May I request working moms to give me some tips

[coffeecakemum]

Hello all,

I have never worked full time after I had my son. I used to work in senior position in a high tech company before I had him. But I decided to take a break until he started school. I have been lucky to get a break and will start a position full time from Jan next year. I have been thinking of how to bring this transition as smoothly as possible. We have breakfast and late clubs. I have one hour commute both ways. I need to keep dinners ready for when we get home. I am bit worried about how I am going to manage evenings and school related activities. At the moment I totally take care of home and school related stuff. Any tips from working moms to be organised and stay on top of things? Thanks for reading.

Teach your child to help.

My reception child dresses herself and is responsible for thinking about what she needs to take. I'm the backstop and it was my fault she didn't have a cardi today but we have never forgotten it before because one of us remembers.

I'm going back to work in Jan too.

Bags and clothes and lunches all ready the day before. Let the cleaning go a bit (or if you can afford a cleaner, hire one). If you have any work from home flexibility then it helps a lot - I get the washing through on those days. We also don't do homework (DS is year 2).

Back up plan for days when your DC is unwell. Do you have family close by or anyone you can call on?

Start practicing easy meals and bulk cooking things like spag bol now. Once you've made a meal 3-4 times it takes a lot less time.

Also once you start online shopping, for most people their list is fairly similar each week and can be saved so it gets done faster.

have a look at how you do your banking. Can you set up direct debits for as much as possible so you don't have to think about it as much.

Try and do any standard medical check ups eg smear test before you start back so they are out of the way for awhile

Plan something nice for Friday evenings. eg glass of wine, nice nibblies no tv and chat with your DH.

I have older kids and Friday night is family chocolate night - we all take turns in choosing which bar of Cadburys we will share that week. It gives us something to look forward to and makes a nice start to the weekend.

Get use to not being able to do everything and don't stress about it. I commit myself to my children's school shows (once per term per child) and gently explain to them I won't be able to be at everything.

Our after school club caters for them so when I pick kids up they have eaten so it's just a case of home read/chat/bath/bed type stuff, also because the pressure of cooking for them is off I can get them to bed and eat with do when he gets in around 8.

Saturday morning dh takes my boys to activities football/cricket I have house to myself and I blitz it I know some say cleaners but for me the main part is mentally knowing where everything and I find it quick I find cleaning therapeutic.

Weekend are particularly precious to us now and I've learnt to say no to things I don't really want to do.
I echo what others have said re calendar Sunday dinner we all discuss what is happening that week and any commitments we have so we don't miss much!!

I Work Five days a week and have 4DCs.
I make sure I put the dishwasher and washing machine on before I leave the house and empty and sort when I get home whilst dinner is cooking. Means I don't have stacks of dirty dishes or piles of washing at the weekend.
Batch cook.
Use a slow cooker.
Uniforms and work clothes laid out. Teach any school age DC to dress themselves.
Have a 10 minute alert before you leave the house, to ensure everyone has teeth and hair brushed.
School Bags and shoes at front the door.
Keys and bag always in the same place (with Mobile charging next to them).
Register for before and after school clubs now.
Online food shopping.
Iron everything you need For the week in advance. NO ironing as you go.
Every school event in calendar on your phone with alerts one day before.
Lunch money sorted on Sunday nights in daily envelopes.
Never let the car's petrol gauge fall below half way. And buy a cover for the wind screen so you're not de-icing in the morning (always catches me out and makes me late!).
If you can, get a cleaner. Mine does two hours on a Monday or Tuesday and two hours on a Friday, so house always fairly clean and tidy. (Best thing I did).

At reception age we just did reading at bedtime, so you read me a bit of your book (10 mins max even if that's only 2 pages) and then I'll read you a story.
All other homework was / is done on Saturday / Sunday morning.

Unless the after-school club provides a proper meal and maybe homework/reading club, I'd look at getting an after school babysitter instead.

Dd's sitter picks her up, cooks her dinner, plays with her, listens to/helps dd read, takes dd to her swimming lesson, goes through her school bag and lets me know of any forms that need filling, writes any dates on the calendar etc. She also covers full days on some school holidays, doing activities that dd/I have agreed on.

Between the sitter and the cleaner its manageable. It would be a lot harder without either and I really don't want to spend my weekends/post 8pm doing housework or batch cooking (though we do sometimes cook extras if convenient). Our weekends are mainly spent on outings, seeing friends etc.

"Get use to not being able to do everything and don't stress about it. I commit myself to my children's school shows (once per term per child) and gently explain to them I won't be able to be at everything."

This is spot on. Explain and agree with dc what you'll go to. I might not make dd's nativity play (to watch her stand at the back with 250 other kids) but dp will and instead I'll make the Xmas disco to dance with her, which means more to her. Both dp and I commit to make one reading/craft morning a term etc.
Don't try to compete with the PTA leaders who are always involved in everything and turn up to every parent event. Don't feel guilty for not being able to devote 2 hours to decorating a hall. Focus on what you can do and offer that instead ("you don't need my help at 9pm? Oh that's a shame. Here's a nice gift for the raffle instead").

Have a pot of change (pound coins?) handy for snack money, cake sale, non uniform day (or in my teenagers case, bus money) etc.

Teach children to be organised, a white board near front door or in children's room with a daily tick list, lay school clothes out, pack school bag and update list for the morning with your child the night before:

E.g.
PE kit
Packed lunch
Snack money
Return slip for school trip
(Let them tick off in the morning, little ones love it)

Organised young children become organised teens (well....sort of )

On the calendar syncing. The easiest way I've found is to set up an email for children's stuff, purely to use the calendar.

On iPhone, you add the email account so that it appears in your calendar. Your DH can do same on his phone. When you add DC things, add them to the children account. You can also change colour code in iPhone, so easily see that all the e.g. Yellow stuff is DC related.

My ex and I do it this way - brilliant for keeping track of kids activities, parties, play dates etc.

And it means I can put stuff in my own calendar and not worry that ex will ever get to see it, as we haven't shared each other's personal calendars IYSWIM.

I did a massive declutter of the house before going back to work. I was ruthless! It has really helped in keeping the house tidy and organised, no more desperately trying to find stuff either

sending the ironing out to be done changed my life! not having a big pile of ironing sat there made me feel so much happier

i have yet to get a cleaner (work FT, 3 DCs). i keep toying with the idea but never get round to actually doing it. my house could definitely be cleaner...

DH and I co-parent. Just calling it that makes him more likely to do stuff! over the years we've worked out what each of us hates doing and the other one does it

I have a five drawer perspective storage unit for DDS room which is fab. One for each day of the week. On a Sunday it is filled with uniform, dancing gear any additional clothes et for each day and then we don't even have to think about it. She knows which drawer is which and can't grab everything needed first thing in the morning.

nyancat that's a great idea, may copy that!

I'm pretty sure I read it on here somewhere! goo.gl/images/l6qZSL this is the one we have picked it up in Argos.

Toastie that is a very helpful thank you. At the moment I have added to my calendar. Will be syncing over weekend to husbands.

Nyancat that is a great idea have added to my list.

Hoping for happiness that is a great tip about de icing. I am always delayed by a few mins on days I need to do this. am definitely going to order a cover.

Rainbowqueen I love your idea of Friday nights, I might copy it. Also have to book my smear test and one check up for my son before I start. Thanks again

Agree with much of the above. My list:

1 Specific roles for each parent (pick up, drop off, cooking dinner)

2 Independence of DC. My dd can / does dress herself each morning.

3 Make the mornings fun for DC, not "stressy". DC has a race with DH who can get dressed first, or we pretend she's not dressed when he goes in the shower and she goes back to bed fully dressed and says "surprise" to DH. This makes her get dressed on time!

4 decide breakfast the night before. A little obvious or maybe not, but DC will take forever and an age to decide what to eat for breakfast, then ages to eat it. We make that choice the night before and then whoever is on breakfast duty and sort it out as DC come downstairs. (Ps eggs are a great quick breakfast for all - we boil up several on Monday morning for the rest of the week)

5 Utilise IT as already mentioned: sync calendars, download decent scanner on iPhone (we have Scan Pro, much better than just taking a picture and saves as PDF not JPEG.

6 get a cleaner absolute life saver. Look after your cleaner - a million thanks yous on text goes such a long way as does random bottles of wine

7 solid wrap around childcare we've done nurseries and then switched to a childminder. Some friends have before/after school club, which they find very inflexible. Our CM is fantastic, she's flexible if we are stuck, and she keeps us up to date with stuff going on at school which aren't obvious on newsletters or the website eg non uniform days

8 utilise lunch breaks Dh is better at this than I am, but he'll do food shops, online food shops for click/collect, pick up stuff etc.

9 find another f/t parent we have 2-3 parents who we could call upon if needed, and we've helped out them too (the odd school disco run etc)

10 _no phones after work / before bedtime* a rule for the adults! It's easy to rush home and carry on working / checking emails etc. I've reduced this massively until after DC bedtime. It's there time to focus on, but equally I don't pressure on myself if DC don't actually want to talk / read / play with me.

Lots of good tips. I would add utilise the commute time. Assuming you are not driving make shopping lists, present lists, browse for stuff you need on Amazon, pay bills over online banking (if you can't set them up as DDs).

find another f/t parent we have 2-3 parents who we could call upon if needed, and we've helped out them too (the odd school disco run etc)
It is helpful if there is someone who you can call on in an emergency but just a word of caution, do be scrupulous about paying these favours back/forward or people get gradually annoyed, especially if their single household income is much less than your combined one. Sometimes other working parents are a better bet if they work part of the week or nearer to school, as you may be able to help them out when they are stuck in return.

slightly I meant another full time working away from home parent, not a SAHP, sorry I wasn't clear. But definitely agree with you too.

I do have SAHP's I know I could call on in an absolute emergency but they'd be my plan C or D. I'd have other contingencies in place before calling a SAHP because it isn't their responsibility to be my "in case of emergency".