Maternity Leave Checklist: Before You Log Off

Before maternity leave starts, four things need to be done: your dates and pay confirmed in writing, a handover document your coverage can actually run on, your away-boundaries stated out loud, and a small “re-entry file” for the version of you who comes back. That’s the whole checklist, and the club’s timing advice is blunt: do it around weeks 32–36, because babies are famously casual about due dates, and more than one club mom wrote her handover doc from a hospital bed. Here’s each piece, in shipping order.

Nail down the official stuff, in writing

Confirm the dates and the money. Exactly when leave starts, how long it runs, what’s paid at what level, and how disability or state family-leave programs interact with employer pay. Get the summary in an email, not a hallway conversation — policies get remembered differently at month four.
File everything early. Leave paperwork, disability claims, state program applications — most have lead times, and all of them are miserable to chase postpartum. This is the work-side twin of the deadline sweep on your third trimester checklist; do them the same week.
Ask HR the insurance question now. How you’ll add the baby to your plan while out, who to email, and what the window is — the deadline is short enough to bite, and the full sequence is in our newborn paperwork checklist. Get the contact’s name before you leave; “email HR” is much harder when you can’t remember your password.
Understand what happens to your benefits during leave. Retirement contributions, premium payments if any portion is unpaid, accrual of vacation time. Five questions, one meeting, no surprises.

Write a handover doc that runs without you

The club’s test for a handover document: could a competent stranger run your job for a week from this doc alone, without texting you? Structure that passes:

The recurring machine. Every recurring task with its cadence, steps and passwords-location (not the passwords themselves — where they’re managed).
Status of everything in flight. Each open project: where it stands, what’s next, who’s waiting on it, and the decision-owner while you’re out.
The people map. Who to ask about what, which client needs warm handling, where the bodies are buried (professionally speaking).
The judgment calls. The stuff only you know — the vendor who needs two reminders, the report nobody reads but the VP checks. This section is what makes your coverage bless your name.

Walk your coverage through it live at least a week before you go, and let them drive.

Set the boundaries out loud

Ambiguity is how leave gets eaten. The club’s boundary kit:

Decide your contactability and announce it. “Not reachable” and “one designated person may text for true emergencies” are both fine; unstated is not. Say it to your manager and your team in the same week.
Define “emergency.” If one person gets the text-me channel, tell them what qualifies. One club mom’s version: “Emergency means legal, payroll, or fire. Not the printer.”
Do the app hygiene on your last day. Work email and chat off the phone, or at minimum notifications off. Every mom in the club who left Slack installed reports reading it at 3am; not one reports being glad.
Write the auto-reply with an end date and a redirect. Who to contact for what, when you’re back, no apology. You are not sorry.

Pack the re-entry file

Fifteen minutes on your last day, addressed to the sleep-deprived colleague who’ll inherit your desk in a few months — you:

A “first week back” note: passwords location, the three things to check first, whatever you were worried about in March.
Your wins list from the past year, because review season won’t wait for your memory to come back online.
The childcare runway note: when you’re back, what needs booking how far ahead. Building the backup childcare plan before leave ends is the single most-repeated advice in the club’s back-to-work thread — future-you will start the job with the hardest problem pre-solved.

Heard in the club: “My handover doc was so good my coverage got promoted. Worth it. Mostly.”

FAQ: maternity leave prep

When should I start my maternity leave checklist?

Around weeks 32–36. Paperwork has lead times, handover docs take longer than expected, and babies don’t honor due dates. The club’s rule: be ship-ready by week 36, then let the last weeks be buffer rather than crunch.

What should be in a maternity leave handover document?

Recurring tasks with steps, the live status of everything in flight, a who-to-ask people map, and the judgment calls only you know. Test it against one question: could someone run your job for a week from the doc alone, without texting you? If yes, it’s done.

Should I check work email during maternity leave?

That’s yours to decide — what the club insists on is deciding it before you leave and saying it out loud. An announced boundary (fully off, or one designated emergency contact) gets respected; an unstated one gets eroded one “quick question” at a time.

What do moms wish they’d done before maternity leave?

The recurring three in our chat: filed the benefits paperwork early instead of from the hospital, taken work apps off the phone on day one, and left themselves a first-week-back note. All three take under an hour combined, and all three pay off for months.