Herein lies the problem; I have a 3 y.o. who occupies 90% of my time. The other 10% I spend sleeping, or trying to sleep anyway. Any suggestions?That’s the exact wording of an email I received recently. She was apologizing about missing a tele-class I offered.
Being a working mom is challenging, and there are special challenges when your office is at home, but there are some strategies that may help. Here’s my answer to that email:
Have had other clients with similar issues. Here are some of the things they have tried:
- Hire a babysitter on a recurring basis for set times each week. This is the time you schedule all your clients/work – and with a 3-year-old, either you or the child will need to be out of the house – they know you’re there and run to Mommy even when they are happy with the babysitter.
- Find another mom who is willing to trade times when you take each other’s child, so you each have alone. Again, try to arrange so it is for the same time each week, so you can schedule out in advance.
Hope some of this helped – although it sounds like your first priority with some alone time should be sleep!
And the response: Great ideas. Thank you. I will need some time without the little one underfoot so I can focus.
If you’re a mom who works from home, please share [comment below] other strategies you have tried. What worked well & what failed?
It’s a long time since my children were that small, but we were lucky enough to have a local play group where you could leave your child for a couple of hours. It might be worth checking that out. It had the advantage that once my children started school they were used to being away from me for short periods of time.
I believe that the idea of having a fixed number of hours at a regular time is absolutely great for the children as they adjust to it very quickly and because it is consistent there is a lot less stress for them and as a consequence for the mum
I don’t have little ones at home anymore, but when I did – I would send her off to the neighbors to play with the kiddies. The gal next door and I would swap times throughout the week where I would get a break and she would too.
We lived close enough to each other for it to be convenient to reach the other if an instance called for it.