Working from home with a baby

[Brightnchilly]

Hey,

Wondering if anyone can help. My husband is self employed and mainly works from home. He now exclusively works from home due to the current situation. But his work is entirely self led - ie. if he doesn’t work for a month no one else would care or notice. We have a 6 month old baby and I’m really struggling with PND and with the baby’s pretty bad sleep. So basically I keep asking for help all day. I genuinely think I’d be ok if he was just somewhere else to muddle along. But I just can’t help asking him to help all the time. He’s being really kind about it but we need things to change. It feels like we’re constantly fire-fighting and neglecting the longer term picture (he calls it focusing on the urgent over the important).

His work is creative - he’s an artist. Normally he teaches for a living but due to a major op last year he has been on ESA since then. So the work thing is not about money, it’s just about him developing his career and both of us getting out from under each other’s feet.

I hope that is as clear as my sleep deprived mind can make it! Really appreciate any understanding or tips however small they seem.

Maybe you can try telling him exactly what you want him to do and when you want it done

Remind him that he is a parent too, not just you. He isn't helping you but parenting his child.

Is he working or not working? If he is on ESA and his painting or whatever is a hobby, it's not work and he should be helping more during the day. If he is genuinely working, creating things he is selling, developing business contacts, doing accounts, doing commissions, etc during the day, then realistically, he's working and he should be working.

It sounds like you need to have a discussion about his working hours and you need to both create boundaries. He gets up at 6am with the baby and allows you to sleep until 8 to get caught up on your sleep, but then between 9 and 12 he works undisturbed, joins you for lunch and gives you a break so you can eat, then works 1 to 4 and then takes over in the afternoon so you can rest or get anything done you need to do without baby. He takes over more of everything on the weekends. You just need to discuss a schedule that works for both of you.

Being at home with a small baby is hard, but so is being self-employed and working from home with small children around. You both need to just figure out a way to make it work so you each have time you need, or alternatively, could you consider going back to work and he'll take over at home?

DH and I found this tough when I first went back to work (when DS was 6 months) and DH was then on parental leave - I worked mostly from home and with long deadlines (at the time I was a humanities academic on a research-only contract) and so it was so easy to slip into spending all day 'helping' DH and not doing any work. I agree that you need clear boundaries on when your DH is and isn't working; if he's an artist I'd guess that might not be how he's used to working (it wasn't how I was used to working before DS, either - I used to write in the middle of the night a lot), but it's necessary now. It also helped me to go out to work a lot (I used to go to a local cafe for a power hour or two), but obviously not currently an option, and maybe never a practical option for an artist? Does he have a studio space in your house? It's going to be very tough if he's trying to work at the kitchen table as you care for a baby, so if there's any alternative to that I'd find it.

This is all the assumption that you really will be ok with less help, as you say. If you're actually too ill and aren't coping then that's a totally different situation and you and the baby's wellbeing comes before work. Only you can know if that's the case, but you shouldn't feel ashamed or like you're being unreasonable if you do actually need him at the moment - PND is a very serious illness.

Thanks. Will try to work out what it actually is that I want. He actually does do a lot and I shouldn’t use the term “helping”. It’s as bad as when people say that the child’s dad is babysitting their own child!! My mum would have been horrified if she heard me (she passed away a few years ago and was very clear that dad was as much our parent as she was). We were talking about him taking the baby in the mornings and me in the afternoons or vice versa for a bit, but we’ve not managed to find a way to make it work yet...

@RantyAnty
Thanks. Will try to work out what it actually is that I want. He actually does do a lot and I shouldn’t use the term “helping”. It’s as bad as when people say that the child’s dad is babysitting their own child!! My mum would have been horrified if she heard me (she passed away a few years ago and was very clear that dad was as much our parent as she was). We were talking about him taking the baby in the mornings and me in the afternoons or vice versa for a bit, but we’ve not managed to find a way to make it work yet...

@LisaSimpsonsbff
Thanks so much for taking the time. What a helpful response. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that not being how he’s used to working. He’s always worked at night and is struggling to be up early. We’ll need to sit down and write out what is needed and how we can break up the day to give me a break but also allow him space to work. My PND is crap but not severe. I’m not taking medication or anything like that, and before all this lock down had a lot of support from mine and his family - so really feeling the lack of it now! But I can cope by myself with the baby so long as it’s not forever, we just don’t have clear boundaries about when each of us have space which I think is what’s getting to both of us.

@mindutopia
I like how clear you are with ideas of how to share the childcare between us while each having space to work (him) / sleep (me). We’ll need to sit down and work out a timetable like that. His paid work is on hold since the op, but he’s trying to develop his own business while he has the time at home (he’s currently not earning from it) but we both agreed together that it was in our family’s interest for him to use this time to develop that as it’s very hard to find time when out working. His work is teaching and the op has affected his mobility so severely that he can’t physically get to or from work let alone teach kids and set up etc. But he is much more well now in spite of that so is able to make art / work on his online presence in his wee studio in the house (when he gets a chance!)