Available daily time after childcare

[Funkid]

Hello dear support group,

My wife and I need to do some planning. We have a 3-months-old daughter. I go on working fulltime. My wife doesn’t work outside, she takes care of our daughter. I help whenever she needs free time for herself, which is easy as I work from home. And she does the household tasks (for a 100 m2 flat). We plan to entrust our daughter to a nursery once she is 9 months old, part-time probably to start with.

Our question is : in the coming 6 months (until the nursery), if my wife keeps on being prime caregiver, and doing the household chores, how much free time can she plan to have for herself to work/study from home ?

Put in another perspective : if we exclude evenings and weekends (where working parents would take care of the child together anyway), and we consider just the 40 hours working week, say Monday-Friday 9:00 to 18:00, how many of those hours are taken by taking care of a child, and how much is free to engage in studying or working (from home !) ?

And I guess that also depends on the age of the child (or children). It’s our first child, so we are discovering this.

We would be super grateful if you have some indications .

Thank you !

You just manage some how once you have another child.

Yes it's busy but totally possible to have more children without outside help. I'm not going to lie though, it can be hard some days.

Because you are doing all the same things for 2? If you are spending an hour doing a play activity you can do the same with two or three children. If you are making lunch you can make lunch for two in around the same time as for one.

Your question is how much time can you work or study, the answer is very little as young children need constant engagement and attention. If they nap you spend that time cleaning up the mess etx

29 years in childcare.....your wife will be running around like a blue a....d fly should baby go to sleep me time is non existent going out to work is the peace of cake.
Then do you want a stimulated well adjusted baby to toddler or a plugged into gadgets one plenty of research after covid showing the impact of childcare combined with work to highlight how damaging it is for under 5s.
Either finance childcare, support your wife by taking up all your out of work time by doing childcare.....becouse you had more me time on the commute than she had in the whole day. I'd suggest taking 3 weeks off work doing all childcare from 9 to 5 and all housework etc so you can see exactly how it works.
I was a marketing manager before and that was a peace of cake.

Because looking after two children is completely different from trying to work/study whilst looking after a child.

You can play with two together, you can do two nappy changes side by side or one after the other, you can cook one meal for both, you can take both to the park, you can bath both together. You can’t work or study while doing any of those things.

Having two DC is definitely harder than having one but there is a lot of overlap in what they both need, it’s not like trying to do something completely different at the same time.

Surely this is obvious?

Having multiple children of different ages is just more of the same type of work your not sitting trying to concentrate or learn your focus is on developing the children....but less free time as only one is asleep. Once they go to nursery you get those 2 hours between to do stuff....or longer if you use funding in full days...9 to 3 for 2 days plus a half day.
Not sure why any draconian system still says women stay home while men work certainly wasn't the case with the German company I worked for.

If there’s an age gap the older becomes more independent. If they’re close together you deal with them together - they share lunch, activities, even baths.

@minipie

Because looking after two children is completely different from trying to work/study whilst looking after a child.

You can play with two together, you can do two nappy changes side by side or one after the other, you can cook one meal for both, you can take both to the park, you can bath both together. You can’t work or study while doing any of those things.

Having two DC is definitely harder than having one but there is a lot of overlap in what they both need, it’s not like trying to do something completely different at the same time.

Surely this is obvious?

Basically agree but also they do get to a point where they entertain each other.

Also, bluntly, two kids fairly close together is really hard work. We kept my older DS in nursery 3 days when I was on maternity leave and my day with both kids (DH home one day as well) was frankly very very hard work during the stretch when DS1 was 2 and potty training and DS2 was a breastfed baby. I didn't get any housework done at all on those days, didn't even stack the dishwasher.

It does depend a lot on your kids personalities but also your personal resilience and aptitude for these things. I am always really surprised when posters on here talk about how easy being a SAHM is - I genuinely find it much easier to have a relatively high powered professional job than look after under 3s full time

😂 I am very impressed with your planning. My child didn't sleep at night until was 2 years so during day I was a zombie 🧟‍♀️. She had ear infections that made her very clingy and there was no way me going or doing anything at the time. So in other words plan ahead and be prepared to change it!

Watching 2 or 3 children is different to watching one child and studying.

She could try and keep on top of cooking/housework then study evenings/weekends while you take over childcare/housework. Means family time or free time is sacrificed but that may be best option.

Well two was hard work & mine were close in age.

I think it helps if you have a decent salary and can afford things like a cleaner, couple of afternoons at nursery, nice take outs. We had no money 😉

People just adapt - I thought in Germany kindergarten was encouraged.

But then how is a second or a third baby possible without life becoming unbearable ? There is somehting I don't understand there.

I currently have a two year old and a two month old. If you figure out the answer to this one let me know please

For me that would have been next to nothing. At around 1-2 months old I probably had a little more time because of the naps but 3-9 months almost no time.

Childcare.

Or you are a SAHM not trying to squeeze in work or studying

Hi all,

I am so grateful for your answers. Opening this thread and reading you gave us a lot of orientation. I think we get now how it works.

After my last post yesterday we had the idea of looking at how nurseries do it. I just looked up that the guidelines seem to be, in the UK and in the US for instance, one adult for 3 children under 2 years age. My first thought was that the more adults the more caring quality, so a SAHM with one child is fully occupied but also provides very high quality care. And then beyond three children the guidelines seem to indicate that the quality drops below an acceptable level. By the way : I am not saying that a SAHM with more than 3 kids does a bad job !!! I don’t have a clue. But the guidelines brought me to think “so in theory taking care of one child takes one third of one’s time”. Which doesn’t fit at all with our experience nor of course with your feedbacks. And then of course it occurred to us that if you have several kids quite some activities can be mutualized, for instance cooking, eating, playing, letting them play together, going for a stroll. And this is indeed what your last posts confirm. One of you says that it’s obvious. Yes you’re right, and I’m a bit ashamed I didn’t get it right away … We also read from you that it’s not that easy, and that the more the kids the more the pressure, despite the mutualisation. Yep . We are also very grateful for this post of yours that says that it’s easier until 2 months old because of the naps, but then it becomes more time demanding. Ok, we’re ready .

Thank you so much again !!! I wish you lots of happy childcaring time !

Hi again,

I'm just realising that the 1-adult-for-3-children ratio also implies, in theory, that you can combine raising up to 2 children with household chores, but not any more with 3 children, or just the very basic householding. Just a thought.

Good day !

But then again, it depends on the age of the children. Some guidelines I found for instance say :

• for under two year olds - one carer to three children
• two to three year olds - one carer to four children
• three to five year olds - one carer to eight children

So it's not that strict ... Ok, I shut up now . Good day !

You’re not a nursery 😂😂😂

In a nursery there are multiple staff, so one can go and prepare a snack for them all while the others are supervising the children. Staff get a break and the others are supervising. It’s a very different situation to being alone at home with children.

This is strange. There are tasks where you can multitask eg I can change a nappy while reading a story to my other child, or do a jigsaw with one child while rocking the baby. There are other tasks that can not involve multitasking, like studying as that takes your full concentration. It's not necessarily about ratio's but about what any person is physically able to do.

I'm not sure if your question is about studying/working or having a second child. I have 3 children- I can have all 3 of them and we do things all together like play playdoh or kick a ball or go to the park, eat together etc. I couldnt work or study at the same time, but adding another child into the mix is fine. I went back to work (from home) when DS was very small and could get a lot done with him in the sling but once he got to 6 months it was harder as he wanted to do more, so I could only work when he had a nap. When he turned 1, he was only having 1x1hr nap per day so I wouldnt have got much work done. He went to nursery from 6 months.

I don't know what nursery ratios have to do with it? I teach at secondary. We are not allowed to leave the pupils unsupervised during our lessons. The very same teenagers that get themselves to school and back independently, go to the park/town/socialise without parents on the weekend and could even legally live on their own for those who are 16yo+. It's to do with safeguarding and duty of care, not with how difficult it is to look after teens same at nursery schools!

I recall from my own maternity leaves with dc, my monday to Friday 9-5 time was spent either with the baby, doing things for the baby, and snatches of housework on between.

I wouldn't plan on having much free time during the weekdays if any.

A great way to test it would be to take a weeks annual leave and your wife go out 9-5 or on a saturday and sunday for a couple of weeks she goes out all day.

It Honetly will be the easiest way for you to answer your own question.

When you have two kids, you just do two lots of stuff.

Cooking for one is the same as cooming for two. Laundry for one is laundry for two. A walk with one is a walk with two.

Slightly harder juggling naps for both, getting them both dressed and nappy changes. You absorb two children into the time you spend looking after one.

I think you need to try to adjust your mindset from being so logical and structured.

You can't use ratios or scaling up/down when it comes to looking after your children. They are all completely different.

Some need 100% attention at all times, some need constant holding. Others prefer to be racing around independently. Some siblings play well together, others need to be separated.

In my experience, you have to have a very flexible approach and be prepared to change routine at the drop of a hat. I was lucky to have a very chilled baby who settled comfortably and happily into a routine. But that, together with household chores was a full-time job while I was on mat leave. There was no space for any other commitments.

Had I been fortunate enough to be able to have a second baby, I assume I'd have simply fitted the second child into existing patterns and adapted where necessary.