Working from home with toddlers requires preparation, sacrifice, and compromise. Certain variables such as job occupation, toddler’s age, number of children, and the environment will dictate how you go about managing work, home, and kids.
There will be challenges. It’s a juggling job between work and the kids. You don’t want to underperform in both aspects, but you also don’t want to spread yourself too thin to where every day seems miserable.
It takes a team, a well-crafted plan, and superb execution to make this difficult feat work.
Before 2020, many of my friends, family, and acquaintances would often tell me, “I wished I worked from home.” The reason why they tell me this is because of the field I work in.
I’m a software engineer, so in usual (pre-COVID) situations, I can typically work from home or go into the office. Working from home has its perks, so I understand why anybody would say, “Ah man, you work from home? I wish my job let me do that.”
Working from home also has its downside, but that’s another complete rant which is not about today’s topic.
If you’re here, there’s a privilege that we’re afforded. We have jobs and we’re able to keep our jobs, working from home. But with this particular privilege comes responsibility, and that responsibility is our children.
Working from home with toddlers(or babies) has become exponentially complicated. I imagine other families going through a variation of this situation as the pandemic has forced parents to work from home or be furloughed. Parents that have never worked from home face job challenges on top of their family circumstances.
In our situation, we don’t have our parents taking care of our little one (because of COVID), and daycare seems a bit risky right now, though most of them are closed in our area. (We would’ve put our little one in daycare as that was our plan, but you know…COVID)
My wife works at a hospital. The little one and I stay put and work from home. We hired a nanny to take care of the little one part-time, and the rest of the day, I take care of the little one before my wife comes home.
I’ll explain our situation more in detail in how we evaluated our needs and made the decisions we’ve made.
Working From Home Challenges
When you’re working in the office/studio/room/building, everything is supplied to get your work done. There’s the desk, the office supplies, the computer, software, internet, etc. Things you never really thought about are already thought out for you, all in the workplace.
Most of us don’t have everything the workplace would supply at home. You have to do your best and make due, to make things work as close as possible to the workplace, within the confines of your home.
Work performance is important. Employers’ expectations are that even if you work from home, work performance isn’t supposed to drop. Everything that’s done is supposed to be optimal, whether it’s done remotely or in the workplace.
In times like this, especially when unemployment is at its highest, you don’t want to give your superiors any cynical excuse about your work performance.
There’s also challenges such as:
- Problems with work equipment – working remotely means if equipment goes wrong, getting it fixed takes more time since everything is remote
- Lack of motivation – as you work from home, you get comfortable and become less motivated to do the daily things you use to do, e.g., go to the gym or socialize at work
- Distractions – it’s hard not to, especially in the confines of your home. But those distractions will affect your productivity vs. if you were in the workplace
- Socialize – it’s challenging to socialize digitally vs. in person. Makes remote work pretty lonely
- Miscommunications – messages can be misconstrued, happens all the time at work, especially when communicating via text chat or email
- Depression – being alone without any in-person social interaction can cause depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
- Lethargic – moving less frequently at home. At the workplace, there are restroom breaks, social interaction, going out for lunch/breaks, getting coffee, and sometimes after-work plans.
- Not for everyone – working from home is not for everyone. Usual tasks can be underperformed. It’s possible to feel a little lost when it comes to working and confused about work goals.
Working From Home With Toddlers Challenges
Add children on top of your work challenges; working from home becomes much more difficult.
If you have more than one child, it’s almost damn near impossible at that point (impossible without help and a plan/schedule).
- Toddlers/babies need attention – It almost seems like when you’re in a work groove, without fail, your little one will swoop right in to interrupt that focus
- Toddlers/babies care – Your little one is in their prime of growing and developing. You want to contribute to their growth, and it’s a challenge to juggle both work and what to do with your child
- Exhaustion – More than likely, you’ll be more exhausted than ever. It’s hard to take care of a baby/toddler (or babies/toddlers). Add work on top of that, anybody trying to be productive will mentally and physically be drained.
- Mental fortitude
- Frustration and lack of life balance
Working From Home With or Without Child Care
There are a lot of things that need to be evaluated when thinking about hiring child care. There’s daycare vs. nanny services vs. no child care.
If we weren’t in a pandemic, our first choice would be daycare. As time passes, we’re seeing our little one(s) grow and develop right before our very eyes, but it’s limited in the confines of our home. We can teach her numbers, colors, shapes, animals, sing, draw, color, and paint, but the things that daycare can contribute will always surpass what we can offer.
So for now, the choice is to either hire a nanny or not. And if we hire a nanny, is it for full-time or part-time. If you decide on hiring a nanny, I’ve written a post on how to hire a nanny.
(Also, in your nanny search, be sure to find someone you feel is responsible, especially when it comes to this pandemic. Our responsibility is to let the nanny candidates know the risk – in our case, my wife works at the hospital – and we hope the candidates are responsible for letting us know their situation.)
When thinking about hiring help, consider:
- Budget – can we afford child care? Will my job allow me to pay for a nanny, or is nanny services more expensive than what I make? And if we can, how much can we afford or better question is how much are we willing to set money aside for this expense?
- Work circumstances – is work flexible enough to where I can work while tending to my child? I imagine it’s possible to do such things in some cases, e.g., customer service, taking calls, and between breaks tend to the little one (even then it’s challenging but possible).
- Sacrifice – what are the sacrifices I’m willing to make? Time, money, etc.?
- Plan – after all the questions asked, you most likely have an answer. Formulate a plan/schedule based on those answers
Full-Time Service
Full-time (8 hours/per day) nanny service is pretty straightforward. You’ll give most if not, your all to work (for 8 hours) when at home. Just remember to create a workspace/work area for yourself. Be mindful of work challenges, but other than that, if you picked this choice, your remote job’s difficulties are significantly reduced.
Part-Time Service
Part-time nanny service poses some challenges, but there’s help and that’s important. This is where planning is vital.
- Get work done – Get as much work done when you have the nanny taking care of things
- Work while napping – Can’t emphasize this enough, your little one’s nap(s) is essential to getting your work done. Our toddler is at the one nap stage. But if you’re tending to a toddler that is taking 2 or 3 naps, get your work done
- Prep for the day – prepare meals, milk in a bottle, snacks, etc. so you spend more time working
- Notify work – tell your colleagues and superiors that you still have a baby/toddler to tend to
- Get help – from your significant other/partner/spouse
- Compromise – e.g., I handle everything (work and kids) until my wife gets home. She takes over while I continue working
- Plan on working later – depending on work flexibility, plan on working after things settle, like when your little one is asleep
- Plan on working early – if you’re not a night person, but a morning person, get up early (before the little one wakes up) and start your work
- Break down work – plan on what work you’re getting done for the day and break down and time each task
- Work for the next day – put in work that can carry on the next day. E.g., if you have 5 tasks due today and there are another 5 tasks due tomorrow. Finish up the 5 tasks today and do maybe a task or 2 for tomorrow
In our situation, this is the route we went with. It made sense with our circumstances and what we were willing to pay.
In the process of hiring a nanny, the kind of nanny we looked to hire would have daycare experience and maybe preschool experience. We wanted someone not to hang out and distract our little one, but to have some planned activities to further contribute to our little one’s education, creativity, motor skills, etc.
A nanny with a resume like that came with a higher price tag. We live in LA, so nanny rates are around $15-$30 dollars per hour (depending on location + experience). You can check average rates on ziprecruiter.com; it’ll give you an idea of what the baseline is.
After the nanny hiring process, the next step is to formulate a plan. A lot of the planning was, what I was willing to sacrifice, and how I can manage all the day’s hours to make this work. My wife had to make sacrifices as well to make this all work.
Here’s a schedule we made for our family that works for us (I understand schedules are custom formulated by family circumstances and job situations. Hopefully, it may guide and help you develop a schedule that works for you and your family):
- 7:15 AM – Wife wakes up, preps around the house for the day, and leaves to work before the little one gets up
- 8:15 AM – I wake up, get ready, wake the little one up, and get her ready for the day
- 9:15 AM – 1:15 PM – Nanny tends to our little one. Outdoor and indoor activities are planned out for the duration. Meals and snacks are already prepped. I get a chunk of time to work to try and knock out the most challenging time-consuming work tasks
- 1:15 PM – 1:45 PM – Nanny leaves. I hang out with the little one and get her ready for her nap
- 1:45 PM – 3:30 PM – While she’s napping, I’m working
- 3:30 PM – 6:00 PMish – Wake her up, have some things for her to do, entertain, and distract her. I also have her meal and snacks prepped. I probably won’t get any more than 30 minutes of straight work. This time slot is usually for minor work tasks like emails, minor bug fixes, etc. During this time, I try to encourage independent play, but sometimes she wants attention. Also important to take breaks in this time slot
- 6:00 PMish – Wife gets home from work, and she takes over for me. She cooks dinner for the little one while I continue my work upstairs
- 7:30 PMish – I stop work and join the wife and little one. They’re already finishing up dinner and cleaning up. I eat cereal or leftovers from what my wife made. We play and relax until the little one’s bedtime
- 9:45 PM – Put the little one to bed
- 10 PM – Wife and I workout in the garage (physical health is important)
- 11 PM – My wife and I love our alone time (mental health is important). The wife loves to read and get updated with the world. I usually work on some work stuff for the next day or work on some of my side projects
- 12 AM – Wife sleeps
- 2 AM – I sleep
- Rinse and repeat
If you don’t want to go through the schedule, the important takeaway from this section is, have a schedule made up that works for you and your family.
Have a list of things for your little one; planned activities, something to entertain, or distract. Have things planned to where they can play independently. Take a break and entertain. Have something else for them to do. Take another break and entertain….repeat until help comes (in my case, until the wife comes home).
No Child Care Services
This would be the most challenging route to take. Making this decision makes planning not vital but necessary. This is not impossible to do, but again, variables manner (job flexibility, jor demands, age of the child, MORE than one child).
In my experience, we have had to do this (no child care) a couple of times. There have been times the nanny had something unexpected come up and had to take the day or week off.
The list of planned activities for your little one is essential. You can save time and mental energy on figuring out what to do next with a list of scheduled activities.
We would have to adapt, and the schedule I have up above would sightly be altered:
- 9:15 AM – 1:15 PM – Use the list of planned activities, so you have blocks of time for work. On average, I would get a solid 20 minutes of work before I’m interrupted. I then take a 10-minute break to entertain and set her up for another independent activity. Rinse and repeat till nap time (Also snacks + meal in between). It’s challenging to get any real work done in this time slot
- 5:30 PMish – When the wife gets home, take my work upstairs and probably won’t see them until an hour before the little one’s bedtime
- 10:00 PM – Probably skip the workout. I’ll eat cereal or something, and work till my bedtime
In our circumstance (job occupation, work demand, and toddler age – 28 months at the time this post was written), it can work with some flexibility and sacrifice. It’s not easy, and if you’re here reading this, you most likely already know that.
Other Things to Consider
Sometimes, financially, the numbers don’t add up. What I mean by that is, say you work from home for $20 an hour (pre-tax), and you hire a nanny for $20 an hour. There’s more expense than income but still maintaining employment (and that’s important). A scenario like this may be worth it because pandemics don’t last forever. We know (or hope) there will be a day that we ease back to normalcy.
Something to consider, if you pay $20 per hour to your nanny and you make $20 per hour from work, the part-time route could be the best route.
A viable option is if you can do your remote job while not needing child care services. That heavily depends on the work demand from your job. But whatever route you take, create a plan/schedule as they are vital to managing time.
The worst-case scenario is if work demand requires nanny services, but you cannot afford it. Other measured risks would have to occur, like finding friends or family that can help you safely.
How to Manage Your Kid(s) While You Work
I stress the importance of having two kinds of plans.
The first plan tackles time management.
The template to formulate your first plan is to know your budget (if you’re thinking about nanny services), work demands, and what you’re (and your partner) willing to sacrifice (like sleep, alone time, or the weekends). Depending on your answers, you make a schedule on how you can optimally perform your duties for work while taking care of business at the home front.
The second plan is for your little one; planned activities.
You can create 30-minute blocks, and each block has one activity. E.g., Playing playdough on her table. I can probably get 25 minutes of independent play from her until she asks for me. 5 minutes left in that block would be my break time.
The next activity on the list would be playing with crayons and coloring. I can get 20 minutes of independent play and the rest of the block would be break time (10 minutes).
Your next activity block could be screen-time (I know, I am guilty of this. But if it helps, I put on educational YouTube videos, where she can learn nursery rhymes and other things like numbers, colors, and alphabets). In this block, she most likely doesn’t need me for the whole 30-minute duration.
The person that knows their child best is you. So you have the best idea of what they like to do and a reasonable estimate of how much independent time they’re capable of.
Working From Home Tips
- Create your schedule – time management is critical. If you need help creating a schedule, the above schedule I created above can be used as a template
- Planned activities – have a list of planned activities and if you find it useful, use time blocks so you can estimate how much work/break time
- Take breaks – this is for you and your little one(s). Remember always to consider your mental and physical health
- Stick to a routine
- Be patient
- Reward system – Set up some rules with your toddler. E.g., if they can independently play for x amount of time, they can get a reward?
- Notify work – in times like this, most employers and colleagues will understand. Give them a heads up so that they don’t expect you to reply to an email 2 seconds after they’ve sent it
- Sacrifice – compromise (whether it’s free time or sleep) to make this all work. The goal is to maintain optimal work performance while not missing a beat to tend to your child/children
- This is temporary – remember, we will get through this pandemic
Final Thoughts on Working From Home With Toddlers
It’s going to be tough. This requires a commitment from your team (family, child, and nanny). Being prepared makes difficult feats manageable. Have a plan for the team and a plan for your little one(s).
Let’s remember that this pandemic won’t last forever. We’ll get through this as we do with everything else.
