Don’t limit yourself to other working parents. They may be willing to share the cost and time of a full-time nanny with you. Ask around your neighborhood and see if any other parents are working part-time or flexible hours. If you’re fortunate enough to have extended family that can help out, consider asking them to pitch in a few days a week, so you only need to use the center part-time. While you can use a drop-off center, you could create a daycare alternative that works for you. However, even without the commute, full-time employees will most likely need full-time care. Or, hire a nanny or part-time sitter to watch the kids on a regular set schedule.” “If you only need a few hours a few days a week, find a local drop-in, hourly childcare provider. Parents with flexible schedules or part-time jobs probably only need part-time care. Tracy Capozzoli, Career Coach at FlexJobs, points out that not all work-from-home parents need their child in daycare for 40 hours a week. However, you may not need to spring for full-time daycare. It’s very unlikely you’ll be able to give your job your all with a baby that needs full-time supervision. Being successful as a work-at-home employee means that even though you’re home with the baby, you can’t work and take care of the baby by yourself.Īs a work-at-home parent, you’re going to need childcare. Just because you work from home doesn’t mean you can ditch the childcare arrangements-especially when you’ve got a baby. But that doesn’t mean you can’t work from home when you have a baby. There’s always a diaper to change, a feeding that has to happen, and a lullaby that needs singing. There’s a far better chance the baby is trying to grab and eat the phone, pulling your hair, or trying to get your attention by “talking.”Įven if you can handle client phone calls with one hand while holding a baby in the other, the reality of babies is that, well, they are babies. The Baby Yearsīouncing a baby on your knee while you handle client phone calls is probably the least likely thing to happen. Working at home includes a lot of work, which means spending less time with your kids than you may have thought. It’s not all playing games and reading books. Working at home with kids means adjusting your expectations to match reality. Is it reasonable to expect your children to play nicely all day? Will they really sit quietly and color for hours on end? Can you talk to your clients while you paint with your kid? And, if you don’t get your job done, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself strictly “at home.”īe realistic about what will and won’t happen when you work at home with kids. However, even though you’re working at home, the reality is that you are still working. There’s no doubt working at home allows for a better work-life balance and helps you be more available for your kids. One thing we hear over and over is that people want to work at home so they can be there for their family. And 94% of respondents who indicated they had or are going to have kids one day think that a flexible job will help them be a better parent. The Reality of Working from Home with KidsĪ recent FlexJobs survey found that 88% of respondents believe that having a flexible job would help them spend more time with family. Whether it’s one child or five, working at home when you’ve got kids of any age requires you to think strategically and plan accordingly so you can be the best employee and parent possible. However, unlike the pretty pictures, working from home isn’t quite as blissful and peaceful as you might think. Without a commute or late nights at the office, you can be there all day every day for the kids. It’s easy to think that working at home makes balancing the two easier. As every working parent knows, balancing work with kids requires a special skill set of prioritizing, productivity, and creativity.