Working from home with a 1 year old?

[Janedoe95]

Is it possible? Or completely unrealistic.

I work a 9-5 but I’m lucky that my job is more task based I’ve only been back to work a week but have managed to get all my work done using nap time, bedtime and sending the odd email whilst DS is distracted.

is it unrealistic to think I can survive like this for maybe 6 more months hopefully by the time DS is 18 months or even two it will be easier?

im only in my office two days a week so was initially planning for DS to be in nursery 3 days but the prices have just gone up and it’s so expensive!

I'm on almost 28K which I thought was a fair salary to have a baby on but 5 days a week would cost me nearly £2000 a month! Which is obviously more than I earn.

i think I’d probably be better off on benefits staying at home with my baby whilst my partner works but I’d be completely reliant on my partner and then have no pension too.

(my work do know my baby is around when I work from home some days as I breastfeed but they also don’t expect me to be looking after him and working so “legally he’s being watched by someone else”)

I really don’t know how other women do it especially single mums the I’m 26 and the majority of mums I know my age don’t work and others are having babies mid to late 30s and 40s

Firm no, it's impossible.

I don’t know what you get paid so highly for, because you can’t even follow a thread on a forum, without making stupid accusations like you’ve replied multiple times to this, you’ve replied twice to most of my posts! Just not true bit like your made up job and pay.

But you’re employed to do arts and crafts and go to carol concerts, toddler groups and..

your bonus pays for Hawaii 2023!

Your bosses are batshit crazy and should only employ someone for five hours a week and go all inclusive to the moon for their new year break.

You say you take your child everyday to play groups. Is this in working hours or lunch break. If the first then this will have an impact in your team as they might want to contact you and will no response back. You might be thriving in your work but that doesn’t mean that there is an impact in your team. And whilst writing an email then you can’t have 100% the eyes in your child all the time

Same!

I’d just like to say my youngest child is 7, AND I have another adult in the house who is allegedly supposed to be looking after them, and I still find it very difficult to get any work done after they come home from school. It’s impossible to concentrate long enough to string an email together some days before one or other if then interrupts me or needs something or they start fighting. God only knows how anyone does it with a baby or toddler.

Nope. Childminder or nursery.

I would highly recommend you take a look at posting history before you take life advice off certain posters

Nobody can work from home effectively with DC under about 5 years old in the house with no other adult looking after them. They require too much of your attention at that age, to have it diverted and focussed elsewhere.

I work from home 2-3 times per week, and have a full-time Nanny as I'm a also a single parent with 2DC under 7, and couldn't manage without childcare.

Yep listen to one of the minority that post because it fits with your want @Janedoe95 , ignore the other 94%!

You're defrauding your employer. If you can do your job in two days, go part time. Grow up.

Absolutely not OK on so many levels.

Are you a GP?

Lol.

You can't block out your diary to prevent calls whilst you're looking after your son. Would your employer agree to that?

What I would look at is compressed hours - if you and your DH both compress to full time in 4 days, that only leaves 3 days of childcare.

I know someone who did mornings only at nursery - then her child napped for 2 hours and after that had a bit of TV time - that combined with compressed hours could really minimise your childcare. at least till your child drops their nap

We went into lockdown when my son was 13 months. I nearly lost my mind in the four months I tried to work at home with him. I then did it again for two months in the winter lockdown, which was even worse because he was nearly 2 and more mobile.

Seriously. Unless you have a very, very easy job, you cannot do it and you'll be doing a shit job at both parenting and working. I work condensed hours and childcare is a joint expense.

BrookieButter- I feel like your posts dont make any sense at all.
For example, how are you taking your daughter to friends houses, toddler groups etc whilst claiming to be working at the same time?
How are you actively engaging and playing with your daughter whilst working at the same time?
How are you feeding her, changing her whilst working from home at the same time?
How are you accepting teams calls, attending meetings with your daughter in the background? Shes probably making noises at the background, which isnt professional at all.
Daytime naps are short- I would say 2 hours max. So are you telling me you get your work done in a very short space of time? What job are you doing?
Children are very demanding and need constant attention, if you are "working" whilst looking after her, then you are either not doing your job properly or your not taking care of her properly
I dont care about the comebacks you will give us, vast majority of mothers here agree that you simply cannot work whilst looking after a small child efficiently without one or the other suffering.
Frankly I think all your posts are bullshit. I am sure the other mothers here will agree with me too.
FYI I have tried working from home whilst looking after a toddler, it doesn't work.

The most hellish time of my life was working at home with a one year old. The chaos, the raging, constant guilt, the time he fell in the garden when I was distracted and I looked up and saw him with blood pouring from his nose… it was awful, I would never do it again even if it left me penniless - I don’t see how anyone could do it willingly. Honestly, it’s not fair on your dc, your employer or your self.

*during lockdown

Have you seen any childminders ? Regulated and inspected by Ofsted the same as a nursery but generally a lot cheaper

Lots of schools and childcare professionals are refering lockdown children for interventions for speech and language. We're seeing lots of children who have not learned basic skills with delays in fine motor and cognitive development as well as social delays. Children unable to take part in messy play who have never had the opportunity and lots of immaturity.....but many who will sit happily on screens at home. Role play has changed too....lots of shhhh mummy's working we expect the fallout to be seen when these children are 16 why on earth would you choose to do this to a child post lockdown? This is why early years was kept open in later lockdowns the damage was so significant.

Impossible….I tried it but it didn’t work … you will be stressed out ….better to find childcare

She's clarified that she has a job which technically doesn't involve actually working. But does pay for Hawaii.

Personally I think the expectation by most employers is that if you can get work done in two hours a day, you should be trying to innovate, work on new work and you know, work, for the other 6 hours. At least mine does.

jannier, your post is very interesting to me because a couple of people I know (I realise that is not many), with very young children have said the opposite. Their children are extremely articulate and advanced in reading, writing, sums, drawing and doing puzzles. What did worry them was lack of social interaction with peers but that seems to have sorted itself, after all when back at nursery or school, a lot of the other children will have been fairly isolated.

Much depends on the parents and how they organised their work from home; if they took it in turns to be with the child, talking, playing, reading, drawing, taking her/him out to the park, etc, and not bothered about bedtimes so they could all be together in the evening.

Respect to parents who worked from home with young children around, during lockdown. I have no idea how I would have managed.

Going back to the topic, I agree with others who have said a good childminder would be better all round, especially as the op's child is only a baby.

Many parents don't have flexible jobs that allowed them to share childcare.

DH and I were both working all day or trying to homeschool older dc. Toddler dc missed out massively as he was always palmed off while we tried to work/home school/do housework.

My experience is that children of all ages have suffered massively. This is from my experience of my own dc and the primary aged children I've taught for the past 3 years.

Definitely agree with PP who said about condensing your hours if possible. After all, if you’ve done 7.5 hours, why not 9.5 hours 🤷‍♀️ Then you’ll get 2 ‘free’ days of childcare. A childminder is a lot cheaper than nursery. Do you have a family member who can help? A colleague of mine has an arrangement where she only works in the afternoon but has to catch up on emails and project work when her daughter is asleep. For you, that would mean only half a days childcare.