I hope this is the right place to ask this. Just curious when people tend to go on mat leave & how they found it? Was it just right? Did you wish you'd finished earlier or later?

I'm due Oct 1st with my first... and was going to stop at end Aug (just over 35 weeks)... then decided to change it and stop 22nd Aug (just over 34 weeks) - having just seen a colleague struggling in her last few weeks prior to going on leave... I thought why do it to myself!?!

I'm in a very lucky situation in that i get 12 wks paid mat leave and I can work from home (usually do 1 day a week at home). Oh and it's a f/t desk job with a commute of ~45-60mins each way on PT in melb... so saying, things have been reasonable in terms of getting a seat so far!
But I can't help but think that every extra week of mat leave I take before bubba comes, is a week earlier I need to go back, with bubba being less than 1 y.o.!

So now i'm toying with just doing a "phase-down" approach (which my work are supportive of). So then I might work till 36 weeks, but the last three weeks would be one day less per week.. i.e. 4 days, 3 days, then only 2 days in the last week.

What did other people do? what worked? what would you do differently? And any wise advice for me?

Thanks!