Career or work life balance

[IrishMamaMia]

I have two youngish kids, one recently started school and one at nursery. I didn't have much focus at the start of my career and fell into a vocational role that I really enjoyed. My current job has really good work life balance and works around family life but the money and growth opportunities are not great.
Has anyone had a similar dilemma? Did you decide to go for something more ambitious while you still had young children or play the wait game until your kids were more independent and re-start your career then?
I know there are upsides and downsides to each choice and really welcome any advice from anyone who has been here before.

I ploughed on, the way I saw it it was better for my kids to do the stressy stuff when they were too young to remember, by the time they were in school I was in an established career with a lot of flexibility. In the early years I worked a lot of hours, commuted, studied on weekends, but my kids don't remember any of that, now at an age they will remember into the future I'm able to do school run, go to every school event, work flexibly school holidays whilst earning a very good wage in a very fulfilling career. Remember, dependent on the career, getting senior often means owning your diary, so to put it simply, short term pain, long term gain (and a bloody good pension pot to boot).

Thanks @userchange987, I like your solution of having both the career progression and the work life balance.
I think I really need to dig deep to focus. On what my next steps are and I can work hard to achieve them.