Help! Tips needed on how to actually get some work done

[KleineMaus]

I work as a freelance editor/proofreader and am only attempting to get about 10-15 hrs done per week. I don't have any childcare and even fitting in a couple of hours per day is really hard at the moment. DS is almost 2 and is going through a phase where he won't go to sleep until after 10pm, after which I'm too tired to get work I need to concentrate hard on done. It's been suggested to me that I need to cut out his afternoon nap in order to get him down to sleep at a sensible time at night, but this is when I would normally get a lot of my work done, and it's not working! He's only getting a short sleep in the day and still not going to sleep at night, which doesn't leave me much time to work, or do anything else for that matter.Does anyone have any tips?

Maybe he's teething - my DS is awake late when his teeth are coming through, and there's not much to be done about it.

IME, it's really hard to keep any realistic kind of work going in nap time and after bedtime unless they sleep really reliably. Your most obvious free possibility is to work weekends and rope in your partner or other willing volunteer etc for childcare.

Otherwise, paid-for childcare is the only way. 'Only' 10-15 hours a week is between one and two working days, and isn't that easy just to slot in here and there.

Would second a childminder. I used to dump my oldest for the mornings, retrieve him nicely exhausted by the company of other toddlers, feed him a quick lunch and usually get him to nap for at least an hour after that. Works best if the childmindr is very local, of course, so the child can't sleep off the after-effects in the car on the way home...

Good luck!

Thanks both. I suspect you're right. It's a bit depressing when all your 'free' time has to be spent on work. The only problem with a childminder is cost. We've just bought a new house with a bigger mortgage and my work is really to help with that. The up side is that I've moved much closer to my parents, both of whom are retired, but neither of them have formally offered to take ds off my hands and I'm terrible at asking for help. They took him to the park this morning to let me work, and came back after barely an hour! Still every little helps.

It's probably worth plucking up the courage to ask them to have DS for a couple of mornings and specify a time eg 9-12. That way you can make go headway into your work.

Also do you have a bedtime routine for your DS? In order to give you a break and get some work done, a good bedtime routine of bath, story and bed at a set time can work wonders. It may take a few days to get him used to it now he's older but it'll be worth it in the long run.

I do half my work in the evenings after I've put the kids to bed and my MIL has my youngest on Tuesday morning when I go see a client. My eldest is now old enough for pre-school which REALLY helps!

I'm in a similar situation KleineMaus - trying to fit my freelance work into free time with no childcare.

Although it's by no means fool proof, I've started doing something really fun and really active with DD (20 months) each morning. Follow by an early lunch and I can almost guarantee she'll sleep from 1-3.

(If I let her sleep much longer than 3, she stays up later at night.)

Then I try and do something less organised but still active in afternoon (walk in park or something) and she normally goes to bed around 8. Fingers crossed!