If you are WFH while looking after a toddler/young child, how long do you think you can sustain it?

[Canyoutellilikrchocolate]

DH and I both WFH.

My job is pretty intense, as in I need full concentration (it’s quite academic and technical). Definitely can’t do it while looking after our toddler.

DH job is super intense ie long hours at the best of times, very technical, high stress.

We’re currently taking it in turns to work / look after our nearly 2 year old. Then in the evening we do all the housework etc.

We’re up from 5.30 some mornings and getting no down time.

How long do those in a similar boat feel they can continue??

Is anyone considering other options?

DH and I both now WFH, splitting the day 6-12 and 12-6 with more logging on once he's in bed. If I'm honest, locking myself away to work is a blessed relief from trying to constantly entertain a three year old who is used to nursery. I just keep thinking 'seriously, ALL of April, ALL of May and ALL of June???'

I just don't know how I'm going to do it without having a breakdown.

DH is key worker so still going in everyday, I am now wfh with 6yo DD and 4yo DS. It is completely shit and feel like I am failing at both keeping kids happy/occupied and educated, and trying to do a days work. I'm having to report in to work 3 times a day on all I am doing to prove I'm not dissing, and then DH came home from work in a grump cos the house needed a vac and the kids were doing Just Dance rather than something flipping worthwhile. I lost my shit ever so slightly!

Dh is working 7am-12pm and I’m doing 12.30pm-5.30pm. His work have told him just to do as much as possible and not to worry if he’s not doing his full hours. My work said the same goes until the end of the month but then I need to use annual or unpaid leave or request to temporarily reduce my hours (and therefore get paid less). Thankfully because we don’t have to pay nursery fees, train ticket, etc we will be okay with a reduced income. It’s a nightmare situation all round and there are no easy answers

We are staggering our hours and working through the weekends. I have been doing a full Saturday and Sunday as my hours are flexible. We take it turns to cover for conference calls for each other and peak times when something time specific has to be done.

The company has now put me on furlough from april 1st which is a bit of a relief to be honest. It would have been really hard to do this long term and the pay cut is worth the improvement in our quality of life.

It is really tough x

DP lasted 3 days before I had to change my work hours (I'm a key worker, he's WFH). He'll do 7am-1pm and I'll do 1pm-5.30pm. he'll make up the hours when I'm home in the evening or fingers crossed toddler usually sleeps 1-3 so he can make up the hours then IF toddler cooperates and naps.

I hate it I hate it I hate it!!! I feel like a worse parent than I did going to the office.
2.5yr old- I’m wfh, my husbands work has stopped so he does the bulk, but we have a very small house, my LO will also try and hunt me out, I work from my bed to give her the living room.
I have an understanding employer but still work has to be done.

I read this will go on until June - if it does sod it I will purposely catch this virus to get a break!

Finding it impossible tbh. DS has SEND so needs a lot of attention, I am splitting myself in half trying to do the right thing by my son and the right thing by work and it's killing me already.

My manager has said 'just tell us what needs doing and I'll make sure someone picks stuff up.' By which she means she'll dump it on one particular colleague who has 2 kids of her own and is always doing waaaay more than her fair share. Hence I feel obliged to keep slogging through.

Went to bed at 8:45 last night because I was in my knees...

I think employers have a moral responsibility here to cut their employees some slack! I am WFH with a 3yo by myself. DH and I are both key workers but he isnt able to work from home. I'm a civil servant. My department has been fantastic about reprioritising projects and lowering expectations. I am not finding it a struggle at all and have actually asked to pick up a few extra bits because I have some extra capacity.

Currently working 8-11am, 1-4pm and then a couple of hours in the evening.

Have a 4 yr old and a 2 yr old and I’m really really struggling. I work 3 days a week and am trying to stretch my hours across all 5 days as just no way I can do 3 full days with my girls here. My DH has still been going to work so been on my own.

Like @Florencenotflo I feel like I’m letting both my kids down and my work, as seem to be failing at both.

My two are still so young, I’m not able to sit and entertain them as desperately trying to do work and conference calls and they’ve just watched telly and played. But they are most definitely being let down as nursery do so much with them

No idea how long I can sustain it. Furloughing would actually be a relief

We're the same. Both work full-time in demanding and responsible jobs. 1 year old and 5 year old, so we have home-schooling in the mix too. It's hectic, we work 7am to 11pm in shifts to fit it all in. No time for housework! Quite enjoying it for now as spending more time with our girls. I'm assuming it'll be for a long time, so we've adjusted our way of thinking to accommodate that..

I have a 5 yo (reception) and an 18 month old. Last week was okay but only because I'm not too busy at the moment. However, I still worked 4/5 afternoon naps (thankfully my youngest is napping for 2 hours but my 5 yo was left to watch tv/ipad which isn't ideal) and worked 3 evenings 8-11.30pm. I'm also going to work 2-3 hours today. The lack of down town and being with my dcs all day is going to get to me soon though. I'm going food shopping today for 'me time' (we genuinely need food).

DP was working upstairs all week. If my workload increases then DP and I will have to split the day but I don't know how. He receives so many phonecalls and his clients expect immediate answers. My work is easier to do outside of my contractual hours but I don't want to spend all day looking after dcs, teaching my eldest then work evening/weekends.

I'm hoping to be furloughed (likely if my workload remains as it is). We can cope with a lower salary for a few months.

Genuine question: those who are key workers (eg firefighter) how come you don’t get childcare /school still?

I work for the nhs and am not front line but am a keyworker. So I can still have a DC in school and one in nursery, theoretically.

However, DC1 has SEN and even though the school is fabulous, they just can’t support him properly right now and after a few days of reduced school, different teacher every day, he was a mess. dC2’s nursery has also closed to everyone as they can’t secure any outsourced catering. So both are at home. DC1 is extra hard work with the anxiety and change of routine. DC2 is hard work because of being 2yo! But work thinks I’m sorted for childcare and if not, it’s my choice. So the work pours in as usual.

DH is also wfh so we are splitting the pain but it’s terribly difficult. I am likely to be required on site soon and I don’t honestly know how DH will manage. He’s talking about unpaid leave, which will hit us financially but might be the only option. I don’t know how we can manage this for months, either sanity-wise or financially.

Maybe eventually families could pair up to pool childcare? Greater risk than now but this can't be kept up. I think a little bit more hands-off parenting might not be a bad thing but inevitably there will be more accidents etc as well.

I'm worried this is going to be the start of women being shafted in the workplace. Employers might be understanding now, but if this goes on for months and they need to cut staff, who do you think will be top of the list?

Thanks @ariela. Will give them a go tomorrow

It’s really hard isn’t it. We’re both FT and split the day. Last week I was juggling ill health (poss’ CV?), looking after DS (5.5) in mornings and re-planning our frontline emergency operations to respond with less workforce. Had to bail on work on mid-week and put someone else in charge of replanning to focus on getting better - my stress levels went right down and health picked up (finally after 2 weeks of feeling grotty!)
Dreading starting work again tomorrow but also looking forward to the routine as this weekend has been so boring.

Thankfully work have been fab and will let people take paid leave for childcare so fully accept we won’t be doing our contractual hours. We get key worker status when we’re on call, but DS school are being very strict on both parents needing to be key workers so DH will have to stop working - not looking forward to that conversation!

I have been struggling. I was due to be on annual leave for 2 weeks over Easter holidays, so I agreed with my boss to change it to 4 weeks part time instead. Starting tomorrow planning to work a block of 6-9am while kids are asleep / having a bit of TV time then the rest of the day is freed up to do whatever and I will continue to check emails and be contactable through the day. Hopefully it enables a better balance

I've got an 18mo and a 3yo. It's totally knackering and just not sustainable. It's pretty annoying that you're not allowed to do childcare and work from home (rightly!) but then companies expect you to? I'm working full time, DH is a teacher but not been called in to school so is setting work remotely which he can do flexibly.

I've been working on my company's COVID-19 response so doing more than my usual hours but I've recorded them and will take them back when we calm down. I'm not normally a jobsworth but I'll need a combination of those and annual leave spread over the week to probably work 20-25 hours.

Thankfully the other senior manager in our team also has kids at home so we're in the same boat.

Good luck for tomorrow everyone

Genuine question: those who are key workers (eg firefighter) how come you don’t get childcare /school still?

They can but there is tremendous social pressure from other parents not to take up any school childcare. I think that's ridiculous, if keyworkers need childcare in order to get key work done, use the childcare.

But the competitive suffering is really difficult to rebel against.

Ah. I see. I felt the pressure from the school
(who were asking pointed questions at the door about whether there was a non-key worker parent at home?) but not so much from other parents. But then my son has significant SN (ASD, with EHCP) AND I’m a keyworker so the other parents probably don’t like to comment!

My attitude is that my work would rather pay me to do some work than to pay me to be ill and do no work.
Can you try and shift some work? Delegate, move deadlines, dodge things as much as you can?

It’s pressure from school here too. We got sent a flowchart today (I would post it but it might be outing) with basically all arrows leading to “don’t bring them to school” including “both parents key workers but one wfh/sleeping off night shift”

I’m classed as a key worker, but unless I get redeployed I can wfh. Dh is a non-keyworker and also wfh. So the kids are home. Neglected because he needs to work to pay the bills and my work, while fh, is time critical and safeguarding related.

It's comforting to read these accounts as felt I was actually going to have a breakdown last week. DH and I both have demanding, high responsibility FT roles wfh now with a toddler but also have DC preparing for 11plus.. !! even if most age groups can tolerate a slight dip in performance, it's entirely more stress inducing to have the weight of responsibility on the quality of our home schooling directly impacting DC in this way.. ended up v unwell over weekend due to stress (work was already v stressful before all this hit). Am seriously considering taking unpaid leave but as PP said, it feels a cop out compared to what front line staff are dealing with and also slight shame of typical female vs Male outcome to have to abandon work responsibilities.

I am a single parent of DD17 and DS2. I have been working between office and home increased hours as a key worker and relying on DD for CC but feel so guilty as it's so hard. I have built a schedule to WFH with hour long breaks in between calls to break it up for her. But switching off from home or work right now seems impossible

Realistically, I recon I can manage another... 2 days?!
Its not fair on an 18 month old to be ignored because I have to work through all this. Dh still has to work however is not a key worker, his company is just selfish and have laid off 11 people in one day so dh can't ask for any flexibility at the moment.
I'm trying my best but my mental health is struggling. I'm taking annual leave to reduce my hours to 22 so more manageable but that's not sustainable either. Really hoping for a miracle soon