Working parents - what's your day like? Sorry q long post!

[B1977]

Hi

I have a 5 month old baby boy and will be back to work soon, I work in the centre of London so have 45 minute commute each way. My day away from home is realistically likely to be 7.30 - 6.30, while my son is in nursery. Before I went on maternity leave I often stayed in the office until 7 or 8 pm, so this is worrying me!

What should I expect? Feel free to laugh yourselves silly but I am hoping to do:
6.15 get up, bf, change and play with baby, leave him with dh to dress, feed, and take to nursery.
1 pm go for a swim near work
5.30 leave work, 6.30 fetch baby from nursery, feed, bathe, bf, put him to bed.

7 - 7.45 sit down if poss but prob housework
7.45 pm dinner with dh (he usually starts work earlier but leaves later than me as he deals with the US a lot at work)

8.30 prob need to do some work from home or more housework

10 pm bed!

What are your days like? It scares me how little time I will have with my baby and how hard I will have to work.

Thanks for any comments

Our outine varies a little as dh is self employed - sometimes away for weeks so I do everything, sometimes around doing loads.

6am ish dd1 (6) is up and about getting herself up, dressed and breakfast.
Alarm 7am (for me!)
Get dd2 (1) up, dressed.
Hand her to dh to give breakfast to.
Get dressed and put on makeup.
7.30am grab a bite to eat. Put on clothes wash.
7.55am leave house with dd2 - drop her at nursery on way to train.
8.20am Get on train to central london.
8.50amish arrive work.
3pm live out aupair arrives and collects dd1 from school.
5.30pm aupair collects dd2 from nursery.
6.30-7pm I arrive home to bath kids and put them to bed. Put on clothes wash. Tidy up.
7.45pm wine
8pm supper with dh (cooked by him).
9.30pm bath
10.30pm reading in bed
11pm lights out!

We have a cleaner once a week and dh does all cooking and grocery shopping when he is around.

Very interesetd about idea of live out au pair. We really want one but no extra bedroom. Please can you tell more? Thanks

Hi stressed
After 2 lovely live-in au pair and one dreadful one dh put his foot down. So we advertised on gumtree.com for a live out au pair. She does 3-4 hours a day and we pay £7 an hour. When you advertiase for 'live out' you tend to get much more experienced and mature people - they have somewhere to live, have work experience, have a life in general. More like nannies really. Obviously it costs more and you don't have on tap babysitting but it works for us.

My routine was as follows:

7am get up, washed and dressed, make sandwiches, cereal in plastic tub for dd's nursery
7.30am get dd up and has her milk, dressed etc
7.55am head out to nursery to be there at 8am when it opens
8.10 catch train to get to work for 9am
5pm leave work
6pm pick up from nursery then 5 min walk home
7pm dd in bath, bed, milk

Evenings are then spent doing misc bits of housework. I work a 3 day week so would have a shower and wash hair every Sunday so didnt need to do it again until the Tues. I also got everything ready the night before; clothes, bags, spare clothes for dd's nursery bag. Always made sure the kitchen was semi tidy before going to bed and even put tea bags in cups and my cereal in a bowl for me the night before. It seemed to be all the little things that can make a difference to being organised and out the door on time. Plus I couldnt use a season ticket so bought my train tickets on a sunday for the following week. I do a fair amt of internet shopping at Tescos and Boots to keep stocked up.

Finally, I went down to a 3 day week and am in the 25% tax bracket so feel I earn more money for my time (rather than being in a 40% category).

I meant wash hair until the Tues, have a quick shower every morning ;) wash hair every 2nd day

I would leave out the housework and swimming but each to her own

I get by with top tips like this:
shower in the evening once children in bed
prepare next day's packed lunch and whatever they need for nursery
get clothes ready for next day (me and the children)
work on train and at home sometimes
check work emails from home so that nothing 'bites me on the bum' unexpectedly

6:30 wake up
Quick shower and change, bf, out the door 7-7:30(DH looks after DS at home when I'm working)
Arrive at work between 8-8:30
Leave 5ish
Home 6ish, bath baby, feed, bed
Evening: either cook or wash up (we take it in turns), quick tidy nit NO other housework

I work a compressed week -- 30 hours over 4 days - which works out well. Currently working 3 days by using up holiday a day a week - you could organise a gradual return this way

We got an au pair which helped, but before that:

5:30 to 06:00 - ds wakes up so I get up, feed him, get him dressed
07:40 - take ds to nursery
07:59 - get on train (hopefully)
16:55 - leave work
18:05 - pick ds up from nursery
18:15 to 19:00 - feed snack and play with ds
19:00 - bath
19:30 - ds in bed
19:30 to 20:00 - cook and eat dinner
20:30 - start housework
21:30 - finish housework
22:00 - bed

Big housework like washing saved for the weekends or put on before going to work and hung out when back from work.

Absolutely exhausting (but my commute is 1.25 hours each way) and although dh is good in many areas, he doesn't help out much with housework... Having an au pair meant that we always came home to a tidy kitchen and she did any washing that we left out. We're now swapping to a nanny one day a week and I'm dreading the return to doing housework until 21:30...

I now have 2 dds and work fulltime in the City with an hour and a half commute each way. The only way I can get it to work with childcare and to ensure that I at least get to see the children is by doing what me and dh call 'early' and 'late' shifts.

So an early shift for me is:

6:00 get up, dressed have breakfast
6:30 leave house - children still asleep at this point and DH gets them up and ready for nursery at 8am. Importantly for us, they both have milk at home but a proper breakfast at nursery
8:00 arrive at work - I tend not to have a lunchbreak
16:00 leave work to come home
17:30 arrive at nursery to pick up dds
18:00 arrive home - have snacks, play, chat etc.
18:45 in bath
19:15 dd2(10 months) in bed having had milk
19:45 dd1 (3.8) in bed ahving had stories and milk
Dh arrives home around 19:30 and will start dinner - unless of course I'm going training which I do on 2 night a week

A late shift:

6:15 - get up, showered, half dressed, breakfast ,etc.
06:45 - get dd2 up, milk, nappy, dressed, book, etc.
07:00 - get dd1 up, milk dressed, stories - yes we do stories in the mornings too!
07:30 finish getting myself ready
07:45 leave house and travel to nursery
08:00 drop both off at nursery and then drive to station
08:25 get train
09:40 arrive at work
17:30 dh picks children up, does tea, bath, bed etc.
18:15 leave work
19:45 get home - get to kiss dd1 goodnight and sometimes read her a story, dd2 already fast asleep by this stage.

Believe me it's not easy and it only works because dh also has enough flexibility to help out in the mornings and evenings. We do have a cleaner - all bags, etc. are packed the night before and we only iron on a 'needs' basis. Thing is though that it works and the children get to see as much of dh as they do of me which I think is great. I would love to drop a day a week - but it'll be next year at least before I can realistically consider this.

Handbag - we're going to do the same, ie. early and late shifts, when our au pair leaves at the end of the month!

my day:
6.00 get up, have shower, get dressed, do hair
6.30 kids up (I ignore them earlier than this)
6.45 breakfast also tidy sitting room a bit (I always mean to do this before I go to bed, but am too knackered by that time)
7.30 I leave the house (dh takes the children to school/nursery)
7.00pm I get home
7-730 try to get children to bed
7.30 I eat something
8-9 I cook something for the next day's dinner (dh might do this), I go through the bookbags, empty them, read notes and do snacks/drinks/teachers forms etc for the next day.
9ish put all book bags, trumpets, swimming stuff etc etc by front door, get uniforms, clothes etc ready for next day. I might also put a load of washing on, take washing out of the drier and empty the dishwasher.
I usually watch television between 10 and 11.
I'm lucky I only do this 2-3 days a week.

you see reading this makes me think generally that it is easier, less tiring, less stressful to be a SAHM!

I do/have juggled all this and it's very stressful. Having said that,I need to work for all sorts of reasons, narks me though how many people don't appreciate just how difficult it is unless they're doing the same!
Sorry, I'm off message here, but yes, a typical day is v busy and minute-planning is required esp ifyou're commuting and having to do timed pick-ups. Good luck, anyway!

Tips:

-investigate flexible working eg I have an informal agreement with my boss to leave at 4pm most days and catch up on anything if necessary on the train or at home later on.
-use internet shopping delivery
-pay a cleaner
-pay somebody to do the ironing
-use your work lunchhour wisely
-share everything else 50/50 with dp
-put a calendar up in the kitchen and make sure you both fill in details of commitments
-use a diary - try to be organised

a normal day in our household usually goes something like this:-

6am - I get up and get showered etc
6.40am - I leave the house and get train into London
7.00am - dh gets ds up and dressed and breakfasted
8.00am - dh takes ds to nursery and then goes to work
8.15am - I arrive at work
4.00pm I leave work for train
5.15pm - arrive at station and go to collect ds from nursery
5.45pm I arrive home
6.00pm dh home from work
both dh and I play with ds, do bath, story etc
7.00pm ds asleep
8.00pm we eat dinner
10.30pm bed

Weekends we do minimal house stuff and use this as quality time to spend as a family.

The arrangement works well for us - we are all happy - I have been back at work for 12 months now though and this routine has been "tweaked" many times before we got it right.

Let us know how it goes...

I'm single with 17 month DS - work in teh city too 1hr-1.15 commute. I work 4 days - agree going down to four if you can possibly afford it is a lifesaver.

6.30am start (very quick shower for me if DS is not grumbling otherwise, go to work with grubby hair and body, hey ho), then milk for DS and play with him in between getting ready to go.
7.45 drop off at Cm
9am Arrive work, work part of lunch hour so I can leave early
5pm leave work
6-6.15pm pick up DS
7pm bathtime and story
7.30 bed
8 dinner
10-10.30 bed

If I need to finish something in work the agreement with my employers is that I take it home and finish it when DS is in bed. Rarelky happens I am MUCH more efficient in work than I used to be as it is important to me to finish and be home promptly.

I pay a cleaner once a week, I buy a lot more convenience foods than I did, I don;t drink, I fall asleep on the tube!

On the upside now I am happy with my childcare, I enjoy working.

"-pay somebody to do the ironing"

Or follow my lead and give up on ironing!