Struggling with work/life balance

[Anonymous]

DW gave birth to our first child (DD) 3 months ago. Overall, things have been going great, both wife and DD are happy and healthy, and she has been meeting her developmental milestones. However, one of the things that I've been struggling with is work/life balance. Like most, both DW and I have been WFH since March, and that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon. At work, I'm in the midst of a large scale project launch, so it's been very busy. Prior to DD being born, I would sign on around 8 am, and then sign off around 6. Of course, now that's not always an option. I try my best to be flexible with hours, and fortunately my team is pretty understanding if I need to sign off for a few hours in the middle of the day and/or sign back on later at night.

While DW is still on maternity leave, her job isn't quite as intense. It's the kind of job where everyone signs on right at 9 AM (and not a moment before) and signs off right at 5 pm (and not a moment after). Even though DW is a high performer at her job, she has a fair amount of downtime during the day.

Anyways, the struggle that we're having is that DW sometimes has a hard time grasping why I can't just step away from work in the middle of the day on a consistent basis to help watch DD. I've tried to do that before, but inevitably, fires started popping up, and I was unable to focus on watching DD and working at the same time. While I know that I'm not great with managing my time, in some cases, there is just more work to do than hours in the day.

DW's maternity leave ends at the end of the month. While we have DD enrolled at a daycare, we're thinking of trying to both work and watch DD for at least a few weeks to avoid having to pay for daycare as long as possible. For those who have BTDT, are there any tips on how to navigate this?

[Anonymous]

1) Three month olds are a ton of work, your wife needs help, maybe you should schedule some days or half-days off over the next few weeks to give her a break, especially as she transitions back to working. She needs tons of support right now. Can family help? This is a critical/challenging time for new moms.

2) Definitely do not try to skimp on childcare when your wife goes back to work, especially if it’s been hard so far with her on leave. Again, you guys need help. Send the baby to daycare, it is money well spent.

Sorry work has been busy but it’s nothing compared to adjusting to being a parent. You need to set better boundaries with work and set reasonable expectations for yourself. Again, look into taking some time off to help at home if you can. Even just a few half days. This will get harder if you are always pushing back against family demands. Now is the time to lean into family. Once your daughter is a bit older and you are settled into childcare and a routine, you can recalibrate a bit to center work more. But not right now. This year (yes YEAR, it’s a big transition) belongs to your wife and daughter).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DW gave birth to our first child (DD) 3 months ago. Overall, things have been going great, both wife and DD are happy and healthy, and she has been meeting her developmental milestones. However, one of the things that I've been struggling with is work/life balance. Like most, both DW and I have been WFH since March, and that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon. At work, I'm in the midst of a large scale project launch, so it's been very busy. Prior to DD being born, I would sign on around 8 am, and then sign off around 6. Of course, now that's not always an option. I try my best to be flexible with hours, and fortunately my team is pretty understanding if I need to sign off for a few hours in the middle of the day and/or sign back on later at night.

While DW is still on maternity leave, her job isn't quite as intense. It's the kind of job where everyone signs on right at 9 AM (and not a moment before) and signs off right at 5 pm (and not a moment after). Even though DW is a high performer at her job, she has a fair amount of downtime during the day.

Anyways, the struggle that we're having is that DW sometimes has a hard time grasping why I can't just step away from work in the middle of the day on a consistent basis to help watch DD. I've tried to do that before, but inevitably, fires started popping up, and I was unable to focus on watching DD and working at the same time. While I know that I'm not great with managing my time, in some cases, there is just more work to do than hours in the day.

DW's maternity leave ends at the end of the month. While we have DD enrolled at a daycare, we're thinking of trying to both work and watch DD for at least a few weeks to avoid having to pay for daycare as long as possible. For those who have BTDT, are there any tips on how to navigate this?

Don't try to watch the baby and work at the the same time. If you want to put off day care, use vacation days. I know right now employers are being more flexible about this, and that's good because not everyone can find child care, but "to save money" is not a good reason to be trying to do your job and take care of an infant at the same time, if you do have daycare available. There are exceptions to this (some kids really like nursing and sleeping), but it doesn't sound like this is one of those, so you really shouldn't try.

For the larger "how do I persuade my wife that I need to work more hours than she does and therefore can't contribute as much to child care" part? Have a serious conversation about your incomes and career plans and how kids fit into that. Are there jobs with more flexible hours that you could take, and how would that affect your financial and other plans? Maybe there aren't. Maybe you'll have to work more if you want another kid, I don't know. The short-term answer can be "I need to work 10-hour days, so let's figure out how to manage our household with that as a given." But the longer-term one is what your values and priorities as a family are and how both of your decisions contribute to that. If she earned more money, would you be able to scale back, and how would both of you feel about that? Are there things you can do on the weekends in terms of meal preparation/chores so that she's got less to do during the week? etc.

[Anonymous]

Good advice here for sure. Coming to an understanding on what each of you are going for in your careers is important. If you will be the main breadwinner/career that you both invest in then get agreement on that. Can your wife take a longer leave of absence until your daughter is 6 months old? It’s a lot easier then. In the meantime, I know work is exhausting but at 6pm, try to take on as much as you can from your wife to help. Can you do laundry, dishes and some cleaning each day? I found that helps a lot and it took me too long before I started it. But that stuff goes a long way. Giving her a night to socialize with friends (zoom I guess) every couple of weeks can also help. Congrats and buckle up. Stay on the same page with her and it will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Welcome to adulthood and the next 18-22 years of your life! You’ll adjust. We all did. Congrats on the new baby too!

[Anonymous]

You can't work and watch a baby.

By the way, there really is no work-life balance with a child if both parents are working. When the kid turns 4 years old, you will notice a little more freedom...unless you have a second. Let me warn you...one child is a vacation compared to two. In which case, if you have two kids, don't expect any kind of ease with work-life balance to resume for about 6 years. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

This is an important stage to negotiate successfully! This forum is full of people who are upset by the distribution of chores/parenting responsibilities and over time resentment festers and causes major problems. Just a warning to get this problem under control (through extra help, extra compassion, counseling if needed, etc.).

And congratulations on the new baby!

[Anonymous]

Congrats on your new baby, OP. That's awesome news. I agree with pp's that you need to put baby in daycare if you are both working. It's better to be able to give your full attention to the baby in the evenings, and not to build up resentment about whose work is more important when trying to determine who is responsible for the baby during different parts to the day.

If your wife is on maternity leave, and if she isn't having to work, it seems like she should be able to handle the baby during the day. It's a huge change in lifestyle, and it can be isolating, but I don't see why she can't handle the baby during the day. You really need to give her a break during the evenings so she has some alone time. You could take the baby up for bath and bedtime, while she cleans up and makes dinner, then you can come down and enjoy adult time with your wife. You can also take the mornings, and let her have an hour to shower and get dressed, this would help her feel good about herself.

I had twins, and my husband traveled Mon-Friday in the early days, so what I'm describing is what I would have liked to have if my DH were home with me to help!

[Anonymous]

Congrats on the new baby! As someone who skimped on childcare in my kid's early years, I'd agree with everyone else in saying you should pay for daycare and consider the childcare costs an investment in your careers, marriage, and sanity. If things are kind of rough now (which is normal! you have a 3 month old), they won't be any easier once your wife is also trying to do a job.

[Anonymous]

We pay a ridiculous amount for a nanny who works from 8 til 5. This allows us to both WFH and keep our sanity. We thought we were crazy when we made the decision but I'm so glad we did. We've cut back on everything else (Covid influenced as well) so it hasn't been as painful as it might have been.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP, I would suggest that you consider if there are ways to have scheduled blocks of time that you can alternate with your wife. If you can block 10-12 on your calendar each day, and align your project goals with say document reviews in the PM, adjust your battle rhythm. YOu have this flexibility as a PM.

As for your wife, it will help her to have an end in sight.

For peak periods, interview a babysitter that can come to the house. There are TONS of providers looking for work. You will be home. You don't need a super nanny, and the baby is small.

I would not pay DMV childcare costs if you can avoid it, not only for financial reasons right now, but also because of the time of year, how tough it is when kids get sick that first time with daycare germs and you catch bugs that put you out, and also coronavirus cases on the rise.

All of those factors would weight my decision towards modifying my schedule for the next 6 months, working around critical deliverables and ensuring you had 3 sources of backup support for emergencies, especially around those dates.

Someone gave me great advice when I first became a mom. She said, "There is no work/life balance. The best you can do is optimize your time."

It has served me well in the most difficult moments. And it reminds you that it is just a temporary period; things will change again and you shift priorities and spread committments more evenly.

Congrats on the little stinker.

[Anonymous]

First of all >>> Congratulations 🎊 on your new baby! 🧸🧸

I agree that working alongside an infant can be very very challenging.
Especially if your baby is not a very restful sleeper.
And no, it will not be easier when your child turns six months.

Worrying about a soon-to-be crawling baby can be even more difficult.

Is there any way that you are able to afford a Nanny to come in during the hours that both you + your wife need to work?

I am not sure if this is an option that you can afford, but if you can by all means do it!
Your baby is much too young to be put into a daycare center.

Wishing you the best!

[Anonymous]

What is she doing when she is asking you to watch the baby? Can you outsource some of whatever that is?
If she is cleaning, hire a housekeeper.
If she is cooking, order more takeout.
If she is doing laundry, send it out to be done.
If she is sleeping, work on night training and/or take turns getting up during the night.

It might also help if you have official baby duty for a set couple of hours every weekday.

[Anonymous]

Nobody wants to pay for darcare op, just like nobody wants to pay a mortgage or utilities.


My husband and I have 3 kids. Your plan won’t work, and it really won’t work if you guys are arguing about who’s turn it is to watch a baby who is barely more then a fetus. They sleep less, they move around more, they do things you wouldn’t expect, and most importantly, they and you deserve someone who wants to be caring for them. Your boss also deserves an employee who wants to be working during work time.
Your wife “understands” just fine, she simply doesn’t care, which is fine. You don’t get stay-at-home mom services with a wife that works.

I can clearly remember when my husband’s boss called asking him to “check something” right after he got home from work. We only had one kid at that point, she was fussing, we had literally just walked in the door, and the boss calls. My husband said “can’t I count on you to handle the home front?” and I said “No, not while I’m still working”. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t at work then, it mattered that I had the same expectations from my boss that he had from his and I wasn’t going to solo parent during the hardest part of the day while also taking care of dinner, any house chores, that sort of thing.

Send your kid to daycare, or talk with your wife about one of you staying home. My bias is that the woman should stay home, the world is not kind to stay-at-home dads. Maybe it should be, maybe it would be if we lived in a universe with different rules, and yes, some dads do it successfully, but it’s unlikely you will be one of them.

If you and your wife do play “pass the kid” plan on spending the money you saved on marriage counseling or a divorce. I’m not kidding.

Some of the happiest times of my life have been just going through life with my husband and kids. Even their meltdowns are easier to handle when I know he’s there with me. One of us will say something that will make the other person laugh and it isn’t so bad.

Your method will make it very easy for either or both of you to use the time while you have the kid to hop onto Facebook or whatever and text a friend, probably an opposite sex friend to talk about g-rated things, the sort of thing you’d discuss with your spouse. Same sex friends generally want to go find their spouse or a romantic partner, not shoot the breeze with a pal which is why this happens. Then you’ll start turning to this friend instead of your spouse, and think “Well, Jill is always happy to engage with me while Sally is eating her chicken nuggets, I wonder what a relationship with her would look like”. That’s how affairs start, or what makes people to think “I don’t need/want to go through life with the parent of my offspring, not when they can’t be bothered to hang out with me while Sally eats her nuggets”.

People are hardwired to go through life with other people. It’s why people can remarry so quickly after a spouse dies. Nobody wants to spend their evenings and nights alone, and I say this in the most g-rated sense of the word.

Pay for daycare or one of you stay home.

I also realize that nobody likes this oppinion, every parent on the planet thinks they have the magic bullet that no other human has ever tried. Trust me, you don’t. There is nothing magical about your relationship with your wife, your baby, or your situation that will make it possible for 2 working parents to not pay for daycare.

[Anonymous]

Don't push off the daycare. You need the daycare in order for you both to concentrate on your jobs during the day without the childcare battle.