If you or your spouse work from home...

[expectantsteelerfan]

If you or your spouse work from home, and if you are not supposed to be looking after kids while you are working, do you ever end up looking after kids while working?  How often and for how long are you comfortable doing it?

DH started a new job in July, and it includes shifts of working from home for weeks at a time, and we are new to this.  He's a radiologist, so when he's working, he's shut in our office with all the lights off reading scans on his work computer.  He barely comes out to use the restroom or eat.

But I find myself really reluctant to hire a babysitter for really short amounts of time that I need to be gone when he is working from home.

2 examples:  This week ds has his first cross country practice.  A parent is required to stay for the first practice only.  Practice starts at the same time as dd's usual bedtime.  So I'd like to get dd ready for bed and send her to bed, then take ds to practice.  Dd is good about bedtime.  She will need dh to call upstairs at one point to say 'light's out' but that is it.  I will be gone an hour.
And then next month, my book club meeting is on a night he's working from home.  Both kids will be in bed before I leave.  My kids (who are almost 8 and 10) are kids that we put to bed and then once we say light's out, we don't hear from till morning.  So even though I'd be gone for a few hours, he really wouldn't have to do anything kid-related at all.  

Dh said fine to both, but also said he doesn't feel comfortable with it and doesn't want me to make a habit of it, so I'm trying to gauge if I'm off-base here for asking him to do this kind of thing.  Obviously if something came up (either a case he had to go in to the hospital for, or some issue with the kids) I would leave where ever I was and come right home.

[huskymom]

I WFH. I had my kids home all last week and I get them off the bus during the school year (4 pm) and any snow or sick days. My bosses don’t care though. If I have a call I can usually send them to the neighbors. I couldn’t do longer stretches on a regular basis, mainly bc they just ask me for snacks all day long and they are watching too much TV.

[dutchgirl678]

My kids are about the same age and go to bed easily as well. I would totally expect your husband to be able to do this on a regular basis if it is just an hour and it is around their bed time. I would not hire a baby sitter just for that.

I work from home fulltime as well and this week is the last week before school starts and they only week thus far they haven't had camp. It will be tricky to work as many hours as I do normally, but I'm still not willing to hire a FT babysitter for this week. They can read or watch tv or work on some work book.

[moonriver]

What hours does he work? Can he adjust his work day by an hour (start earlier) so he’s done sooner?

My H works from home occasionally (a few mornings a week as well as about one full day a week). We have a 3 year old and I will occasionally run an errand during his nap if my H is working from home that day. My H doesn’t seem to care at all, and it’s of course with the expectation that if my son were to wake early, I’d have to return asap.

[steamboat185]

I WFH a few days a week or as needed. My kids are just 3 and 6. I WFH at least part of the day when one of them is home probably 7-10 days a year. If I have an important call I will try and get DH to WFH and cover the kids, but otherwise it isn’t typically an issue. My manager and coworkers know that the kids aren’t typically home and if they are it is due to illness or a sick day/ something weird. I don’t think what you are describing is a big deal especially if they aren’t as needy as a 2 year old.

[cricketwife]

I don’t work from home. I’m not a doctor. But I am a mom and good grief that seems like a reasonable ask to me.

[penguingrrl]

Given their ages I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all. He’s not required to supervise them, they aren’t toddlers. He’s simply an adult in the house in case an emergency happened.

H works from home somewhat frequently. He’s not allowed to do so if it’s a childcare issue (then it’s a vacation day), but his boss has been fine with him working from home with not terribly sick elementary aged kids who simply need a warm body to help if the house catches fire and otherwise are hanging in front of the tv watching movies all day. I would consider this akin to that, where they just barely aren’t old enough to simply be home alone, but where they’re in bed and not monopolizing his time. I consider that rule more for regular occurrences (like working from home all summer to avoid camp costs) or younger kids who need direct supervision constantly.

[noodleoo]

Yeah, this seems like NBD to me at all! Especially if the kids are sleeping and very well unlikely to need anything. H does wfh 1-2 days per week and I’ll leave him with the baby napping to take DD1 grocery shopping or do an errand. But his job is very flexible and he knows it’s not an issue. Is there a specific reason your H is nervous about it? Does he have to go back in to the hospital often (that would give me pause)? Or is he generally a super rule follower? Also the fact that you said he doesn’t get up to pee makes me think he’s worried about the kids making him behind or unresponsive in his work, which I could see being a source of anxiety. He might get more comfortable with it once he sees the kids don’t slow him down.

[lacey]

I would keep this super simple. If the house catches on fire, he gets the kids out. If they decide to be difficult and not go to sleep, they get about 3 minutes of dad's time before they get to watch TV or read until you get home. If there is some kind of work emergency he gets no grief for not calling out the lights out warning.

My husband has recently started working from home, but we have much younger children that need active adult supervision. Are the scans your husband is reviewing for someone actively in an ER waiting on results or something that is going to get called in to a patient the next day? I'd be a lot more understanding if it's the former, and ask him to reevaluate his flexibility a bit if it's the latter for infrequent events that pop up while the kids are sleeping.

[Dznyprnces]

My DH works from home. Our kids are 7 and 10. He would have no problem with what you are asking. On days where they don’t have school but I have to work, they stay home with him. They also stay home with him when they are sick. It’s one of the reasons why he’s not ready to give up working from home, because we don’t have family near by to help out. They are mostly self sufficient. Whatever the 7 year old can’t reach/do, the 10 year old can. They are old enough to know they need to leave dad alone when he’s working, especially when he’s on the phone.

[lemoncupcake]

Just thinking worst case scenario - you leave for book club and 20 minutes later the kids start throwing up and he is pulled away from his computer for an hour. What does that mean for his job? Is he just behind and needs to work an extra hour at some point to make it up? Or are patients in some level of danger/inconvenienced by his unexpected absence?


I work from home and only have kids around if they’re home sick. But that’s in lieu of me taking the day off, so I just get done what I can and call it a 1/2 PTO day. But the vast majority of the time no one is at all inconvenienced by me being less available than normal so it’s not a big deal.

[pooh8402]

My H WFH full time. With what you're asking, that wouldn't be an issue. If either kid was sick and I was working or in clinical, he would have to take the day off. But I have very young children (4 yo and 5 mo), not older children like you have.

So basically, he can walk away from his desk for a few minutes with no warning, up to a couple hours if he has time to rearrange his schedule for (and he would usually work early or late to make up for it), but he can't work while a kid is home with him all day.

I agree with lemoncupcake and lacey. It really depends on how urgent/emergent his reads are.

[mccallister84]

Has he said why he’s uncomfortable with it? Do they stress st work that you need childcare to work from home? Does he worry he’ll gave to go in to the hospital and it will take you too long to get home?

I kind of feel like that’s his call to make, especially since it sounds like he is working continuously - I mean it doesn’t sound like he’s sitting around playing on his phone or something.

[minniemouse]

I’ll probably get flamed for this, but I think if you cannot be distracted from your work for even a minute to use the bathroom, you shouldn’t be working from home. Go into the office. I work from home full time and it can be difficult even with older kids (no way I could I do my job with a baby or toddler!). My kids come home from school about 1.5 hours before I get off work. They get themselves a snack, play, watch tv and do homework. They are also here on snow days and sick days, but for regular days off they usually go somewhere else- grandparents or day camp. However, they are never a problem when they are asleep. Lol. That’s usually when I sign back on to catch up on stuff I didn’t have time to get to during the day...

[loira]

I work from home when I need to - usually the day before holidays, so I can do laundry on breaks. My H is a SAHD and he tries to get DD out of the house for at least half the day while I'm home working. I get about as much done as in the office. Idle chats with colleagues are replaced by the distraction of DD wanting my attention. I don't love the set up, but it's getting easier to work from home as she gets older. I also work for the government, and there is an excellent work/life balance. Lots of families with kids, so people tend to be very understanding of things like kid noise in the background.

[4speedy]

Your kids are 7 and10 and sound pretty self sufficient and will most likely be in bed the whole time he’s alone with them. It’s not like he has to have eyes on a toddler 100% of the time. Pretty much the only thing he has to do is get everyone out in case the house catches on fire. An quite honestly, I would expect the same out of him even if you were home. So you being out of the house changes nothing, in my opinion.

[boiler717]

Aug 25, 2019 19:12:55 GMT -5 expectantsteelerfan said:

If you or your spouse work from home, and if you are not supposed to be looking after kids while you are working, do you ever end up looking after kids while working?  How often and for how long are you comfortable doing it?

DH started a new job in July, and it includes shifts of working from home for weeks at a time, and we are new to this.  He's a radiologist, so when he's working, he's shut in our office with all the lights off reading scans on his work computer.  He barely comes out to use the restroom or eat.

But I find myself really reluctant to hire a babysitter for really short amounts of time that I need to be gone when he is working from home.

2 examples:  This week ds has his first cross country practice.  A parent is required to stay for the first practice only.  Practice starts at the same time as dd's usual bedtime.  So I'd like to get dd ready for bed and send her to bed, then take ds to practice.  Dd is good about bedtime.  She will need dh to call upstairs at one point to say 'light's out' but that is it.  I will be gone an hour.
And then next month, my book club meeting is on a night he's working from home.  Both kids will be in bed before I leave.  My kids (who are almost 8 and 10) are kids that we put to bed and then once we say light's out, we don't hear from till morning.  So even though I'd be gone for a few hours, he really wouldn't have to do anything kid-related at all.  

Dh said fine to both, but also said he doesn't feel comfortable with it and doesn't want me to make a habit of it, so I'm trying to gauge if I'm off-base here for asking him to do this kind of thing.  Obviously if something came up (either a case he had to go in to the hospital for, or some issue with the kids) I would leave where ever I was and come right home.

I’m in the camp of it depends on how urgent his work is as to him even being able to step away for 5 minutes at bedtime. Otherwise,I could see the first situation being more problematic, because of him waiting to hear from her (thus not fully concentrating) to go to bed. He can’t have any distractions reading scans, so even knowing he’s responsible can be an issue if he’s not comfortable with it.

[thebreakfastclub]

I don't think it's fair to compare radiology to me working from home building a spreadsheet. If I mess up, it's really not a big deal.

I would prefer that someone reading my scan was 100 percent free of distractions.

[estrellita]

My H has the ability to work at home. He's done it with E (4.5) home sick but he usually won't with A (1.5). A is too needy right now lol. But he works a sales type job so the only time distractions are an issue is when he's on the phone.

I think if the kids are old enough to be alone and just need an adult in the house for emergencies, it would be fine. Especially when it's just one kid that will be in bed (sounds like she's not like E that gets up 70 million times after being put to bed..).

[ECB]

Big picture, it sounds reasonable. I WFH 2 days a week and today DS is home with me. He’s 10. I’m really only a warm body. He doesn’t need much from me.

But 2 thoughts on your DHs position - how urgent/timely is his work? If he isn’t responsive quickly enough, can he get in trouble? Those are genuine concerns that take priority.

But to my 2nd thought - , you say he’s new to this. That’s more where I’m focused on right now. Right now - honor his wishes. Don’t make it a habit. BUT do leave your kids occasionally.

Some of this might be that your Dh needs more time to get comfortable and HE needs to feel out how it all will work when youre not home. If it happens here and there and he realizes it’s not an issue, he may not worry about it as much.

[readyin07]

Aug 25, 2019 21:34:56 GMT -5 mccallister84 said:

Has he said why he’s uncomfortable with it? Do they stress st work that you need childcare to work from home? Does he worry he’ll gave to go in to the hospital and it will take you too long to get home?

I kind of feel like that’s his call to make, especially since it sounds like he is working continuously - I mean it doesn’t sound like he’s sitting around playing on his phone or something.

My first thought was well this really shouldn’t be a big deal for the H, but I’m coming around to this. He is working, not denying “childcare” while he’s just putzing around the house. Whether it’s by his own personality or the nature of the job, if it makes him uncomfortable then that should probably be respected. I mean it seems nuts to have a babysitter in the house while the kids are asleep, but so be it. If he is that absorbed in his work I can see that he might be worried about being too distracted to remind the kids lights out or whatever. And what the heck time does this cross country practice start that one child will be in bed...yikes!

[ssmjlm]

This may be a stupid question, but is there a reason he's working during non-traditional hours? Is it required by his job or just the way he's managing his caseload?

What you describe above is not too much to ask IMO. I mean, if need be, have him set an alarm on his phone so that he knows to go tell her lights out. The second one, why waste $ on a sitter for that? Can he really not handle doing his parental duties when they're supposed to be sleeping anyway?

And yes, I sometimes I have to WFH with my kid there. Normally it's school closing related, such as weather, or illness. Thursday I'm WFH with her for 1/2 day because of open house. My boss is fine with it and if I need to take a call, I can go upstairs to another room for quiet.

And no, I'm not a radiologist, but the amount of money I deal with at work is not insignificant so a mistake can create a huge issue or could create legal ramifications.

[atarianna]

We both WFH and I am PT So generally speaking I take on most of the parenting during the day. With that said, I often leave the napping baby with my H when I need to go run errands. I also leave the kids with him more often than I should .

[readyin07]

Aug 26, 2019 6:58:37 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

This may be a stupid question, but is there a reason he's working during non-traditional hours? Is it required by his job or just the way he's managing his caseload?

What you describe above is not too much to ask IMO. I mean, if need be, have him set an alarm on his phone so that he knows to go tell her lights out. The second one, why waste $ on a sitter for that? Can he really not handle doing his parental duties when they're supposed to be sleeping anyway?

And yes, I sometimes I have to WFH with my kid there. Normally it's school closing related, such as weather, or illness. Thursday I'm WFH with her for 1/2 day because of open house. My boss is fine with it and if I need to take a call, I can go upstairs to another room for quiet.

And no, I'm not a radiologist, but the amount of money I deal with at work is not insignificant so a mistake can create a huge issue or could create legal ramifications.

Obviously I don’t know OP’s H and what he does exactly, but I know when my son broke his arm and we were at Urgent Care at 8pm his scans were sent to a remote radiologist to be read. We were in the UC a long time waiting for that read (which is not surprising, I am not complaining). A long time with a crying (reduced from screaming) 5 yo who hurts and just wants to get the f- out of there. So...just saying if her H has a job like that I can see why he - and the place that employs him - prefer a zero distraction scenario. I still think this is something he can probably do 99% of the time without issue, but if he prefers to spend the money on a babysitter to eliminate the chance of that 1% then I get that and certainly don’t see it as not handling his parental duties.

[gt7301b]

I think both are reasonable requests from you, but if your husband would refer to pay for a sitter on  those nights I would get a sitter for the sake of marital compromise. 

[pooh8402]

Aug 26, 2019 6:52:02 GMT -5 readyin07 said:

And what the heck time does this cross country practice start that one child will be in bed...yikes!

For real. Both of my sisters ran XC and practice was at 7 am, and right after school until like 4:30 or 5. I think the morning run was optional?

[ssmjlm]

readyin07 and mofongo, I'm not disagreeing that medicine is a 24/7 workload, I was asking more to gain some perspective on the work hours themselves. It would seem that if the WFH situation began and that the non-traditional hours were known, some may have a different view.

I think it would be different if your spouse was regularly on night shift vs this being something that is a new work schedule.

[lishie]

I work from home nearly full time. when my kids were small i had daycare daily. Now they're both in school, and during the summers I have them in camp. But now, if there's a snow day or delay, or a random hour here or there, I don't get childcare for that. they're old enough they can entertain themselves upstairs while I work downstairs during those times.

[simpsongal]

Since it's a new job, I wouldn't ask your DH to handle anything but work. I manage a team of people who WFH a few days/week. I'm pretty flexible, but I also expect my reports to be open and honest about what's happening in their day. I would side-eye a new employee asking for the ability to watch kids during work hours. In a few months, once he's shown dedication and done good work, he may want to mention these one-off occasions and make sure his manager is ok with it.

[readyin07]

Aug 26, 2019 8:32:30 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

readyin07 and mofongo , I'm not disagreeing that medicine is a 24/7 workload, I was asking more to gain some perspective on the work hours themselves. It would seem that if the WFH situation began and that the non-traditional hours were known, some may have a different view.

I think it would be different if your spouse was regularly on night shift vs this being something that is a new work schedule.

So...I have to be honest that if this were my husband, I would totally expect this to be NBD haha. But even when he is working on important things, there is not really an expectation that things be done *right now.* So if he had to take a break to put a kid to bed that was resisting or deal with a sick kid, he could just finish the work an hour later and no one is going to really care. Maybe I'm wrong about the urgency of OP's husband's job. I just see myself at the Urgent Care waiting with my kid for the scan to be read and having an extra 30 minute delay because the radiologist who was on the clock was dealing with a kid who randomly decided to resist bedtime (I have kids the exact same age and it happens lol).

I also think about it from the other perspective. If I came on here and said "You guys I just started a new job in radiology and it's tons of pressure. I can't even take a break to pee! And they are really strict that  I must have childcare at all times when I'm WFH. My H wants to go to his bowling league once a week when I'm working. I know it's probably fine because the kids should be asleep the whole time, but I really would feel better if we have a babysitter. What if the kids wake up and need something?! We can afford a babysitter (I am assuming that a radiologist can afford childcare without too much of a lifestyle sacrifice). WDYT?"


I feel like most of us would tell that mom that her H needs to get off his wallet and do what it takes to make her work life easier provided a babysitter wasn't really creating a financial hardship. I know I am making assumptions about the urgency of his job and their finances so I reserve the right to change my opinion if his job isn't as "urgent" as I am thinking