How to Work From Home with the Baby?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ahhhh 15:16 I was wondering when you'd show up...you're the one that went on and on in a thread last week about how you were so much better than everyone else because you could work and take care of your kid.

Since you can't be bothered to explain how you do this...can you at least answer whether or not your job is a "traditional" 40+ hour a week job. Because if you're not expected to put in regular hours, then I think all your self-congratulatory blahblahblah is a bunch of crap.

If you are expected to work 40+ hours, I'd love to see a schedule of when you work those hours and know what your kid is doing during that time. I doubt you'll provide that because if you are expected to put in 40 hours a week, I would guess that in reality you are working far less and not fooling any of those people who you "manage."

Obviously you did not read the whole thread. Or if you did, you have serious reading comprehension problems because you missed the part about my remarks being sarcastic. I distinctly remember posting that my last line "don't we all feel superior" or something to that effect should have indicated that I thought the whole conversation was silly.

So I'll attribute your missing that post to your negativity and wish you well.

[Anonymous]

15:16/18:45 so you really don't work from home and do childcare at the same time? If so, can you just explain how you do it instead of dodging the question?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I do work from home. No, I don't have outside childcare.

However feeling "superior" over it was a joke that was missed by many.

And I am not dodging the question, I am dodging the rudeness of the poster I quoted, as well as other posters who seem to think they know what's going on in my home. It's just not worth it to me to go into a detailed explanation.

The forum I posted for the OP on here will be very helpful for her as it's full of people who work from home in various capacities. I doubt all of them are paying for childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I do work from home. No, I don't have outside childcare.

However feeling "superior" over it was a joke that was missed by many.

And I am not dodging the question, I am dodging the rudeness of the poster I quoted, as well as other posters who seem to think they know what's going on in my home. It's just not worth it to me to go into a detailed explanation.

The forum I posted for the OP on here will be very helpful for her as it's full of people who work from home in various capacities. I doubt all of them are paying for childcare.

If you can't be bothered to go into a detailed explanation, even those of us who, at first, gave you the benefit of the doubt are beginning to wonder if your claims are true.

[Anonymous]

NP here and don't have time to read through all the posts. I am a federal attorney and I work from home 4 days a week. OP, the answer to your question is -- you can't. You can't work from home and watch a baby. I know there is a poster on here who claims to do it, but I guarantee you she is neither mothering nor working well, no matter what she says. Especially when your baby gets older and starts crawling, walking, running, CLIMBING!! there is no way on God's green earth that you will be able to get anything done, period, unless the child is napping.

I'm sure you're an awesome employee, but spare yourself the future embarassment of having to explain to your employer why you're behind on your work and give up the plan now. Put your baby in FT daycare if you want to keep working, or SAH. But you can't do both. Your child needs a mother who is paying attention to them, and your employer is paying you good money to do work for them. Both of these are full-time jobs that cannot coexist.

And people who try to do it give the rest of us a bad name, and make it more difficult for employers to justify work at home situations for working mothers. I love the flexibility that WAH gives me. For instance, when DS is sick, I will take the morning shift, and DH will work, then DH will take the afternoon shift with him, and I work. Then we both catch up on our missing hours at night. Win, win win. DS gets his parents, our employers get their work done, and we get to look after our sick kid. I also have the opportunity to work overtime, or, on occasion, pick DS up early to spend some more time with him and then catch up at night. However, it's just not possible to be a FT mom and a FT employee, OP. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

NotHing is more annoying when someone (dad or mom) is attempting to work when at home with a child and no child care.

It's not cute when your baby coos during a conference call; it's not funny to hear Dora in the background; I don't care if you can't answer my IM because you have to soothe a fussy baby. If your boss is fine with it that's one thing but please don't subject me to his ill-informed decision. Either work or don't work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NotHing is more annoying when someone (dad or mom) is attempting to work when at home with a child and no child care.

It's not cute when your baby coos during a conference call; it's not funny to hear Dora in the background; I don't care if you can't answer my IM because you have to soothe a fussy baby. If your boss is fine with it that's one thing but please don't subject me to his ill-informed decision. Either work or don't work.

Yes!!! I used to do conference calls with a guy who worked from home while watching his 3 kids. Everytime we heard one of his kids yell, we'd mute the phone and yell "get a freaking babysitter" and laugh at him. Immature on our part, yes, but it speaks volumes that our/his boss was the ringleader in all this yet never told the guy to his face that it annoyed everyone.

[Anonymous]

I work from home one day a week. When I started (DS was 6 months old), I had DS's grandmothers come in to help me that day. That worked for about 3 months. Then, he would get so upset just hearing my footsteps upstairs in the study, so I spent most of the day playing with him. And that was WITH childcare!

The other four days in the office were super stressful because I was basically trying to do 5 days of work in 4 days. It was really not worth the stress! I'm much happier now, and I think I traded a few hours of extra time for more quality time. The hours I spent with DS while 'working' just left me feeling like I wasn't doing anything well.

If the grandmothers want to spend the day with DS now, they come when I'm not home working, and DS goes to daycare on my day off. I still love it - get laundry and groceries done on that day, which frees up a lot of time.

[Anonymous]

Nobody is trying to rain on your parade OP. It's just that many of us thought as you did and learned the hard way. I have to agree with everyone here. I too thought that I could work from home once a week with no childcare. At 6 months, I had my nanny come in on those days at home. Prior to 6 months, I'm sure it's fine. My child slept for 4 hours a day and I was able to check emails or respond to urgent calls while DD was awake. I focused on projects and important conference calls at naptime. The problem is this: What do you do when you are on a call and your child wakes up early from a nap screaming?

I knew once DD was crawling that I would've been in over my head. OP, rather than work one day a week from home without help, which will soon become unmanageable, why not go in earlier so that you have more time to spend with your child in the evenings or work a compressed work week? At the very least, get yourself a mother's helper if even for half the day.

[Anonymous]

I dealt with this by working from home one day/week but only counting it as a half day (I work a 90% schedule). I get work done in the morning before DD wakes up and during her nap and after bedtime, if necessary. I try to keep up with basic emails during the day. My co-workers know that I am only going to accomplish 4 hours of work that day.

However, I also pay for day care 5 days/week, so when an important meeting comes up for my half day at home, I am able to bring DD to daycare.

This system has worked well for me.

[Anonymous]

Well if nothing else, at least this thread has answered the enduring question of "what do sahms do all day?" LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well if nothing else, at least this thread has answered the enduring question of "what do sahms do all day?" LOL

awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not even going to read these replies.

I work from home with my baby. I would tell you how I manage, but according to posters in the SAHM thread, I am either a terrible worker or a terrible mother.

However, I am the boss so my situation is different than yours in a sense. And I don't have to work certain hours, I just have to make sure my projects are complete...so that might be different than your situation too.

There's this forum called workplacelikehome. You should go there and ask if anyone works with their kids at home and how they do it. I bet you'll get some helpful answers.

Good luck.

That's the key, there. Baby, so wait a few more months and see if it still works. And, task oriented (meaning you can do your work around the need of the baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well if nothing else, at least this thread has answered the enduring question of "what do sahms do all day?" LOL

LOL! I think I'll print out this thread and show it to my husband, who still can't get his head around why I can't just handle all the 'problem' calls: Can you call PEPCO and figure out why our bill is messed up? Can you call Verizon and troubleshoot with them to figure out why channel 10,3045 isn't working? Can you call my doctor and see if he can reschedule my physical to an odd day that starts with T in November but before lunch? Its really hard to explain how fragmented and unpredictable your day is. Even moms with babies don't really see it sometimes until they try to get certain things done at a certain time or within a certain time frame while you have a baby in the house. You usually do have some time, but you never really know when it will be, how much it will or how long it will last.

[Anonymous]

Not 15:16, but I'm another boss who works from home with children. I've weighed in before, but not recently, about working from home. While nobody asked me how I do it, I'll tell you anyway.

First of all, we are end-result and goal oriented. I don't pay my employees to punch a time clock or to spend 40 hours working. I pay them to accomplish tasks; both short-term and long-term. I have some employees who are able to meet their goals and objectives in 25-30 hours per week. I have other employees who need closer to 35 or 40 or even more hours to accomplish similar objectives. Each of my employees controls his or her own schedule to the extent it is possible.

Second, I make sure it is an even playing field. Every one of my employees has the same leeway with respect to working from home as I do. In fact, I allowed one of my employees to do telecommute from home when her first was born. Interestingly, she came back from her leave and worked part time for another 3 months and accomplished just as much as she had when she was a full time employee. She said that being a mom was motivation to be more productive and efficient. There is less farting around on facebook and DCUM type sites (Interesting how many of these outraged work-from-home moms wrote multiple answers here during work hours....ruining it for all of us, no doubt ) and more actual work being done.

Third, and most importantly, we kept lines of communication open. We did not assume that working from home meant limited email availability; we discussed it. We also remained flexible, so that when something was not working (like OP's conference calls with a baby in the background) we recognized it and made whatever changes we needed to make. We are also considerate. We do not commit to meetings we can't attend, and we do commit to the meetings that are important, even if it means arranging childcare on a temporary basis.

Finally, we grew thick skins. While I now trade childcare with my husband on some days because I am filling in for another employee on FMLA, there have been a few days when he and I both have work commitments at the same time (he also works from our home). While it does not happen often, I have certainly participated in calls where my child could have been heard chattering in the background. I simply state "I'm at home today," and hit the mute button when I'm not speaking so the noise does not distract others. If you are rolling your eyes behind my back for no other reason than this, congratulate yourself for being the type of person who makes it harder for women to have it all.

Good luck, OP! It certainly can be done, but you'll want to keep revisiting what's working and what's not working and make sure you're making the adjustments you need to make to keep everyone (including your child) happy.