To ask for full time working life tips

[Chicci1]

I know this has been done before but I'm getting v nervous about my impending return to work after maternity leave. I'm going back full time as dh is also full time. We have no family help. We have a three year old and a 8 month old both of whom will be in nursery. My hours will be 7.30am to 4pm five days a week while dh will work 9.30am to 6.30pm. Both of our commutes are a little over an hour each way. He'll do drop off at 8am and I'll be collecting at about 5pm and will do a dinner for us and the kids and bedtimes. I'll leave the house at 6.20am so won't see the children in the mornings.
So far the plan is to get a cleaner and do batch cooking on Sundays. I will have to start having early nights too. Any life hacks that could help things be more manageable?

I find Google Keep indispensible. Any time I need to remember something I type it into my phone and set a reminder. Or if I'm feeling particularly wanky, I speak the memo instead.

I can't add anything to the tips, but wanted to offer reassurance that it's perfectly do-able - we did this for 18 months till we moved house, and then again for year or so when we had school to throw into the set of complications. I can't remember being particularly organised on the household front - MargoLovesButter's comments about cutting yourself slack seem to be the main thing.

Online groceries or at the least, Asda Click and Collect drive thru.

One load of laundry per day. Set it over night and then hang out at 6am if weather forecast is fair. If not, set the tumble dryer off when you get home in the evening. Fold warm washing out of the dryer to minimise ironing and don't iron childrens' clothes.

Dishwasher on overnight and unload in the morning so it's ready to be filled by breakfast and dinner dishes.

Don't worry about using the TV to entertain one child while you sort the other one out.

Build a repertoire of quick simple meals. Cheesy brocolli pasta. Jacket potato. Omelette. Stir fry. Then meal plan so that you don't have to think about it.

Communication between you and your DH will be key.

JLG19

THE best tip I saw was to freeze vegetable packs - onions carrot peas etc in a big flat ziplock bags, so the lie flat and take up little room.

Then empty the contents into the slow cooker and hair add the meat.

Great time savers

The one thing that was a sanity saver for me when mine were that age was the children having all their meals at nursery or childminder. It meant that we could shake them out of bed into their clothes, clean their teeth and bundle them into the car in the morning. And that we weren’t rushing to get dinner ready for hungry children the minute we got home in the evening. We had time to chat about what they’d been doing while we did a leisurely bath and bed routine. DH could get a nice dinner on for us while I was doing bedtime (or vice versa). We didn’t get frustrated by fussy eaters or bored of having to eat children’s food.

With the best will in the world, family mealtimes with young children aren’t always as idyllic as they’re made out to be, and to have your nursery take that stress away is really useful. And, since the cost is included in the astronomic fees, why spend more money feeding them at home?

Oh I agree with PP about having the chat about what happens if one or both DC are sick and can’t go to nursery. My DH and I fell out over this many, many tines. If you are both working FT there needs to be some give and take on this and you need to talk about it as mine just expected me to take time off work (which was so so hard).

Another one I’d add is get organised with things like birthday presents for the kids, friends etc and do lots online so you’re not wasting your precious weekends. At the weekends, don’t be drawn into the trap of ‘who’s more tired’ ‘who needs a break more’ etc as we were. Again, open discussion and managing each other’s expectations is key.

One more thing- what time does your DC nursery close? Presume it’s later than 5. I may get slated for this, but assuming it’s later than 5 and near your home, on the odd occasion don’t feel guilty about popping home after work and having a quiet 45 mins to yourself before you collect the children, obviously you’ll want to see them as soon as possible, but jumping from work to Mum mode can be hard and if you’re paying for the hours don’t feel bad about picking up a bit later if you, for example, need to go to the shops or have your hair done etc.

Online shopping, have a basic order that you add or take away from - much nicer to do on the sofa.
Meal plan for the week ahead saves time each night.
Also have everything ready the might before; I put out DDs clothes for the week ahead at the weekend and have her bag ready each night so I can grab and go in the morning.

Do all your life admin in you and DH lunch breaks.

Online shop and make a list! Then you can just re order the stuff you usually need. Makes it quicker and uses less headspace.

Have radio or TV on in the morning to help with timings. I.e Bing has finished, it's time to brush teeth. Stops me losing track of time.

Pack bags the night before.

Have a nice little bath / bedtime routine with games, stories etc. Helps us reconnect after a day apart.

Great tips here.
Make sure you split the workload 50-50.

We meal plan: we have a four week rota following nursery meals. We have four weekly shopping lists based on these meal plans. This way there is no thinking or stressing involved but meals are varied and healthy.

We also use left overs from the night before for our packed lunches.

How flexible are your jobs? Could you negotiate working from home? This could help with organisation when kids are ill or in general.

Keep on top of laundry.

Give yourselves breaks.

Good luck! Organisation is the key!

When buying clothes choose non iron. Crumple the fabric in your hand. If it stays crumpled don't buy it.

Use a tumble dryer and hang stuff up straight away.

Use of the above tactics mean I haven't used an iron for years

Couldn't agree more about the slow cooker prep the night before (and batch cook on Sundays which I love doing) and my ultimate now my youngest is starting Kindergarten is no more effing packed lunches.

They will both have school dinners (which here are catered by a really good catering company that my office uses) so I know they're getting a really decent variety. I then don't stress about doing big dinners when they get home.

All bags are packed and ready to go the night before with school books/homework etc.

I don't iron, I have a cleaner who deals with all our laundry. Don't have the luxury of online shopping here, but I'd be doing that if I did.

Some great tips here. I'm in the same boat, returning to work next month. Fortunately their nursery does all meals.

I've bought my baby some multipacks of leggings and long sleevep tops for autumn so each morning just grab those plus socks and she's ready. Each of us has a peg on the coat rack and there's a basket on top for all hats, gloves etc to go in when you get in so they don't go walkies and delay leaving the house.

Worse than cooking for dinner each night for me is having to prepare lunch on the weekend when we've just got in from whatever we've been doing, swimming etc, so planning to bulk cook soups/muffins/scones for quick lunches.

Menu plan and then do an online shopping basket for the required stuff, but do it with two stores, so your menus don't end up samey.

When you sort out bed linen put all matching items in one of the pillow cases, so you can just stick your hand on that and say oh there is set.

Buy, peel, segment and freeze clementines for the older child to eat in front of the tv, they take longer to eat and will buy you some time as they work their way through the orange sweeties.

Definitely do house admin at work if you can, or in lunch hour.

Online food shopping, and don’t feel guilty if you occasionally have to do a second online top-up shop during the week.

Set up an online account with Next. They do next day delivery for all clothes, bed linen etc, and are also good for last minute shopping for birthday presents. Can do an order in seconds, and then settle bill each month.

Always buy extra of things when out shopping, like buy extra birthday cards to keep at home, buy extra shampoo etc so you don’t run out.

Short cut foods like Dolmio sauce for bolognese and Uncle Ben’s for Chilli.

Diarise everything!

For me it's all about planning. Everything done as much as possible the night before, try to combine activities as much as possible to save time and effort.

I hate doing this but getting up a bit earlier in the morning to get my head together helps before the mayhem begins

We used to have a big tup in the hall that everything for the next day went into, then in the morning just put the tub in the car. It saved running backwards and forwards with armfuls of kit.
Get the house organised, de clutter and only keep what you need or love. That way there's a place for everything and it's easier to find lost things.
We keep an emergency "shop" in the garage. It's a shelving unit with anything we might run out of on it! So toilet rolls, toothbrushes, cat food, hair bobbles, cleaning stuff, gin.

My NCT teacher gave us something very similar to this when I was having DD1. It still stays on my wall and I regularly re-read it.

Definitely do house admin at work if you can
Yes, then when your boss finds out you'll find you have plenty of time at home to do it instead. It'll be a shame you'll be existing on one salary but ... How about working at work, home stuff at home or only in your lunch-hour?

Nikephorus- they didn't say anything about doing home admin outside of lunch hour?

Good tips here I think I need to do online food shops when I go back to work in a couple of weeks!

Delegate where you can (at work and at home) and I agree, a cleaner is a life saver.

We adjusted our expectations about what a good meal looks like during the week - scrambled eggs on toast is a winner, anything that takes any time or concentration is a no-no until the weekend. And planned time to spend together and time to be productive.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me has been to accept that I'm never going to be as good at either my job or at parenting as I'd like. There are moments every week where I have to say, "I'm going to have to do a worse job on that than I want to because my family need me" or conversely, "I'm going to have to say no, I can't give DD attention with that because work needs me". It's a constant judgement struggle which where to direct my energies and where I can make sacrifices. I work very hard at it and from the outside it looks like I cope with everything (so I've been told) but I am my own harshest critic and still struggle with this four years later!

Nikephorus- they didn't say anything about doing home admin outside of lunch hour?
raisinsraisins did actually at 16.09.

Once a week I go to bed straight after the kids do. I wake up feeling much less tired it’s like my new spa day

+1 on slow cooker and also a rice cooker.

Do something every weekend to make sure you and the family are getting out and having fun. A trip to the park counts!

We have a bag for each kid with water bottle, 2 sets of clothes each in a ziploc bag, a small activity (book/colouring pad and crayons etc), and these are left by the back door and refreshed as needed (smelly clothes straight into washer).

Get the kids to help. Google age appropriate chores and expect it from them. Sticker charts are your friend.

Only a little one, but DDs floss their teeth or read their home-school book whilst I do their hair.

As well as a slow cooker invest in a pressure cooker. When you have forgotten to turn on the slow cooker tip it all into the pressure cooker and 20 minutes later it is cooked as well as, if not better, than done in the slow cooker.
Also useful when you cba to do the slow cooker