Perhaps use the novelty plan.

When you need to be unbothered w/a conference call, etc., perhaps you can give your kids a specific game, toy, treat or show that they will only receive during these “important” times.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let them sleep in.

Breakfast then cartoons and toys for a couple hours.

Let them play outside while you monitor from inside.

Lunch and cartoons.

Online school work followed by reading or coloring.

Snack

Playtime outside

Cartoons

Dinner

Husband should go into office super early to get home earlier than usual and give you time to work.

I think you missed some of what OP said. Her kids are 4 and 7. They can't play outside by themselves and can't do school work independently online.

They need to learn to play by themselves in back yard. Any parennt with even a pea size brain would have had fenced when they knew a child was in the way!

New poster here but Not everyone has a backyard. We live in a townhome community where all homes are open in the back and front is mostly parking so DC 5 cannot play outside alone.

+1 Our HOA doesn't allow fences. I'm pretty sure my brain is larger than a pea, and I've done just fine raising the kiddos without a fence. Let's not hurl insults at people who are in different situations than you.

Anonymous wrote:I have 5 teen nieces and nephews and all have been booked full time for the next few weeks. they are happy - they make money and the parents have a reasonably cheap babysitter.

I am not sure how my 15 year old nephew will do with full time babysitting but he will soon learn! He is looking after a 7 and 9 year old!

They should be paid pandemic wages! You may need these babysitters for a long time so I would not be cheap and screw them. After all, they are being put at risk by babysitting your children and as we now know that children can be asystomatic and spreading the virus.

Anonymous wrote:I have 5 teen nieces and nephews and all have been booked full time for the next few weeks. they are happy - they make money and the parents have a reasonably cheap babysitter.

I am not sure how my 15 year old nephew will do with full time babysitting but he will soon learn! He is looking after a 7 and 9 year old!

They should be paid pandemic wages! You may need these babysitters for a long time so I would not be cheap and screw them. After all, they are being put at risk by babysitting your children and as we now know that children can be asystomatic and spreading the virus.

My Next Door is full of high school and college kids looking for babysitting and other work.

I heard that Girl Scouts are setting up a babysitting bank. I don't know if it is on their website uet

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have friends in a similar place and have decided to work together. In both families one spouse has to physically be at work and the other can work from home flexibly. Kids are similar ages.

So e.g., Martin Smith goes to an office, Mary Smith teleworks for now, George Jones in the office and Gina Jones teleworks

Monday and Tuesday: Martin Smith drops the Smith kids at the Jones house on his way to work and picks them up on the way home (8:30-5:30). Mary Smith tries to get as much work done as possible. Gina Jones watches 4 kids for the day. George Jones works in the office.

Wednesday and Thursday: George Jones drops the Jones kids at the Smith’s house and picks up (8:30-5:30). Mary Smith watches 4 kids. Gina Jones works from home, Martin Smith goes in to work.

Fridays Martin and George alternate taking sick or vacation days and watching all 4 kids, Mary and Gina put in as many hours as they can.

Saturdays Martin and George deal with kids the whole day so Mary and Gina can catch up.

Sundays the kids become tv zombies and the parents all collapse from exhaustion and stress.

Not perfect but we hope it will work for a while before anyone gets sick.

I don't think this is a good idea. Reports are now suggesting that the disease is transmitted for some time by people who are not showing any symptoms, and that people who are not showing symptoms are actually far more infections than those who are not. That means that you have broadened out your infection circle beyond your own family and into that of five other families -- if even one of those people becomes infectious, all of your are susceptible.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread/index.html

Not what I would do.

Funny, I was going to say that might not work but for a completely different reason. How will the person watching four kids get them to do their school work? I have a hard enough time with just my kids. Otherwise, I would have gone this route, too (i.e., sharing responsibility with a neighbor).

I'm willing to expand my contact with people to include a few people from another family if that's what I have to do to get paid and keep life going. Those of you who are saying things like this, are you going to the store? Do you wear gloves when you go get gasoline for your car? Are you stopping work altogether? I'm really trying to understand what's going on in your lives. No one I have spoken with at my large office or in our neighborhood is hunkering down like that. Subject to change, of course, but for now some small contact is still happening with healthy people who are practicing reasonable social distancing in their lives.

We’re lucky in that our twins are in K and therefore pretty self-sufficient during the day. They’re supposed to do school via their laptops from 9-12, so I’m sure we’ll have to help some with that, and then we have an afternoon schedule that does include some TV, which is out of the norm for us. My husband works from home all the time and I’m working from home now (he has a dedicated office, I took over the formal dining room, which we never use anyway). We can work before the kids get up and after they go to bed if needed and we’re also aware that we may need to take some leave every day. But we’re not leaving the house other than to play outside and our nanny is no longer coming. Between her husband, who still has to go to work, plus whatever activities she decides to engage in (which are not our business), we’d rather not have her bring whatever she’s being exposed to every day into our house. We’re still paying her what she would have normally earned. Who knows how long this will last and how long we can keep this up (we have several weeks worth of groceries but at some point we’d have to get food) so we’ll reevaluate as needed. Oh, and we’re not doing play dates or going to playgrounds. My husband has predicated almost every step of this so far and since we are able to effectively quarantine ourselves we figured we ought to do so, for ourselves but also for the community. We realize we’re fortunate to be in this position so we thought we should do everything we could. Our friends who are a doctor and a nurse have hired a full-time nanny to live in their house for the time being - they are keeping their kids secluded at home and they are taking extreme measures to disinfect themselves before coming home and are considering staying elsewhere if more cases pop up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let them sleep in.

Breakfast then cartoons and toys for a couple hours.

Let them play outside while you monitor from inside.

Lunch and cartoons.

Online school work followed by reading or coloring.

Snack

Playtime outside

Cartoons

Dinner

Husband should go into office super early to get home earlier than usual and give you time to work.

I think you missed some of what OP said. Her kids are 4 and 7. They can't play outside by themselves and can't do school work independently online.

They need to learn to play by themselves in back yard. Any parennt with even a pea size brain would have had fenced when they knew a child was in the way!

New poster here but Not everyone has a backyard. We live in a townhome community where all homes are open in the back and front is mostly parking so DC 5 cannot play outside alone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have friends in a similar place and have decided to work together. In both families one spouse has to physically be at work and the other can work from home flexibly. Kids are similar ages.

So e.g., Martin Smith goes to an office, Mary Smith teleworks for now, George Jones in the office and Gina Jones teleworks

Monday and Tuesday: Martin Smith drops the Smith kids at the Jones house on his way to work and picks them up on the way home (8:30-5:30). Mary Smith tries to get as much work done as possible. Gina Jones watches 4 kids for the day. George Jones works in the office.

Wednesday and Thursday: George Jones drops the Jones kids at the Smith’s house and picks up (8:30-5:30). Mary Smith watches 4 kids. Gina Jones works from home, Martin Smith goes in to work.

Fridays Martin and George alternate taking sick or vacation days and watching all 4 kids, Mary and Gina put in as many hours as they can.

Saturdays Martin and George deal with kids the whole day so Mary and Gina can catch up.

Sundays the kids become tv zombies and the parents all collapse from exhaustion and stress.

Not perfect but we hope it will work for a while before anyone gets sick.

I don't think this is a good idea. Reports are now suggesting that the disease is transmitted for some time by people who are not showing any symptoms, and that people who are not showing symptoms are actually far more infections than those who are not. That means that you have broadened out your infection circle beyond your own family and into that of five other families -- if even one of those people becomes infectious, all of your are susceptible.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread/index.html

Not what I would do.

Funny, I was going to say that might not work but for a completely different reason. How will the person watching four kids get them to do their school work? I have a hard enough time with just my kids. Otherwise, I would have gone this route, too (i.e., sharing responsibility with a neighbor).

I'm willing to expand my contact with people to include a few people from another family if that's what I have to do to get paid and keep life going. Those of you who are saying things like this, are you going to the store? Do you wear gloves when you go get gasoline for your car? Are you stopping work altogether? I'm really trying to understand what's going on in your lives. No one I have spoken with at my large office or in our neighborhood is hunkering down like that. Subject to change, of course, but for now some small contact is still happening with healthy people who are practicing reasonable social distancing in their lives.

Hey believe me I hear you. I had not been taking all of these precautions before, but now that this new evidence is coming out, we are going to be more careful. So much is happening so fast. Look at this latest report from CNN:

For the first time ever, Americans are being called upon to practice "social distancing," which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines as "remaining out of places where people meet or gather," and "avoiding local public transportation." That includes buses, subways, taxis and rideshares (like carpools, Uber and Lyft).
WHO declares novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic
WHO declares novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic
It also means maintaining a distance of six feet (or two meters) from others. Yes, that means you're supposed to be keeping kids six feet apart, not piling them in a car to go the local movie just because they're out of school.
"Children were sent home, businesses closed, and people began working from home," Bitton said, "so they would not be exposed to other children and adults who might unknowingly have the coronavirus.
"When people want to have the kids play with each other or otherwise normally interact, it sort of defeats the purpose," Britton said. "So frankly I wanted to send out a bit of an alarm ... because going out and pretending that life is as usual certainly can't be recommended at this time."

From here: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-kids-social-distancing-wellness/index.html

I mean, people will do what they need to do, obviously. But if the government and the community isn't taking what the scientists are saying seriously enough, it might not come out that well.

My spouse and I both are allowed to wfh. We’ve decided to work out a schedule that “assigns” parenting duties for each hour of the day. In total we both get 8 hrs of work but it’s spread through out the day.

Thought I already posted this, but guess not. OP, something that might help would be to have 2 of your kids' "school" days be Saturday & Sunday. Your spouse can handle those 2 days of teaching while you go all-in on work. That way, you get two full workdays, which will give you more flexibility during the week while juggling kids and work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have friends in a similar place and have decided to work together. In both families one spouse has to physically be at work and the other can work from home flexibly. Kids are similar ages.

So e.g., Martin Smith goes to an office, Mary Smith teleworks for now, George Jones in the office and Gina Jones teleworks

Monday and Tuesday: Martin Smith drops the Smith kids at the Jones house on his way to work and picks them up on the way home (8:30-5:30). Mary Smith tries to get as much work done as possible. Gina Jones watches 4 kids for the day. George Jones works in the office.

Wednesday and Thursday: George Jones drops the Jones kids at the Smith’s house and picks up (8:30-5:30). Mary Smith watches 4 kids. Gina Jones works from home, Martin Smith goes in to work.

Fridays Martin and George alternate taking sick or vacation days and watching all 4 kids, Mary and Gina put in as many hours as they can.

Saturdays Martin and George deal with kids the whole day so Mary and Gina can catch up.

Sundays the kids become tv zombies and the parents all collapse from exhaustion and stress.

Not perfect but we hope it will work for a while before anyone gets sick.

I don't think this is a good idea. Reports are now suggesting that the disease is transmitted for some time by people who are not showing any symptoms, and that people who are not showing symptoms are actually far more infections than those who are not. That means that you have broadened out your infection circle beyond your own family and into that of five other families -- if even one of those people becomes infectious, all of your are susceptible.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread/index.html

Not what I would do.

Funny, I was going to say that might not work but for a completely different reason. How will the person watching four kids get them to do their school work? I have a hard enough time with just my kids. Otherwise, I would have gone this route, too (i.e., sharing responsibility with a neighbor).

I'm willing to expand my contact with people to include a few people from another family if that's what I have to do to get paid and keep life going. Those of you who are saying things like this, are you going to the store? Do you wear gloves when you go get gasoline for your car? Are you stopping work altogether? I'm really trying to understand what's going on in your lives. No one I have spoken with at my large office or in our neighborhood is hunkering down like that. Subject to change, of course, but for now some small contact is still happening with healthy people who are practicing reasonable social distancing in their lives.

I hired a college sitter for my 4 and 7 yr old. I cannot work from home, must report to the office and my spouse will work from home but can’t handle both kids and trying to get work done for weeks.

My kindergartener will be fine. His school sent all the kids home with programmed iPads and times to FaceTime with their teacher. The lesson plans are all drawn out. The school also put up in touch with the scholastic and nat geo websites for more educational content. He’ll also practice his reading with his grandparents in California on ft. DH goes out running every morning and is going to wake up DS and run off some energy.


It’s my 21 month old who worries me. She is used to an active daycare and I can get nothing done when she’s here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let them sleep in.

Breakfast then cartoons and toys for a couple hours.

Let them play outside while you monitor from inside.

Lunch and cartoons.

Online school work followed by reading or coloring.

Snack

Playtime outside

Cartoons

Dinner

Husband should go into office super early to get home earlier than usual and give you time to work.

See, my kids would not behave well with all that loosely goosey and screen time. For us, it just breeds problems.

If your kids aren’t equipped to entertain themselves, then that’s a problem.

Similarly, kids should be able to do school work independently.

I typed the list. My kids are slightly older. They’ll mostly play outside. I won’t have any issues working from home, and I’ll even be able to run conference calls.

Great. But my youngest is two. Newly two. And my kids CAN entertain themselves, but only on days we don’t watch TV for as long as your schedule suggests. Try less screen time - you might be surprised by how it actually gives you more time!