Do you struggle to juggle your career and family life? Tell us about your work-life balance woes and you could win £50 or tickets! NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Workfest 2016 is almost upon us (14 May), and in light of this we'd like you to share your career conundrums.

This one-day event is packed to the rafters with advice for women in - or returning to - the workplace, with a range of workshops and one-on-one sessions hosted by self-made entrepreneurs and career experts. It could be just what you need to kick-start your career, as attested to by these Mumsnetters from last year:

"I felt truly inspired and motivated...I have 'the fire in my belly' to move forward and reach my goals."

"The day was much more than I had hoped. I was and still am in awe of the speakers and gained so much positive energy."

"One of the best value conferences I have been to in a long time."

So perhaps you're struggling to kick-start your career post-kids? Or maybe you have a stellar business idea, but are lacking the practical advise needed to make it a reality? You might be in a rut, and are looking for ways to climb in your current profession. Whatever your dilemma, we'd love to hear about it, and would love even more to see you at Workfest 2016!

Add your comments to this thread and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one winner will win their choice of a £50 store voucher or a pair of Workfest 2016 tickets .

thanks, MNHQ

It's hard juggling work and a family but it's doable.

DH and I both travel a lot for work and have no family that can help out. I can work from home though when I'm not travelling and that flexibility is massively important. Having an understanding employer that allows a degree of 'give and take' also helps.

I have juggled like crazy. But dp does not work and is min carer. I feel guilt for having to tea e.leslie away a lot for work. It does mean they appreciate me when I am around though.

Generally I juggle work and family by leaving my sanity at the door...

We have no family nearby. DH and I both work full time + occasional evenings/weekends and travel. Neither of our companies are particularly flexible... In an emergency (and with much disapproval) we can WFH. For my job in particular any time off for anything must be worked back and leaving on time is considered to not be properly dedicated to the job.

DD2 is in full time nursery with hours that are just long enough. DD1 is at school with wraparound care that isn't quite as long as would be ideal, meaning that any problem in the evening with work/traffic causes a panic to avoid extortionate fees. School holidays and surrounding weekends are a juggling act of driving DD1 round the country to extended family and finding places in holiday clubs that have long enough hours to wrap around work.

By the time children are fed and chores are done in the evenings, it's time for bed in order to be up early enough to do it all again the next day. Weekends are a panic of rushing around trying to get jobs done while attempting to inject as much quality family time as can possibly be managed.

I'd love to go part time, but we can't afford it! The only reason I'm not a complete gibbering wreck in the corner is because my beloved DH is a very hands on Dad and easily does his fair share around the house.

I enjoy my job and want to continue it to keep my options open for the future. It is hard though, feeling like I'm not giving work or motherhood 100%. Financially, long term we will benefit from me staying in work but I struggle with the guilt of having time away from the DC. Things like career development - doing a Masters, training courses - are so much harder. I wonder how we'll manage with school holidays and after school activities around work, but also how we'd afford to offer them future opportunities like university or for me and DH to retire at a decent age if I stopped work.

Loving the idea that the prize is tickets to something that here is no way in Gods earth that I'd be able to make time to attend while juggling 3 DC and a 0.8FTE job.

It's hard. DH and I do the best we can to make it work. but my life is bounded by the need to be her, there and everywhere In time intervals measured in minutes rather than hours or half days.

I'm just at the stage of wondering how I'm going to afford university educations for my three DC, and what amount of the present to put in hock for the future, all while trying to manage the minute by minute demands of career and home.

I work 4 days a week - 2 full days and 2 finishing at 2.30 so I can pick up the kids. I find it's a good balance for us and gives us time to get homework, swimming lessons etc done as well as having time together for fun.

I feel very torn between dd and work. I feel like I don't do as well with my work as before I had a child and I'm not as good a mum since I started work. I work shifts and my job can be exhausting, but it means we have a low childcare bill which is good. If I had to work my hours over more days I wouldn't be able to afford to work.

I am a teacher and would love to stay in school to mark and plan until later like some of my colleagues but can't. I am a single mum to three boys and two have asd. They are routine led and want me to leave when they are done. Pre planned meetings are fine, others are not.
Inevitably I am marking at home until ten after I have done tea etc..I am up to date now though so intend to veg this holiday :)

I am a teacher and work 3.5 days. My dh works very long hours (away from home 7am to 730pm mon to fri and Saturday am). I love my job and being there is fine as my kids are at school now but I find the rushing home followed by homework, dinner, clubs combination followed by marking and prep til ten four nights a week is tiring. We have no family support which I find really tough. If I didn't have to work in the evenings I think the work life balance thing would be ok- but currently feel we've not got it quite right.

We do ok with the work life balance - but only because of the mega compromise of one of us (me) having been a SAHM until youngest at school, and now having built a completely different freelance career that I can mostly do in school hours from home. Holidays however are tough. I try to reduce my work but nonetheless I need to keep regular clients happy. Therefore I'm often sitting down to work at 8pm after a full on day out with the kids. Generally however it works for us. The beauty of working from home means that if one of the kids is ill (and it's alarming how often it happens) then I can still keep working with them on the sofa next to me. It means I'm doing 'something' to bring some much needed added income in, without compromising on what is important to us: someone being there whenever needed for the kids. As they get older and need me less and less this new (now a year old) career can grow to fill the time. So I have hope that it's only going to get better as they get older, not harder. The nature of my work also means that DH very much is free to build his career, for the sake of the family - he can work late without notice, he can do trips as needed etc, yet still when he is around it can be 100% family time rather than chores etc. Works for us.

3dcs inc a baby out from 7.30-6-30 5 days, high stress job.

I don't find it a problem at all.

IMO work/life balance is only an issue for women who have partners who fail to take full responsibility for the care of their children and their home.

I work full time and have a part time business. DP works in the business too, as well as doing nursery drop offs and being at home with DD one say each week. I think it would be really hard to have a full on career with out his support - we do manage to organise things so I can be home and if ished work before 5 most days. I do sometimes have to travel for our business. That's what leads me into bad decisions - like getting up at 3.30 the other morning instead of travelling the night before, so I didn't miss too many bedtimes!

I work 4 days a week and it's a nightmare - I effectively do 100% of work for 80% of salary and often end up taking calls and emails on my day off. I also have a 4 hour commute which sounds horrific but actually I use it to catch up on work emails and sleep!

A bit like MakeTeaNotWar, I currently work4 days but in practice often work on the5th day, and/or evenings or weekends as the job just spills over. Many people in my profession work a 60hr week and don't take much holiday so there is a culture of working constantly, and whether I work full time or 80%, it's still far far less than the norm.
So I have a precarious balance. I don't work long hours, but I do work quite a lot more than the time I'm officially paid for, and am not really progressing career-wise cos it's still far less than the expected amount of work.

I went back to teaching when my DS was 6 months old and I've worked many variations of full and part time since then. I've known for years that this career means putting my family second every time- despite the holidays and alleged 'early finishes' and I've had enough- I'm leaving teaching for good and going to work full time in an office where I'll have every evening and weekend completely free to focus on my family! Can't wait!

Someone said to me when I went back to work "a mother's place is in the wrong". Certainly feels like that sometimes. I am missing the opportunity to think about my new job, but then feeling permanantly tired when at work. I miss the children too. I don't think there is an easy answer.

3 X 12 hr night shifts while partner does full time days.
Really really hard. But 1 of us is always with the kids.
& now the time / nights we are all in together we try to make extra special for us all x

I work three days a week as a total lp. It's a struggle and I wish my employer was more flexible so I could go in early or work late as workload and family needs allow. They're very much stuck in an old fashioned bodies at desks attitude and no one really tweaks their start or finish times.

I plan to continue to work three days a week for the next decade until they're hopefully off to Uni then I'll have the freedom to work full time again. That's if I haven't keeled over by then, mentally and physically I'm winging it and hoping for the best.

I did manage to complete three OU modules but had to stop because I was working until past 1am and getting very ill. Maybe I'll do it again when the dc's (9 & 7) finish school.

We manage ok during term time with after school care and arranging our travel round each other. But school holidays are a nightmare. DC don't like spending all week in holiday club, or want to do different ones and I don't want up use up all my leave on days when we aren't allowed together. And have no family help at all. So its frustrating and I dread the arranging of clubs and cost for summer holidays.

Like so many others, I squeeze ft workload into part-time hours- currently 33hrs pw. It is a public sector job and not particularly demanding in terms of overtime etc but interesting and great colleagues. TBH I'm coasting a bit career wise (have worked at this level for 16 yrs) as I fear that working at the next grade up might just tip me into stress mode. Maybe when my youngest starts school I can try to move on a bit.

When we made the move out of London 7 years ago, to jobs and a house within 10 mins of each other (and the kids' schools) the work-home balancing act has got considerably easier. Previously our toddler was in a nursery at Parsons Green, a 30 min tube ride from work, which was usually fraught because of delays etc. Now we can just about afford a nanny for our 3dc (it practically negates my pay but def worth it) and in the summer my husband takes 6 weeks off using leave and time in lieu for evenings worked through the year.

On the whole we are ticking along OK, but there's not much wriggle room time wise or financially. I live for Fridays off with my toddler, collecting older two from school, just ambling along the street together. It makes the craziness of mon-thurs much more sustainable emotionally.

I work 48 to 60 hours a week 12 hour shifts. Totally agree with asyouwere re stigma for sahd trying to return to work. My dp has had no luck at all....he has an Msc in medical electronics and physics and a great work background but cannot get work ? Age and sahd.we have alternated one of our kids has bern home edded in primary years and now the other one is! Tricky on one salary. I have no work life balance whatsoever at present.

DH and I both work full-time at management level in public sector jobs. I was part-time until DtSs7 started school, when I was offered a promotion to a full-time role. Both our employers are fully committed to flexible, family friendly working and I WFH at least two days a week, work 2 days school hours and compressed hours during the school holidays. DH and I share all duties (even if his cleaning standards aren't as high as mine) and cover each other during business trips. We are lucky to be able to afford to employ a cleaner who also keeps the laundry 'show on the road' through out the week.

On the basis of all of the above we are very lucky, and we both love our family life and our jobs. The only fly in the ointment is the tiredness - oh, the utter exhaustion! I am 45, DH is rapidly approaching 50. I notice with each passing year how wiped out I am at weekends, and how this impacts on our family life. When I was PT, I always had a plan for our time off together, but today I have had a whole day at home with the boys, but have barely been able to muster the energy to haul myself off the sofa to do anything vaguely life enhancing with them. They are end-of-term tired too, but the weather was beautiful today and apart from a brief sojourn in the garden, we have mostly vegged in front of Doctor Who box sets.

I know that some of the answer to this more exercise (to increase energy levels), but just now I can't bear to schedule anything else into an already packed week....

My employer is flexible.
However, limited after school care in the area we are moving to means I won't be able to increase my hours above 3 1/2 days.
I was hoping to be full time again soon.

I work p/t it's generally ok but mostly feel frowned upon particularly now DS is older. Well he might be 9 but until he's old enough to get a bus by himself and be at home alone for a few hours, then no as we have no family able to help , I won't be increasing my hours just now.

It's hard. DH works a very full on professional job (and until recently was in a professional services firm). I am public sector with a very sympathetic manager and generally good culture but definitely doing the full time job in part time hours (32 over 4 days).

On paper it is going well - got promoted the week of my return from mat leave, just applied for another promotion.

Together with a non-sleeping toddler it has exhausted me so much I collapsed and spent three days in hospital with a heart issue (now resolved thankfully).

I am currently absolutely torn between just taking a work break for a few years (I'm lucky enough that this is an option and I could go back at my current level) or going for the promotion. It's a nice choice to have but I am really struggling to make it.