Early Morning: Complete your most pressing work tasks while your baby or toddler is still fast asleep. Breakfast: Grab a healthy breakfast for yourself and make a healthy breakfast for your child. Morning: Divide your time between playing with your child and getting some work done. Lunch: Eat some lunch yourself and prepare some lunch for your little one. Afternoon: Split your time between work and play. Check a few more things off your to-do list if your baby or toddler is taking a nap. Evening: Finish up a few more work-related tasks after your kids go to bed. Then, take some time to relax and decompress yourself.
If your baby or toddler is usually up at 7 AM, set your alarm for 5 AM instead. If you typically put your child to bed at 8 PM, extend your work hours from 8:30 to 10 PM. Double-check with your boss or supervisor to make sure that they’re okay with you working more sporadic hours.
Toddlers tend to nap for an hour at a time, but they don’t nap as much as babies and newborns do. [4] X Research source
Babies tend to be chill or calm right after they eat or right after they’ve taken a long nap.
Choose a place where you won’t be distracted by surroundings. For example, you might get sidetracked by dirty dishes and other household chores if you work in the kitchen or breakfast room. Take your workspace to the next level by installing a site blocker on your computer. Applications like Cold Turkey, BlockSite, LeechBlock NG, or Freedom are all good places to start. [7] X Research source Try to stay off social media sites while you’re working from home. Having a young child around is distracting enough as it is!
Arrange your TV on a low, stable piece of furniture or install it on the wall Place corner and edge guards on your furniture Mount any potentially unsteady furniture to the wall
If you feel comfortable enough, you can pump during a video or voice call with the camera angled away and your microphone muted (or turned way down). You can also multi-task while breastfeeding, as long as you have at least 1 hand free.
Some work tasks may not be super easy to complete with a baby carrier, but you can definitely tackle some simple things, like checking email or reading a new office memo.
It can also help to upload some of your documents and files to a cloud service, like Google Drive or Dropbox. That way, you won’t have to be at your computer to access them.
Dragon, Microsoft Speech-to-Text, Otter, and Apple Dictation are all great dictation services to consider. [13] X Research source
You might ask to be excused from a long video call, or request to start your shift really early in the morning. Working remotely requires really excellent communication from both the employee and the manager. Be mindful when you schedule meetings so you can maximize your time. With remote work, you can make every minute of your work schedule count.
You might take your baby for a 10-minute walk around the neighborhood in their stroller, or chill out on your phone for a few minutes while your toddler is glued to the TV.
Organize your routine based on each other’s work schedules. For instance, if your partner has Tuesdays off, they could spend more of Tuesday watching the baby. Network with your neighbors, too! If your neighbors have young children, you try striking up an arrangement where you each watch one another’s kids.
A nanny or babysitter can also be a big help if you have room in your budget for extra childcare.
