WFH with children

[Annie232]

On many threads I hear women pop up and mention how they WFH x number of days and so don't need childcare on x number of days. Incidentally, within my NCT group on discussions on return to work a few of the women have said similar and that they plan to WFH 1/2 days a week and therefore save on childcare. Is this a thing now?

Does your emloyeer know? No way would mine agree to this.

It's called 'working from home' not 'dabbling on the laptop while juggling children'. No way can anyone do this and focus properly.

There is no way you can wfh when you're solely responsible for a baby. I found it tricky enough when we got our puppy 🤣

There were several woman doing this at my old company and it’s an absolute nightmare. Half the team were having conversations about how unprofessional it is and you can never get any decisions on calls when Peppa Pig is blaring in the background. Either find childcare or take extra time off work!

I have my 16mo here with me one day a week as I couldn't get her into nursery that day and now cannot afford it. It's hell. I try to work around times she is chilled/napping. My husband takes over at 3.30 and does the school run for my eldest but I never manage more than 6 hours and make it up on my other days. On my other 2 working days I pick my 5yo up. But he's fine just has a snack and watches TV/colours. I can manage 1 day a week working with my eldest here in the holidays but any more and he would get bored. And sometimes he doesn't play ball and I find things very tense. I'm hoping he'll start wrap around care soon to take the pressure off.

The bigger question is why is it women?

We’ve done the odd day where we do one or two hours on and off with our 1 year old and it’s a nightmare. No way could you do it full time and be actually doing a half decent job. WFH is still properly working. You need to treat it like that.

This is a really good point. Would your husband agree to wfh one day a week while looking after your baby @Annie232, or would he insist he can’t do his job without childcare? It seems to be mostly women who are doing/ planning this.

I agree with the previous posters who have mentioned how unfair this would be for the baby/ toddler, compared to nursery where they will have activities and interaction with the other children and the nursery staff. I'm assuming this is your first child, so you probably don’t realise how much nurseries and childminders do with the children in the care - it often seemed like much more than I would have done with my daughter at that age!

It is easier with older children (7+) - I can do an hour or so after I’ve picked DD up from school, and when she was ill recently I managed to wfh while she was resting/ watching TV, but it wasn’t ideal and I wasn’t at my most productive.

It wouldn't be allowed under the terms of my employment contract and rightly so. I've occasionally had to manage work and a child at home when they've been off sick but there's absolutely no way it's anything other than an emergency and I don't know a single person who doesn't have childcare in place when they're WFH.

The only person I know who successfully WFH with a small child is someone with a very simple (for her) job, short hours and a flexible employer.

She has to input X number of things in a four hour working day. However, her employer doesn’t care if that’s 4 hours in one go or 10 mins here, 90 mins there. She can do the job standing on her head so manages with early start and nap times, plus the odd bit of post-bedtime if needed.

Everyone else I know who tried it has ended up either giving up their job or getting childcare.

My employer states that we shouldn't be using WFH in place of childcare. I have a baby and a 4 year old and when I go back after mat leave they will be at school and nursery. I answer customer calls all day so it's impossible to do that and look after children. I have had the odd day where my DS was sick so I asked to be on admin work for the day, but even then you can't concentrate enough to be able to work to the level you normally would.

If you need to use the phone for calls for your work I don't see how you could do it, well.

I don't like even having my self-sufficient teenagers around when I'm WFH.

But I had a job after my first child that was WFH (long before covid and working remotely was a thing). My boss agreed that I could put my son in nursery in the morning (from 7-1), I picked him up and he'd sleep for a good couple of hours.

So I'd work 7-3 and then a couple of hours either around him or in the evening when he'd gone to bed. It was pretty easy to manage and saved childcare costs.

But I wouldn't have done it if I had afternoon meetings and calls.

We are currently writing our remote working policy to specifically cover this.

On one hand, it is impossible to work effectively while doing childcare. On another we feel it’s a safeguarding issue and if allowed we would be supporting a situation where children are not being probably supervised and could result in an accident.

I think it's a real shame that women on MN (and elsewhere obviously) have been saying for years that looking after a baby/toddler is a full time job. Many people go so far as to say it's much harder than their actual paid job!

And now it turns out that it's actually so easy, that you can do it at the same time as a full time job (which now apparently involves you only working 2 hours a day but still earning mega bucks - where are those jobs, I wonder? If I tell my manager I've finished my work in 2 hours, I just get more work).

I totally agree that some jobs may be flexible and allow you to pick your own working pattern and you can manage both by working through naps and in the evening and/or when you partner is managing the baby. If you have more of a rigid, busy working day, it's impossible.

This is not a sensible option for anyone with children under 5 unless they have a flexible and undemanding job.

I don't think consistently WFH with young kids is right, surely neither gets the right attention.

My employer "officially" doesn't allow it, but some clearly ignore this. I can easily see the WFH option being withdrawn, as my company was resistant to WFH in the first place - and in these instances I can see why. Having continued paying for childcare for my Primary DC, I'll be hugely pissed off if colleagues abusing WFH force the company's hand.

Ad-hoc I think is reasonable as a perk of the model, as long as work is done.

I had to WFH with an 8month old with the first covid lockdown. (My employer knew this) It was torture and not worth any money you would save from not having to pay childcare.

As PP said it can work with older DC because you can work hours to drop and collect from school and they can manage some time on their own.

You are absolutely not a mug and are planning the right thing.

It might work for a small minority of families/employers but you will soon realise why it really isn’t practical at all for the vast majority.

at my work there are lots of us who wfh with school aged kids ages 6+ so basically the kids are at school all dah and then we somehow manage between the kids finishing school and 5.30, usually with the help of a tv! But no way would it be tolerated for a colleague to wfh with a baby that wasn’t being properly cared for by someone else.

I mean during covid most of us had to, and it was hellish, but we hope to not be doing that again!

I wfh to reduce the need for childcare but what I mean by that is I compress my working week into 4 days so I have 1 day off where I don't need childcare that day, the other 4 days are close to 10 hour days, as I don't commute I can start very early and finish around 5.30pm and I'm home at 5.30. You can't work and look after a baby, it's impossible, toddlers are even worse.

I think it really really depends on the job. I can work at home with my 4 year old (if need be) , I'm not glued to a phone or anything. Mostly answering emails and doing some spreadsheets etc. Most of my colleagues have children at home too. As long as we get our work done.

As an employer with a 100% wfh team (and I wfh) I always ask about their childcare arrangements. I don't consider it possible to wfh and care for a baby / young infant. I am dubious about after school care for any child < 8. From 8 and up I think it's reasonable to have your kid home after school whilst you work but the school holidays need careful thought. My DD is now 11 and I had a breakdown over lockdown as a single mum with a very senior job. I couldn't provide full time childcare and work - it just wasn't possible. I took 3 months off for lockdown number 2.

I don't think its possible to WFH with small babies/children, ESPECIALLY if its just you. I tried it, was forced to on occasions where DD was sick and it was a disaster. I felt like i was both a shot employee and a shit mum because I wasn't doing either properly. And if we aren't careful, employers can start insisting that you cannot work remotely without childcare.

Surely this is one of the perks of "WFH" - You don't need to sort childcare. You can feed your baby etc while on zoom or whatever, pop then down for a nap etc .Ticks all the boxes for lots of people.
Even those who have older kids have distractions eg doorbell ringing, kids need feeding etc etc

In my team 2 women have been through the disciplinary procedure and dismissed one for not fulfilling the role and one for the amount of client/customer complaints. They’re not the worst off though, one of the team was with her child in hospital for two days with her child due to an accident that occurred while she was working and had no childcare.

No men in the team do it as PPs have said, lots of the women had to scramble for childcare or take annual leave or unpaid leave to sort childcare after the dismissals.

That’s not working!