In Australia, women's employment is often disrupted to some extent by childbearing, with women taking time out of the labour force to care for young children, and then often returning to work part-time to better manage the competing priorities of work and family. This paper explores the relationship between childbearing and employment by examining the workforce transitions after childbearing, focusing on the return to full-time or part-time work. The work history collected as part of the Negotiating the Life Course Survey, along with the birth and relationship history and other key variables, makes it possible to construct a broad timeline of transitions back to work after childbearing, differentiating between transitions to full-time or part-time work. Discrete time event history analysis has been used to explore how the timing of return to work has changed in recent decades, and to identify characteristics of women likely to return to work earlier than others, or more likely to return to full-time rather than part-time work.