To think more people WFH with DC than let on

[Thorts]

NC. Will preface this: I’m pregnant, and I’ve worked in the early years sector for lots of years. I cannot imagine working from home with a young child, even one who sleeps a lot, unless it is an absolute emergency and even then I can imagine work suffers or you end up making the hours back up late at night. Despite this I can totally understand why people do and would never judge anyone for it, you do what you have to do. The cost of childcare being the main reason and then the availability of it. Some providers didn’t have space until my DC would be nearly two and I was enquiring less than a week after finding out I was pregnant.

Reading some older threads on here, people seem to share my view or have stronger opinions about why it’s wrong to WFH with a young child.

However, my experience of what people do IRL (might just be among those I know) is vastly different. I know a handful of people in various professions who admit to either them WFH or their partner working from home with the child there, for at least one day a week, to help cut costs down. Even my DM who always worked a hybrid position used to work from home whilst me and my sister were very young and said she just managed it and enjoyed the flexibility!!!

AIBU to think it actually happens a LOT more in real life than people are happy to admit?

I think if you start then on screens pretty
young they can get quite addicted. Or like that other woman, just dump them in a playpen in another room and ignore them I guess. They’ll eventually learn to shut up and get on with it as mum isn’t coming when they cry.

I did it for a while a few years ago, long before Covid. I WFH. My DS who was say 15 months to 24 months when I did this, finished nursery at 1pm, I’d go and collect him from nursery, give him some warm milk, put him down for a nap for two or three hours and get on with work. I did it for about 18 months. It was only 2 days a week. No one ever knew, once I couldn’t get him to nap and my boss emailed and said ‘how you getting on with that report?’ I said, sorry, WiFi issues, will send it over shortly, that was as close as it ever came to getting found out as such.

Yeah, oddly enough all the parents I work with who’re working for a third fewer hours than the rest of us haven’t volunteered to formalise that by reducing their hours. Perfectly happy to get paid the same as those doing the full amount.

If I wanted to do that I’d have to go part time and take a pay cut but different rules apply to them obviously.

I agree. And if you try to call from 2.30pm onwards it's very likely that you won't get through to anyone at all.

I had to wfh with my DC during Covid and it was fucking awful. I, along with many other colleagues, were trying to entertain toddlers while homeschooling primary age DC while also working full time. It was not fun at all so I don’t get why anyone would think it was a good idea.

My DC are slightly older now at 7 and 10 and I can easily work if they are home from school ill as they will lie on the couch and watch TV, my employer is fine with this as it is obviously preferable to them that I don’t take a day off (plus both DH and I are wfh so can tag team an unwell DC if needed). I will also usually be working for an hour when the come home from school, they just get a snack and do their homework or play in the garden etc, until we are done. I don’t have a job where I am on the phone lots or have clients to answer to so it’s no issue having them around for short periods of time.

With a baby or toddler though? No thanks.

We both have very flexible work, and early on developed our 'switcheroo' system. One of us would work in the morning starting early, the other looks after child/children. Quick lunch as a family and then swap. Afternoon childcare person cooks dinner so person working can if necessary with right until it's served. We could each get about 5hrs done. Both then do a few hours once the kids are in bed.

Dedicated childcare all the time, both parents get time with the kids, and a full day of work done for no cost. We only did it for a day a week (except for covid) though as it was knackering.

I've also done working just during naps and evenings, which was ok when baby was 6m, but much trickier as time went on (hence thr switcheroo was born).

One of my team does, she has 3 under 8. She assures me the youngest (just over 3 years old) goes to a CM. I believe he does part time but there are just too many occasions when he’s too unwell to go and they just always happen to fall on her WFH days. I do suspect he’s only booked in for the two days she comes in to the office.

So genuinely, if there was an emergency or something urgent came up and you needed all hands on deck from your team, you call them and either can’t get through or they answer but can’t help as they’re doing xyz with children who should be in nursery, would that not annoy you? Or an important meeting is scheduled they all need to be in but someone declines because they have DC and that’s their lunch time/snack time/ or they’re just having a general toddler meltdown, would that not cause problems? I’m asking because my role is wfh and very flexible, and my manager very much has your attitude (and I appreciate it), but even then unforeseen things crop up that need my attention asap and if I had my child with me that would really impact my ability to deliver my role to the required standard and pull my weight, support my team.

My friend did even though it was in her contract. She was caught out after a colleague reported her to their manager and she was disciplined for that.

She sorted proper childcare although her eldest is now old enough to get himself to and from school and sort himself after school while she finishes work.

I could. do it with a baby . Not with a toddler ever. Occasionally with a pre schooler for short spurts and it was OK once they'd started school proper.

Yes to when I was designing, planning, researching

No to when I was on meetings or calls.

Luckily my employer only cared about the results didn't care about how I got them.

Depends on the age of the child, surely? And the job.

As a baby/toddler - just completely impossible, he wanted my full attention all the time he was awake, and it would have been ridiculously risky to just shut myself away and ignore him for the morning, fuck knows what he’d have got up to.

Now he is 7, I often finish early to do the school run then do some more work once he is in bed at 8pm. That works fine, he gets my full attention when he is in the house, and work gets my full attention when I am working. I can also plonk him in front of the TV for 30mins while I join a call, if it’s essential. Again though, I couldn’t do a full day’s work doing the school holidays when he is around all day - it wouldn’t be fair on him if I was actually working solidly, and it would be immediately noticeable if I was slacking off.

Some days it is much easier for me to WFH because the alternative is getting my toddler up at 4am to get him to grandma’s. What I do instead is get up early and start work whilst he sleeps. I get him up at 8, dressed and fed then grandma collects him at 9. I’d do the same with nursery as I wouldn’t be able to drop him early enough to get into work on time. I start working earlier than I’m scheduled to, so actually work doesn’t lose any time from me but yes I’m technically in charge of my child whilst WFH for those three hours. I don’t know how people do full days with small ones as I wouldn’t be able to get anything done once he was awake.

I only know one person who did this with pre-schoolers, outside of exceptional circumstances like illness. I don't know how they managed, I struggle to even go to the loo without my toddler following me! No way I'd get any work done.

My DC are all adults but I can’t WFH due to Dcat unless I lock him in another room or decamp to my bedroom
I I am utterly fed up with rubbish customer service due to so many WFH
Flaky colleagues and those who I have to deal with on a professional level who are not doing their jobs properly due to WFH
I am not sure this is all due to issues with WFH with DC or just WFH not working…..

But that’s not getting your work done well and on time, is it?

Depends what the ‘emergency’ is. Not many industries have genuine emergencies. Companies just make you feel as if it is, when 99% of the time it can simply be handled in a timely manner, within 24hrs.

How do you stop a young child interrupting a Teams call?
What do the children do all day, not even going to the playground?

I do this two days a week with my toddler to save on childcare costs. My partner and I both wfh full time and we juggle her between us on two days a week, roughly an hour on, an hour off. We also cover meetings for each other. Our toddler has a 3 hour nap every day, which leaves 5 hours of the work day for us to split between us. If there's any work to catch up on we do that after she goes to bed at 7pm.

I rarely have any work to catch up on - my job is light touch, not customer facing either. I also front load most of my meetings and workload on the days our toddler is at childcare.

While I can juggle it like this I will. I enjoy seeing her more in the week, and its a lifesaver in terms of money. My mortgage has gone up a lot and I'm relieved to be able to cut back on childcare.

Also to the person who said moralising work performance = bootlicking... you are my spirit animal.

I imagine your situation is unlike that of the majority of the contributors to this thread.

I know so many people who WFH and only have what I'd call marginal childcare like Granny is available for 1/2 a day or a day a week out of 5 days. Or child does 2 am's at a nursery and the parent or parents are full time WFH. Interestingly these are not lower income friends, they are my wealthier friends/colleagues.

Conversely when I returned to work after maternity leave, I only wanted to go back two days, and my boss seemed keen for me to go back more. One of his arguments was "you can work from home now, instead of coming into the office"?! I could only take from that, that he was implying I work from home some of the time, whilst somehow also looking after a 1yo 🤔I told him "Yes, but I still only have childcare for two days". He didn't come out with it outright, as probably knew it wasn't really allowed. I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to wfh regularly with a toddler. But there would have been no chance with mine! He was (and remains) very noisy and smashy. Definitely not in the "plays quietly in a corner not making a fuss" camp! 😬

I do something similar to this - I work 4 days over 5, so I do 3 school hours days and 2 longer days and am paid as if 4 long days. It works ok, though I frequently end up working unpaid on my short days from 3.30 when we get home / responding to emails so we’ve agreed I’ll go to 90 percent with flex on when I do the last ten percent

Why do people blame their problems with service on WFH when we're clearly seeing the country fall to bits around us?

Services have been run into the ground. It's not all the fault of WFH.

I don’t see the problem work wise..who cares if you’re getting the job done? Sounds like a bit of a crap deal for the kids though if a regular thing

In saying that life is hard at the moment for us all in this country so people have to do whatever it takes to get by. My dh has done when I’m at work and one of the dc has been off sick. I just wouldn’t want to do it all the time as he would get bored. It’s prob different if you have two entertaining each other etc