Wfh and managing dd for 2 weeks

[biscuitsndtea]

I have enrolled my daughter in holiday club for the summer holidays. The holiday club doesnt run for the next two weeks. Me and DH has already taken 10days annual leave. My daughter is going to year3. How can we can manage wfh and my daughter at the same time. Any tips would be much welcome. She is not naughty gets bored being by herself since she is the only child. My work is flexible, not much meetings but need to do 8 hours of work.

Any tips on how to manage please ?

Setting up some activities should help, loads of ideas on google for each age group that can be set up using normal household items. Put them in little boxes and hand them to her one at a time?

Also, ignore all the comments with the 'does your employer know' blah blah.

Can grandparents or other family help? It’s not really feasible to work full time for two weeks with a 7/8 year old.

Do you have more holiday you can take?

Will both DH and you be at home and can you flex your hours so you cover the day?

Pack a box of snacks for her to help herself with. But tell her they need to last (either all day or till lunch) . The first few days she'll peat them all in one go but by the end of the 2 weeks the novalwill have worn off.

It should stop the interruptions because she's peckish.

Any local friends teenagers willing to come and entertain her during the day?

Any friends who wouldn't mind having her to play a couple of times?
No other play schemes around?

If not, I would organise a sort of timetable each day and put it on the wall so everyone knows what is happening.
Mix of activities, craft sets, puzzles, reading, play in the garden, some screen time, a set time when you can opt out of work for 30 mins or so to go out for a walk, the park etc.
Set time for lunch etc Provide a box of snacks she is allowed to access throughout the day.

If you plan the night before you can make sure that everything she needs is easily accessible so she doesn't keep interrupting you for help.

Make sure you have a sign so that she know if you absolutely can't be interrupted.

Can you aim to do 3 hours work a day when she is asleep? Then break up the remaining 5 hours over the day and take her on an outing for 2 hours one a day?

or pay a high school student to spend half a day each day entertaining her? Then rely heavily on easy crafts, Lego, iPad and tv for the other half of the day. Kids also generally leave you alone if they are eating ice lollies.

Thanks for the lovely suggestions 🙂

Unfortunately, no family nearby. we recently moved house so no friends nearby to send her to play. Therefore, we shall have to manage by ourselves.

Look for local youth clubs, libraries, wildlife trusts, council run holiday schemes (council website). They won't be all day but might give you 10am-2pm a few times a week, and if they're very local then some people from her school might be there. They tend to be more show up on the day rather than pre-booked childcare.

Also look at family based activity places, we have a few that I was surprised to find have holiday clubs, a couple of city farm parks, a trampoline park and a soft play place. None are advertised on childcare.co.uk so I only found out about them by accident.

Otherwise you'll have to do like we did back in lockdown.

• packed lunch so they can help themselves to snack and lunch
• schedule of activities
• relax any screen time rules
• work in shifts with you and DH switching off and picking up any hours you lose in the day during the evening
• 'Bored Board' on the wall, basically a list of things you can point at when they say 'I'm bored': draw a unicorn on a rocket flying to the moon, build the tallest Lego tower you can, create a den with sheets, dig the deepest hole possible in the garden, bath all your dolls/action figures, make all your Barbies new outfits out of balloons (videos on YouTube to show how to do this), write a story about a cat that stole a pizza with their 3 best friends, draw the characters from the story you just wrote, sort through your toy box and find at least 3 things you want to donate to charity.....

Oh and if you work from home, does that mean you could take your laptop to somewhere with Wi-Fi/tether to work phone, and work elsewhere? If so could you work from a softplay or library while DD does activities there for a couple of hours a day?

I've had to have an odd few days with my Year 1 child at home whilst I WFH. I've managed to bring my laptop downstairs so at least I'm with him. He's managed to keep himself entertained, but I did have to relax screen time a bit. I felt so guilty. I think he would have got fed up for 2 weeks though.

Does it matter when you do your work? If not, you can get at least 2 days work in at the weekend (normal work hours). 2 hours on 4 evenings gives you an extra day (I'm assuming your DH would be around to do things with DC. Get DC to occupy themselves for 1.5-2 hours every day - that takes you up to 4 days work. You and your DH use 1 more day AL each and you have 5 days covered. It would be hard to maintain for long but doable for 2 weeks - assuming your work is very flexible!

I'd try and do as much as you can in the morning before she wakes up/your DH leaves for work. Then let her have an hour of TV. This could be three hours.

Then take her out for a fun morning out. Have a quick lunch together.

She then gets a couple of hours of screen time. Two hours of work for you.

Spend an hour or so with her, maybe get her outside again for a bit.

Then home so she can play by herself for a couple of hours and you work. Two hours work time.

7 hours total.

Then an hour or so after she'd gone to bed or once your DH is home from work and can take over.

How flexible are your jobs? Can one of you get on with some work 7-9am, then have a couple of hours off? Then she entertains herself for an hour 11-12, then you both have staggered lunch breaks which covers until 2pm. Then she can watch a film for an hour/90 mins. Then the person who didn't start early finishes and does some work in the evening?

I do this:
Get up early, get in 2 or 3 hours work before they wake up.
Take them out for the morning, something physically tiring. After lunch, let them have some screen time. Get in 1 or 2 hours work here depending on how it goes.
Do the rest of my hours after they've gone to bed.
It's not exactly fun but it's how I wfh!

Friend round to play.

Genuine question - are you allowed to? Because where I work - and they are very supportive of working from home - this would get you disciplined or even dismissed. There is absolutely no leeway - you are working or doing childcare, and never both. Any child that is in the house whilst you are working must either be over 12 years, or fully supervised by another adult.

use first thing or evenings to get some stuff done whilst dh is around. If you need 8hrs I would work 6am-8am, and 6-8pm when you dh can watch her. Then fit 4hrs into the day split 2hrs at a time ( play/draw/ garden in am, and film in afternoon)

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions 🙂Its very helpful !