After a Baby, Full Time or Part?

But not all careers or employers are set up for alternative schedules.

Colleen Kotyk Vossler, 36, worked at an international law firm when she had Andrew, now 4. After maternity leave, she came back on a reduced schedule. She was soon working far more than she had expected. "I don't hold the firm responsible," she said. "Clients want the availability."

Because she was billing more hours than an average attorney at her firm, she returned to a full-time schedule. Ultimately, Vossler left the firm when her second child, Abigail, was 8 months old to take an in-house counsel position at BearingPoint. She wanted a job that would continue to be a challenge but give her more flexibility. The trade-off? Less pay.

"What I get in return is an opportunity to go on a field trip with my son," she said.

Elaine Lippmann, 34, is a lawyer who decided to take on an 80 percent schedule after her son was born. She is grappling with the impact on her career. She never thought she would be one to work part time. Like many Type-A Washington career lawyers, she put in long hours to get where she was. But she said that after Judah, now 1, was born, "the thought of being away from him so much just felt terrible."

Now she's reckoning with the consequences. "I do feel that I've had to make compromises when it comes to my career, and I'm often not sure how I feel about that. I wonder whether I'll have regrets down the road that I limited myself career-wise," she said.

Lippmann works at a small firm. She's the first lawyer there to go part time. "I feel a lot of pressure to show that this can work," she said. But she isn't sure yet it can.

She has moved into a practice group she likes, though it's limited her training, she said. In her review this year, she asked to "dabble in other practice groups to keep up my knowledge base," she said. "But I was told if I am part time, that limits what I can dabble in."

Before going part time, women need to take a hard look at their financial situations.

Fuentes, who works part time for Freddie Mac, and her husband created three spreadsheets to help them decide. They analyzed first what life would be like with her working full time and them paying for full-time child care. Then they looked at their budget with her working 60 percent of the time and hiring part-time care. Finally they assessed a situation in which Fuentes wouldn't work for pay at all and would be a full-time mom. The spreadsheets showed that a part-time work schedule was affordable.

"It worked out that it was a financial hit, but we could do it," Fuentes said.

Before Lippmann decided to go part time, she and her husband looked at their previous year's savings, then calculated how much less they would be able to put away. They determined that on her reduced schedule they could still contribute something to their 401(k)s.