Tips needed!

[pollyteapot]

in 7 weeks I will give up work for an office so that I can take my son to his nursery 5 afternoons a week. We wanted continuity of education, his LA nursery is brilliant and he loves it and it is attached to the primary school he will attend so this is ideal. He goes there August 2012

I also have a small craft business which works well at craft fairs but ideally i need to take off interet wise and wholesale to shops. This is what I plan to focus on when I give up the office, but I have no clue how to spend time with an almost 4 year old and do business stuff too.

He's an only child, lovely, but demands a lot of my time - play with me mummy. things are ok the 2 days I week I currently don;t work, and we spend time drawing or reading etc before he goes to the LA nursery for his 2 1/2 hours, then spend time in the park or whatever when he comes back. I give him 20 mins or so TV in the morning and same in the afternoon where I get a break and surf teh net. This can't be the case full time though.

Part if me wondered whether anyone else works to a (flexible) timetable. set times when you spend with with DCs, set time hen they play by themselves and you get work done, and somehow the routine works for DS and me, or do you just wing it and go with the flow?

Any ideas and thoughts are much appreciated cos now that the decision to give up work has been made, I'm starting to panic that I won't be a good mum if I try to work on the businss. TIA

Trying to do both at the same time quite frankly will be so hard, not many four year olds will pay on their own for long without wanting you. You can't exactly timetable a 4 yo!

How about doing most of the work after he's in bed? You will get more done uninterupted.

I make soap and because of the dangerous nature of one of the ingredients, I only ever make it when he has gone to bed, so I need time durung the day to make labels, wrap, phone calls etc. Last xmas i was all burned out because I was trying to do everything at night and i became quite ill.

I will have an hour and a half when he at nursery to get things done and intend to use that time wisely but i had been hoping to get the odd half hour in every now and then to do things.

At the moment is s a total pain if i am on the phone. He can be playing at a jigsaw, my phone goes and he is all over me and sings and even tries to climb over me!

the point of giving up work was primarly for DS and getting him to the nursery 5 afternoons, but any extra income from my crafting would not go amiss.

I'm trying to do the same, attempting to build up a small jewellery business. I find it pretty tricky when DS is awake but he's much younger, 15 months and lots of work! Someone just referred me to a site called flipajob.co.uk where you get small jobs done (business card etc.) as one offs, might help. Good luck!

Can he not go into nursery a couple of full days rather than just afternoons?
or get a gp to take him from mid morning - but of lunch and then do the drop off for you a couple of days?

THere is no one else to take DS to and from nursery in the afternoons, the GPs don't retire until May of neext year (so my mum might help out then, fingers crossed)
Tracemac - thanks for the site, I'll have a look at it tonight. good luck too with your business - it is hard when we have the little ones but we'll get there