Most moms take the remote working opportunity to work and still stay and care for their baby. It plays a big role in helping working moms balance between work and family. There is time and place flexibility benefits that are absent when you have to report to the office every day.
Working from home is possible but challenging. While you do not have to commute to the workplace, you are caring for your baby as you work. As such the role revolves around balancing out these duties so that you can do them all. If you can manage disruptions and distractions that are not present in an office setup, you can manage to work from home with a baby.
You can overcome the challenges by creating a consistent work routine, establish flexible work aspects, multitask, and manage your expectations.
Read: How to Manage Breastfeeding when Working from Home.
Challenges of Working from Home with a Baby
1. Disruptions & Distractions from Baby
While it does not apply to all babies, babies can be generally demanding. If you are the primary caregiver of your baby you your baby will have demands that are time and energy-consuming. The crying, feeding and nursing demands will prevent you from working.
You also will need the baby within your sight if not napping which is distracting. Others can’t sleep without being rocked etc. all which is draining and you may not focus on your work. All these things will make it hard for you to fully concentrate on the task at hand.
Read: Staying Focused while Working from Home with Husband
2. It is Hard to Switch between Home & Work Mode
When you are in an office set up, it is easy to switch your mind from home mode context to work mode context. The environment helps you forget for a while your mothering duties and be productive at what you are doing. When you get home, you can easily switch back to the mom/home context.
However, when you are working from home switching from home mode to work mode and vice versa is difficult. You are always thinking about the baby when trying to work and also thinking about work when you are having baby time. The setup makes working from home with a baby very challenging.
4. There is ZERO Down Time/No-Rest
Working and mothering are both full-time jobs, making it hence challenging to do them both at the same time. When you are working from home and caring for the baby, you are doing two full-time jobs at the same time.
They both demand optimal time and energy from you, especially during the day. This means that you will likely have no time for yourself as you juggle between work and baby. This will leave you drained out and fatigued. Most moms even have no time to eat or sleep or adequately re energize.
Read: How to Avoid Fatigue and Recover from Burnout
How to Manage Working from Home with a Baby
1. Create a Consistent Work Routine
It is important that both you and the baby run the day on a consistent routine. It is more like creating a timetable of when certain things get done. This includes nap, feeding time, bath time, play/bonding which are the main things you will need to do as a mom.
Sleep train your child to foster independent sleep in your baby to give time for work. Make all your meals ahead to save time during the day and save time both for work and baby. Also feed on a schedule- e.g. 2-3 hours intervals to avoid caring for the baby taking up time for work.
You also create your routine on when you do certain tasks such as check and receive emails, remote meetings, and send in reports among other works tasks that you have to do from day today. You will need to find the most appropriate time to allocate your work such as early in the morning before the baby wakes up, in between naps, and when the baby is less demanding.
Establish consistency in how this routine runs so that both you and the baby can stick to it effectively. Note that you will need to adjust this routine as the baby grows and her/his needs change. Doing so will ease your arrangement of working from home with a baby.
Read: Rountine Tips for Toddlers
2. Be Flexible with your Work
Look at how flexible your job is and create your working schedule from it. Remote work gives you the flexibility of time and place and a possible way to work from home when you have your baby. If your job allows it, it means you can do your tasks at any given time as long as you get it done.
It allows you to plan when to do certain tasks that are more demanding versus those that are not. It allows you to do these tasks on your schedule such as work in the early morning or late evening when it is easier to focus and be productive.
To switch between work and home mode, have a context switch enabler –e.g. music to switch to home mode to manage working from home and looking after your baby.
Have a baby-friendly office-set up a carrier, changing station, play-station, etc. Also have a sit/stand desk – mobile and great for when kids become mobile to make working easier and harder to be distracted.
Read: Best Time Management Tips for Working Moms
3. Multitask to Save Time & Energy
As a working mom remotely working with a baby, multitasking will be your savior if you have no extra help. It saves you precious time and gets multiple tasks done at the same time. Identify those jobs tasks that are less demanding and multitask them with less demanding baby tasks.
For instance, you can nurse while reading and replying to emails on your phone. You can also be in a muted online meeting while also doing something on the other end. Schedule meetings around nap time to avoid both working and baby conflicting
Hands-free tasks are the easiest to multitask. What you cannot multitask allocate their own separate time.
Read: How to Switch between Home and Work Mode
4. Lower Your Expectations/Targets
Not everything will work on your plan every day. Your baby may be particularly having a bad day and you are unable to get anything on your work. Such things happen and the best you can do is look for ways to cover up for the lost work hours. For instance, you can work late evening to finish off your tasks for the day as someone else watches the baby.
Also, remember babies may not typically fall into a consistent routine until they are a few months old. You can try out a basic routine, but be forgiving if it does not work out for a while.
Note: Your ability and success in managing to work from home and still look after your baby will largely depend on your child and age. It is easy to do it when the baby is small but up to until she/he is mobile. At this point, your work-ability will be largely limited to the time the baby is napping or someone else is watching them.
Read: How to be Effective Working from Home
Last Word
Your success in working from home without a baby will largely depend on the nature of your job. Therefore your job type will help make it easier or harder for you to work from home and care for the baby as well.
It is easier if you are not working on a schedule. Some jobs are less demanding and can be handled as you multitask caring for the baby. Also, the need for constant meetings will require you to have the baby napping or occupied by someone else.
Lastly working from home with a baby may not be a sustainable plan. This is considering the negative impacts on your parenting skills, career, and your mental health. It is doable yes but very difficult with crazy implications.
However, if you can hack it, good for you. Have a daily after-work self-care plan for work life balance and healthy routine. Keep what is working and drop what is not. The main point is that the situation is only temporary until your baby can join daycare/kindergarten or you get help with the baby.
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