This is my first time posting on here.I am planning a litter from my medium/large breed girl I have the support of her breeder and all health tests will be done..I work part time and my boss is willing to give me time off to care for puppies.I was just wondering at what stage puppies and mum could safely be left for max of three hours

I would be interested to know how people actually do this- work and have puppies at the same time.
We never leave puppies out of ear shot. Because we have a multi dog house we never leave the house empty at any time. One of us is always here.
I was flabbergasted when I first read a post from someone who hadn’t planned time off work to have a litter. It had never occurred to me that it was possible to do a good enough job If you’re not actually there.
Managing feeding every 4 hours, socialising and cleaning up after them etc seems hard enough and indeed a full time job on it’s own without trying to fit in work too.
I have always found it exhausting raising puppies because for us it’s a 24 hour a day job.

Thank you for your reply, Just to clarify I am planning to have four weeks off with the option of another two and my partner will have two weeks.I only work three days a week 10 till three and partner always goes home at one to let dogs out etc.I am just enquiring in case of any hiccups in my plan in which case family members have offered to pop in feed clean up etc every couple of hours

I was hoping someone else would be willing to advise you better about fitting in work round raising puppies but the forum is very quiet just now. Maybe most folk realise it’s not really possible to do both  successfully.
If you could arrange it so that one of you was there for the whole 8 weeks that would be ideal.
Newly born puppies are mostly worry for the first 2 or 3 weeks. It’s at weaning that your workload intensifies. By 5-6 weeks you may well find you have a house full of little hooligans who need constant supervision.

My advice would be to take the time off when the puppies are 3 weeks plus, I expect I will be criticised but I have always found that the bitch will do the majority of the work for the first 3 weeks, feeding them and cleaning up, be sure that your bitch has a secure area with access to the puppies at all times but room for her to lie away from them if she wishes.  It's almost impossible to overfeed a bitch with puppies and she needs a plentiful supply of water safely away from the pups, my friend has just had a litter and I have been going in at lunch time to feed and toilet the bitch and check on the puppies, feeding and mucking out as they got older. Ideally, and my own puppies always had me at home,  there would be someone on hand 24/7 but it is not always possible, if you put plans in place it is perfectly possible to rear puppies well in your circumstances.

So much can go wrong in the first few weeks and bitches laying on their pups and killing them by accident to some pups not doing so well and needing help.This is the time to make sure you're there 24/7. When they are weaning then leaving for 2 hours and giving the mother a break won't be so much of an issue in comparison.

I have a friend who managed to rear a litter of my main breed, and continue working.   I don't know how she managed it other than she had a very good mum.   Our breed can, with the best of plans, overlay their puppies and frankly even if I wasn't in the room in the daytime, I still left the door adjar so I could hear if there was a problem.   I, or my sig.other, slept with the litter/mum too.

Feeding, if it's not ongoing (mum happily in with the puppies) needs to be done every 2 hours round the clock.   Not until mum was off the litter would I relax my 'watch' but would still, as long as they were needing her for feeding, even with 'comfort nursing' once being weaned, not leave them.   In fact we really kept this up to the time they started leaving us which was at 10 weeks, or occasionally earlier if I felt the bigger litters would benefit from a home where they'd have more one-on-one care.   But certainly none went home before they were 8 weeks.

Different breeds may not need what we did for our puppies!

Cant offer any advice on working & rearing a litter. I really wonder how anyone works full time & rears a litter, my mother does the main but I do my bit when we have litters.

I would recommend that someone is with them 24/7 at least till the puppies' eyes are open and they're more mobile. The first couple of weeks are critical, but after that they can usually be left for increasing lengths of time. I find that by the time they're 4 weeks they can usually be safely left for 2 or 3 hours, but the remaining hours become harder and harder work as the pups need more input from the breeder and less from the mum! Of course they need feeding and 'mucking out' every 4 hours so can't be left for longer than that at all.

Thank you all for your advice,I have the option of having up to six weeks off and my partner two weeks,so after taking your advice into consideration will probably do that just to ensure mum and pups get the best start possible.I have another question I have two rooms suitable for mum and pups one is totally quiet and isolated from household noises,other mum and pups would be able to hear normal house activity .I was thinking second option better for socialisation but would it be quiet enough for mum in early days.Sorry for all questions but just want to do the best for mum and pups

Personally I like the quiet room to start with and more so if you have other dogs and kids etc. Once they've got their eyes open and start to move about you can move them into somewhere busier.

A lot would depend on your setup and who else is in the home.

Again fwiw, we had our newly whelped bitches in a room completely away from any others, and household comings and goings.   For the first 3 weeks.   After which we normally move the whelping box (originally 4 X 4) from that quiet room into the kitchen and add a second 4 X 4 section to give them more room once up and moving around.   That gets them used to the sights and sounds of a household.    We tried to have most of our litters into the better weather, so once they were that bit older, we'd have them outside in a puppy pen for periods during a warm day at which point I could give the whelping box a good old clear out and clean, replacing bedding and newspapers.

IMO it depends very much on your bitch, I found my GSD's wanted to be in the family area and would try to move the puppies if they were too secluded but the whippets and terriers preferred a quiet room where they could see us passing but not be too close until the pups were 3 weeks or so when they moved into the kitchen. I also always had puppies in the Spring/Summer and they had a pen outside with a shelter where they spent the fine days, except for a litter born in May who experienced nothing but rain almost the whole of July, plans don't always work, those puppies spent their mobile time in the conservatory.

Thank you all for your replies, they have been very helpful.I am going to book her in for hip and elbow scoring and if they are OK will proceed with my plans for a litter from her.