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moms who work from home... come in!
Question: What do you do... and more importantly, how do you do it?
Pre-baby, I thought I had it so good --being a reporter, I wrote half my stories at home anyway, so it was going to be easy (or so I thought) to continue to do so once the baby came. But my goodness! Trying to work around the baby's schedule is like trying to walk on bubblewrap and not pop any of it --so hard! I thought I could make phone calls and do interviews while she slept, but it's not a matter of when she sleeps but IF she does during regular business hours. I could write at night, after she's in bed, but here it is a quarter-to-midnight, and I'm still banging away at my stories.
How do you other work-at-home moms juggle it? What tricks have you mastered to keep the children happy, the house in order, and the income rolling in? Is it actually possible?
Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences, and since this is a subject of non-stop stress for me, thanks for letting me continually whine about it!
Re: moms who work from home... come in!
I don't work from home, but my sister does. She sells clothing lines to stores. She handles all of her clients from home and then has to go on the road to the stores and to the shows that they have every other month.
I know that her IL's take the baby (almost 2 now) every Friday and then a lot of times when she goes on the road, my mom will meet her at the store and my mom will push her around in the stroller while my sis is in the store showing the clothing line.
The phone calls she takes and almost always has her daughter in the background and it's just sort of something she has learned to deal with. All of her administrative stuff she handles late at night after the baby is in bed. So, I know my sister never goes to bed before midnight or 1 each night.
My sis-in-law has two kids and works from home and she finally got a woman in 3-days a week that is a nanny/housekeeper and that helped her out a lot!
I think it is rare that a woman can work from home while also providing full-time childcare. Two jobs at once is tough.
Can you get daycare a few times a week?
When my nephew was an infant, my sister had to have somebody come in 3 times a week to watch him. On those days she got all her phone calls done because she just couldn't rely on getting them all in when her son was asleep.
Best of luck!
I do accounting from home. I'm pretty lucky in that I don't have to work set hours or have to make more than a call or two a week. I usually get things taken care of late at night and on the weekends. There's no way I could get it done with the kids running around.
i work from home too - i am slowly easing Liam into daycare because it is just way too hard to get anything accomplished, i can imagine it only gets harder once they become mobile. we are staring w/ 2 days a week for now - then after Jan, he will go 4 days a week. it is SOOO sad dropping him off, and i miss him more than i though possible, but it really is the only way to be productive.
good luck!
I work p/t 3 days a week. I have childcare for all of those days, at least parts of them. On Mondays, I take her to my MILs house. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays (Monika comes on Wed
), a babysitter comes to my house. I do go out for appts but am home at least 2-4 hours working. When I don't have childcare, I make my phone calls during her naps or put her in front of the tv and go in another room (obviously my DD is older). I also do all of my report writing at night after she goes to bed. So yes, I am normally up until 11 or 12 every night. I have no idea how I'm going to do that with 2!
Maybe you can do a childcare swap with someone who is flexible with their hours. You can each take turns watching each others kids while you get things done. Another thing is to try to get someone to come in for care a couple hours a day so that you can make phone calls at that time.
It's not easy but it is so worth being able to work and spend time with your DD. Feel free to ask me any specific questions, I have been doing this since DD was 4.5 months old.