers range from $500 - $900 a month, depending on where you live, the days that your child is in daycare and the amount of time that they are in daycare will affect the cost. If you use a caregiver that you don't have to pay, such as a grandma or if daddy can have a different shift than you, for child care but that is unlikely. You may be able to get a better deal with a baby-sitter or neighbor that you can pay but assuming that your working 160 hours a month and that you at most have a combined hour in travel to and from work and to where your baby is being cared for that is 180 hours that you have to pay someone for. Even if you could only pay them below federal wage and something like $4 an hour you would still be spending $700 a month. You may or may not be able to work out a better deal with a single individual verses a daycare but remember when your baby is cared for one person they are more likely to get the one on one attention that they need as well as not be around as many potential sick kids. Breastfeeding and Working Mother:Choosing a Caregiver or Daycare can offer more insight to picking a daycare or caregiver.

Formula for Calculating Your Yearly Profit

First Calculate Your Yearly Income times 40% Using the Percentage Calculator Below:

Use Top Calculator to Determine Your Income After Taxes If You Know Your Yearly Income and Use the Bottom Calculator if You What to Know How Much You Have to Make Before Taxes to Reach a Certain Amount
Yearly Income = (hourly wage X hours worked a week times 52 OR yearly salary)

Still working with the figure $16,500 we have established that after taxes you are left with $9,900, your looking at $825 a month, after the cost of child care, lets say you are able to get the cheapest cost possible ($500 a month) you would only be looking at $325 a month profit and we have not evening begun to calculate what you spend on gas for your car, not to mention if you are working at the same time as your partner you are looking at the prospects of having a second car, giving the situation the benefit of the doubt we will say that you would have had a second car anyway and therefore won't consider the cost of the car payments, the cost of insurance or the cost of gas that the car would be using. Source

You might think that the cost of a lunch is not something that you would consider an expense because you would eat lunch at home anyway. However the likely hood of you packing a lunch or buying a lunch for you lunch break that is more expensive that what you would have spend on lunch at home is good. Also the cost the clothing that you have to wear at your work, is something that would deduct from your profit. Then there is the cost of the breast pump that you may not even need if you worked at home or were at with your baby at all times. All in all at this point you would make $2 an hour of profit and we are not including the cost of the breast pump, bottles, cooler, commuting and vehicle cost, food cost or clothing cost. If for some reason you were able to get all of your child care for free you would still only be making about $5 an hour and again this is before the cost of the breast pump, bottles, cooler, commuting and vehicle cost, food or clothing. Even if it was would 180 hours a month away from your baby, more than a third of a year, be worth $9,900?

At the end of the day it isn't about the money or the pumping. The hardest part of a breastfeeding and working relationship is separation away from your baby. Missing holding them and not being with them can be be hard. One reason that so many moms now pursue careers that they can do with in their home, is so they can be with their children. When your baby is born and while they are an infant they view you the mother and them as one. Separation anxiety can be very hard for the both of you, be sure to not make any promises that you will return to work if you can because you may not realize what it will be to be apart from your baby.

Working and Breastfeeding: Finding a Routine will offer more advice for working nursing mothers. Sometimes you have no other option but to go back to work but that doesn't mean that going back to work has to damage your nursing relationship or that it means that you have to stop breastfeeding your baby.