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[quote=Anonymous]So doing this is crazy, I agree. I've always had childcare for my kids.

I think it's partially unrealistic expectations. Plenty of people go into parenting with a lot of idealism about how babies are.

Part of it is that especially if your parental leave ends at 4-6 months AND you have a reasonably-unfussy baby AND you have a flexible work schedule (which is a lot of things to go right, but hardly shooting the moon - this would have been me with 2/3 of my kids) it can be feasible... in the short term. You can work during 2-3 naps, work a bit after bedtime, probably get in an hour while baby is awake and entertained with toys or food, and you can keep an eye on slack and be responsive basically all day. You can probably get in 5-6 hours of work a day, which is what plenty of people are doing anyway... for a few months. And you get in a groove, and you think you've got this awesome solution, and you save SO much money. But of course naps will shorten and baby will start crawling and then once that morning nap is gone, you're SOL. And then you feel stuck.

The answer for the OP, though, is just to say no to the free caregiving, and let her figure it out. Or - would you daughter want a part time job? Sounds like she could be doing 2-3 hours of childcare a few days a week after school and make $$.

I will also add that I do know a couple kinda did this until their kid when to school (never had daycare, both worked full time) but 1) they had only one kid and she was really chill 2) they BOTH worked from home and BOTH had flexible jobs 3) They both did two hours of work after bedtime every single night (for years!) which sounds terrible 4) their kid was still on two naps until almost 18 months, and 5) (and most importantly) once she dropped the morning nap, they took her to a drop-off DPR program that was 9-12 M-F. It was something like $2k a YEAR but one of them had to stay and help once a week I think. 6) This is DC, so once she turned 3, she went to PK3 and aftercare.

Honestly, their life sounded really stressful, but assuming daycare costs of $2,200 a month, they saved like $75k. That's a LOT of money. [/quote]

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