Working from home - how can I do it?

[Littlebees]

I'm currently on maternity leave and desperately don't want to go back to my job when baby is a year old in a few months.

My work won't entertain part timers and there no way I want to work full time and leave baby 5 days a week.

I'd like to get a job that I can do from home, I'm in credit control so something along those lines would be ideal. How do I go about doing this? Or is there some other route I could do that would be relatively easy to pick up?

You cannot work from home and look after your child at the same time, unless you are a registered child minder, and accept sharing your attention with other children.
For most other options you will need childcare for your baby while you work - whether that is at home or elsewhere.

What Venus said. You will need childcare whether you are working from home or not.

Trust me, you still need child care when working from home. I learned the hard way.

No employer will allow working from home while being the sole carer for a child. I think most home worker contracts stipulate it.

I worked from home with no childcare (self-employed though) I did an average of 30 hours a week. When baby was tiny he was on me in a sling, then as he got older I worked around bed and nap times and at weekends when DH was around. Exhausting and the house was a tip for years but I was very lucky to not have to put DS into nursery.

WFH isn't possible with a young child at home, but I have done it with ds once he was in secondary school during holidays.

I also need to be prepared to go into the office for the day to attend meetings sometimes with only a days notice.

I work from home mainly, and manage my own diary so can be pretty flexible when I do need to go to meetings/see clients BUT I could no way do it with my kids around!

They are in childcare, as they would be if I was working in an office.

In my opinion wfh only makes things easier because I don’t have travel time to factor into my day. You need to think of yourself as ‘at work’ the same as you would if you were in an office.

Also I would add that not many jobs are advertised as work from home. I was with my company for a long time before I moved to a job where it was possible. Often people start to work from home once they are already established and trusted within a company.

What everyone else has said. When DCs were very young i child swapped with my friend - working for half of a week and looking after each others children the other half. It worked really well. I put them in childcare otherwise. I did manage extra hours when they were taking naps tho.

You need to either stop working entirely or find a new PT role. WFH might seem like the answer when your baby is small and has multiple naps but parenting becomes much more labour intensive as they get older.
Before you move jobs though, check your current maternity policy - will you have to return for a period of time to keep the mat pay you received. Also, if you would like more dc think about when as you may need to be in a new job for a certain length of time before qualifying for the full maternity leave they offer.

You need to have childcare in place even if you work from home.

Agree with everyone else.
You seem to be suggesting that someone pays you to look after your baby ? Why would anyone do that?

If your employer allows you to work from home, you'd still need childcare for the days /hours you work.

These threads pop up from time to time from people who don't really seem to understand how working from home works. Or childcare, for that matter.

The only way you can work from home and look after DC, is if the DC is at least 8, willing to be plonked in front of a screen for the duration, and it's a one-off / emergency, so one day's duration.

, I'm in credit control so something along those lines would be ideal. How do I go about doing this? Or is there some other route I could do that would be relatively easy to pick up?

Self employed Bookkeeping?

There are apparently quite a few MNers who earn decently that way. I'm sure you can qualify through distance learning.

If you started a thread asking for advice with "How to become a self employed Bookkeeper?" or similar as the thread title, I'm sure you'd get good advice.

AAT runs qualifications. If you already have other accounting technician qualifications you could probably go straight to advanced level.

www.aat.org.uk/aat-qualifications-and-courses/aat-qualifications/aat-bookkeeping-qualifications

The reason people (like me) work from home is so that you can spend the time you'd normally be commuting to an office doing the school run or spending a bit of additional time with DCs. However for the period that you're actually working, DCs need childcare or to be in school.

Yes. Being able to choose your own hours helps, too, if you have that option.

The only way is to work for yourself. Working from home is still working ! You are talking about working less hours.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, I meant working for myself not for someone else.

I do get what most of you mean about baby not taking many naps etc not that he does now anyway

I'm not sure if the OP is actually planning to wfh with her baby or if she'd be using childcare. It sounds like as job won't facilitate part time she wants a more flexible role (part time from home), not necessarily with baby too.

OP, I found a job wfh. I specifically looked up home based roles for our area on indeed. Job was part time, term time only. It was a good role but a start up company and as such the output I was expected to achieve was more than a full timer. I'm on mat leave and currently working on my exit strategy as I don't have it in me to return to that role. You'll find there are lots of start ups who offer wfh. I interviewed for one who only wanted 15 hours a week, again term time only. These people all actually had their children at home with them. It was a selling point of the role that you could work during nap time or in the evenings. It was a legitimate role.

Look on indeed as a starting point. I'm not sure about your experience but you may need to expand what you're looking at with transferable skills. You can also approach companies via LinkedIn. The other option is to become self employed. You could freelance - lots of options out there. Otherwise do you have a skill? Something you could turn into a business?

You say you work in credit control. I'd definitely consider self employed book keeping. My friend does it and it works brilliantly for her.

I work for myself at home. I started off years ago working with a mobile phone based question and answer service - not sex work, mostly general trivia and train times.

Then I branched out into freelance writing and make a decent income doing it.

BUT - and it's a massive but - my kids are older. All in school and all old enough to know that when Mum's working, she's working and isn't available. And nearly everything I do is when they're at school. With a 1 year old you're really going to struggle. They are into everything, they need nappy changes, they cry. You won't be able to get much done when they are awake. Especially a credit-control type job which is on the phone, mostly.

There are opportunities out there but you need to have a bit more of an idea of what you'd like to do and what your skills are. And do not get sucked into ANY of the scamtastic MLM pyramid schemes which will promise that you can make your fortune selling their shite. Because you won't.

There is no way you can work from home without using childcare. Especially when they're a full blown toddler. I work full time and WFH half the week. My DS still goes into childcare 5 days.. it's just on my WFH days I can drop off later and pick up earlier.

If you can do book keeping and can afford to keep it to 20-ish hours a week, plus have a DH who can take over evening wake-ups and most of weekend care then you can manage just fine. You can up the hours when he starts pre-school at 3.

The self-employed book keeping is a good avenue to explore, but there's still the issue that most of your clients will work standard office hours and might expect you to be available during that time for calls or to answer emails.