Have you ever tried to meet a deadline after the babysitter has gone home and your children are hyped up from a day of playing, begging you to play with them and when you can’t, insist on playing ‘work’ with mommy by climbing on your desk, pushing buttons on your computer and generally just making it impossible to finish up without losing your mind? Because I have. And I know other work-from-home moms have been here before.
When I first went back to work after I had my son, I was miserable. I had a minimum 3-hour commute back and forth each day. I’d leave before the sun came up most days, and return for dinner time. I had enough time to nurse my 10-week old son to sleep before dropping from exhaustion.
I dreaded my return to work my entire maternity leave; I didn’t want anything to do with it. I was screwed out of decent maternity leave because it was unpaid and I just wanted to be with my son. My life had new meaning and it longer meant I wanted to work in mortgages, a high-stress job that I had fallen into after college and remained for the past 14 years. But alas, we could not afford to be a one-income household. These days it’s hard for anyone to be able to stay at home without some kind of income stream.
I gave my notice when I was offered a work from home position at another company. I hated to leave my current company, but I couldn’t do the drive anymore. During my two week notice period, my current company offered me a few days at home, then four, then finally on the last day, they offered me all 5 days working from home. I was ecstatic because I could stay where I was comfortable and it meant I didn’t have to leave my baby for a week for training in another part of the country.
At first, it was great. I worked out of our finished basement and rarely heard any kind of noise. I didn’t have to use my breast pump anymore, I could go and take nursing breaks. I don’t think I would have lasted as long breastfeeding as I did if I had to continue pumping.
Then we decided to build a house. We moved into an apartment while it was being built after our home was sold. The kids were literally on the other side of the door from me and I could hear everything. I was able to curb the distraction by listening to music loudly in my headphones as I worked.
We designed an office for me with beautiful french doors in our new house. I was going to be on the first level, but a few rooms away from the main living room, so I figured it was okay. We didn’t realize until we moved in that although the french doors were beautiful they were not ideal, as they didn’t latch and could easily be pushed open. We tried several means to keep the children out: gates, latches, locks until finding something that worked best (a combination of locks and latches and gates if you are wondering). The windows also posed a problem, but that was an easy fix with some shades and lack of access due to the gates.
What I didn’t expect was how much hearing them, especially after the birth of my second newborn, would affect me. I didn’t expect to have postpartum anxiety that made it difficult to concentrate or think of anything but my baby in the other room, bonding with someone else, while I was left to work. Just hearing her cry made me cry because I just wanted to be with her, and care for her myself, no one else. It was a rough time.
These days, it’s a constant battle of working too much and balancing family time. There are often afternoons where I have to do double duty, and it’s not pretty. There are plenty of bribes, deals and begging that is done. Unfortunately, there are also afternoons where I yell a lot, mostly to get out of my office so I can finish this one thing. But there are also the days, where they play together nicely. It has been such a benefit to my family and with the technological advances that have come since I requested to work from home, most of my company now works from home. And the company is happy because we are more productive and happier as a whole.
If you’re new to the work from home game or thinking about asking to work from home so you are able to spend more time with your family, here are my best tips for Work From Home Mamas:
- Hire a babysitter/nanny/daycare, even if it’s only for a few hours a week. I know there are some mamas who can get work done while the kids are around, but in a job that requires me to be super focused on the details, I needed help with my kids. Hiring our nanny was the best thing we ever did. I under-estimated the amount of time we would need with her until I was in the trenches with the kids trying to get work done.
- Get some noise-cancelling headphones. If your children are home, you need these. You won’t believe how loud some children can be when you’re on a conference call several rooms away.
- If possible, have your office on a different level than your children are on. Make sure to lock the door if you can, because no one wants a child to burst in when you’re on a super important call with your boss. Believe me, my son has burst into my office screaming on many occasions, but thankfully my boss is a mother too and completely understands.
- Make sure you find some time to leave the house. It’s easy to get food delivered via Walmart grocery delivery or to get whatever you need from Amazon Prime. But you eventually will start to feel the cabin fever. You’ll crave to talk to someone other than your dogs. You’ll feel guilty when you talk for half an hour with your nanny because you both need adult conversation and the kids are waiting to play.
- Schedule in some downtime before leaving your job and going to your other job as a mom. The hardest thing for me has been that there is no break between the jobs, whereas, in an office job, you have a ride home to just decompress and leave the workday behind. Working from home, you move rooms and that’s your transition. You can start to feel like you never stop working. Take a few moments before quitting time to unwind a little before venturing into mom mode.
- Leave your job when you are supposed to. It is so easy to just “do one more thing,” and get caught up. Family time is important and if you worked in an outside office, you would have a quitting time. Adhere to that same protocol working from home. Consistency is great for children and also keeps you accountable to family time.=
- Treat it as you would an office job, pack a lunch, get all the water you need for the day and try to remain in your office as much as possible to avoid meltdowns with babies and toddlers just wanting their mommies. There is nothing more gut-wrenching than seeing your baby run towards you after you take a bathroom break and hear their heartbreaking when you rush into the office, shutting the door on them. I try to time my bathroom breaks around when I know they are super preoccupied playing with the babysitter.
- Don’t take advantage of the generous flexibility that working from home provides you. It’s very easy to take a break and get caught up in picking up the house or doing laundry. Once in a while, it’s okay during a slow time, but you can get lost in the household tasks, leading to you falling behind at work.
- Don’t work ALL THE TIME. I’ve fallen victim many times in pursuit of getting it all done, that I work my normal hours and several hours after the kids go to bed and before they get up in the morning. It is just so taxing on you- you’ll feel like you never leave your job because really you haven’t. Don’t try to pack too much work into all the hours of the day. You also need to sleep, mama!
- Get your work done without too many distractions. Easier said than done, my friend. Mom brain is a real thing and your attention span has withered down to practically nothing. Sometimes I need to remove all other distractions from my workspace and throw some music on my headphones and power through. I keep a pad of paper nearby so I can write down ideas or tasks that need to be done that pop into my mind while working, so I don’t forget, and I don’t interrupt work too much.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Everyone’s favourite, asking for help. It’s not easy to do, but sometimes you need to get something done so you ask a friend to watch the kids for a few hours as favour. You call your mom crying, saying how overwhelmed you are and she comes to your rescue, agreeing to spend as much time as I need with the kids. People generally want to help, they may just not know how much you need it until you ask.
- And do not feel a tiny bit guilty for using television or a tablet to entertain your children so you can get what you need done. It’s much harder and more frustrating to appease them while trying to get something done. One task takes far longer than it should, and everyone is frustrated. Give them some screen time if they aren’t playing well alone. You’ll get what you need done quickly and be able to play with them sooner. Win-win for all.
Working from home has been a rollercoaster ride. Some days I denounce it and swear I am going back to an office outside the home, but other days I am beyond thankful that I am able to. Those days when your children are sick, and you don’t have sick time, you can still work a full day, just in shifts or when there is a snow day, you can spend half the day working, half the day in the snow playing. Work gets done, your employers are happy, your family is happy, and when it comes down to it, you’re a lot happier too.