I don't know what kind of work you do, but my H works from home. He has something written into his agreement that children must be in childcare or have another primary caregiver present.
Post by dcrunnergirl on Dec 14, 2012 8:10:59 GMT -5
No, you can't work from home. In the beginning when my LOs were very small (like 2-3 weeks), they did sleep a lot, and I could get some work done, but after that, forget it. And, once they become mobile and then toddlers, it's even worse. Plus, it's not fair to your employer. When you're working from home, you should be working--not caring for kids. It's also not fair to your kids.
Post by countthestars on Dec 14, 2012 8:13:29 GMT -5
I WFH and there is no possible way that I could have a baby here with me. Both because my work wouldn't allow it, and I would get absolutely nothing done. Do you guys have friends or siblings with babies? Maybe someone here can reco a book for new dads that really talks about what having a newborn is like?
Post by barefootcontessa on Dec 14, 2012 8:13:51 GMT -5
It depends on your work situation. Today is only Friday and I have already worked 40 hours this week. BUT I do not do it every week and I do not need to take calls and such. I also can do my work at any point during the day, so I work around my kids' schedule.
I only work several weeks a year. It would be difficult to keep this pace all the time. It also requires a lot of planning on my part (dinners made ahead, etc.) but I also the primary person when it comes to the home since my DH works long hours.
No, not really. I think if you're really considering this, then plan on hiring a nanny to watch the kid while you work. I can't imagine naps being long enough to get your work done and even if they were, it would be stressful for you because a baby's schedule is rarely reliable, especially early on.
I don't know what kind of work you do, but my H works from home. He has something written into his agreement that children must be in childcare or have another primary caregiver present.
My work is pretty flexible (real estate) and I can take on as much or as little as I want, but it's all unpaid until we get to the closing table. Many times I work with people for months and then the deal falls through and I get paid nothing. DH's job is not as flexible at all, but he thinks he is superman and can handle it all. I don't know how to make him see that its not easy to do that.
I think in this situation it could be possible. You would probably need reliable access to a sitter for showings, closings, etc., but I think it could be done.
I'm already annoyed with him just from this post. Please make sure he plenty of opportunities to be with the baby by himself, whether you're napping or working or running errands. For your sake, I hope your child is an angel. But maybe, just maybe, baby has some rough, crabby days when it's dad only.
Uh no way. I have been trying to get some Cpe done and have really struggled. DS is 9 weeks and I still have days where getting a shower is an accomplishment! I spend hours nursing him and then getting him back to sleep. DS is hard to get to sleep though, if he went down easy and stayed asleep longer maybe. But at this point I cannot imagine trying to do actual work!
Not possible if you want to be a sane person. Theoretically, you could power through and get a ton done while the child naps and then just work in the evening after your spouse is home and/or the baby is asleep, but it's really exhausting to work that way (I tried to do it). And if your kid is a crap napper or crap sleeper in general, you will end up really frustrated.
Plus, it absolutely sucks for your marriage to only be able to get work done when your spouse is around nights or weekends if you can't get your full workload done during the day.
I'm with rosetyler, your DH sounds...sorry I can't think of a nicer word than unrealistic and uncompromising. No, you can't WFH with a baby. When DS was a newborn, he breastfed for an hour at a time, every 3-4 hours. So you may, MAY have a few hours free during the day while he naps. But that's *if* LO will nap alone somewhere (crib, RnP). My BFF's 2-month old only naps for 20 mins at a time, and that's only if she's being held. Some babies are like that.
I'm also giving the ^o) to "He also fully expects me to go right back to work after 2 weeks to a month depending on how I feel." That is ridiculously super quick for just having given birth. You need 6 weeks for a vaginal delivery and 8 weeks for a c-section, at a MINIMUM. I had a rough c-section and was a mess until 6 weeks.
I get that your husband watched his younger siblings, but I bet one of his parents was always around and did more of the heavy lifting than he remembers. I think you have a bigger problem than just "how do I WFH with a baby?" Your husband sounds like he has some serious unrealistic expectations of what life with a newborn will be like, and he sounds like he's dismissing all of your concerns. I SAH and let me tell you there is no "watching soap operas and eating chocolate all day." That's just a mean, rude, argumentative thing to say IMHO. It sounds like he has an attitude problem and you're not standing up for yourself. I highly encourage you to talk to him about the bigger picture more (life with baby) rather than focusing on WFH full-time, which is just not a possibility.
There is no way I could work from home with my daughter there. There are some days where I am barely able to go to the bathroom, throw in a load of wash or shower if she's being particularly difficult. It's amazing how busy I felt being home on maternity leave, even though I didn't do much all day...but I found that I live in 3-hour increments with a baby at home and spent most of the day nursing or trying to get her to nap. Then when she finally fell asleep, I am always trying to figure what I should do first - eat, shower, clean something, nap, etc. And without fail, as soon as I thought the coast was clear and sat down with my lunch, turned the water on to shower, or was elbows-deep into cleaning the bathroom - she would wake up and demand my attention. Maybe it gets easier when they get a little older and have a predictable nap schedule, but I'm not there yet.
That said...I have a friend who stays home with her kids and does real estate. She has told me she is not very aggressive with finding clients, but if people are referred to her or ask to work with her she doesn't turn them down. She does have childcare available to her, but does most of her showings at night or on the weekends when her husband could be home with the kids. She does most of her paperwork during naps or after they go to bed and goes into the office one day a week for a few hours to take care of other things. She sold us our house and I had no complaints...but I also knew her home life and was flexible with her. Not sure she'd get the same kind of understanding from a random client assigned to her.
ETA - He may change his tune a bit when you're in the thick of it.
On the very rare occasion when LO is sick and you HAVE to get something done? Sure, I think most of us have done that before. But overall I agree with the other ladies - WFH is not a child care substitute. For 99% of jobs, no way would it work out well long-term.
I think it is possible until they become mobile. This, of course, depends on the job you have. I work from home and am a SAHM. My ds is 5 now, but I was able to work fairly easily until he was almost a year. I have a completely flexible job so I was able to work while he napped and in the evenings. Eventually I had to get a baby sitter for about 4 hours a week when I had to really get things done on my busy days. Then at 18 months he went to preschool for 4 hours/twice a week. I will add my kid was a super easy, laid back baby.
Post by blindyswife on Dec 14, 2012 9:07:42 GMT -5
When L was a wee little babe, long before he was mobile, I worked from home a couple days here and there because the weather was too crappy to drive to work. It's not as easy as you would think, even with a little one who takes a nap every 3 hours.
I had to take constant breaks from what I was doing to either nurse him, change his diaper, or if he was just bored and needed a change of scenery/new toy/etc. Every time you get started on one thing, I'd have to stop to care for him. And he was an easy baby! Forget about it if you have a high needs or colicky babe. And once they're mobile- no chance. Oh, and if your job requires phone calls, there is always the risk that baby is going to start crying in the background.
Your H is wrong in this one.
OH, and he is crazy if he thinks you're going to be physically ready to start working 2 weeks post partum. CRAZY.
Post by blindyswife on Dec 14, 2012 9:10:26 GMT -5
And I will also add that it's really easy before you hae kids of your own, to judge other people's parenting and children's behavior. It's easy to say, 'their kid is a monster because they let him get away with so much' or something similar.
But trust, sometimes, kids are just monsters. Even your own.
Not all babies sleep all the time, at least not after the first few weeks. We're hardcore working with DD on naps right now, and we're still lucky if we get more than 2-3 30 minute naps throughout the day. She doesn't sleep well at night, either, so I can't stay up late and work because I don't know if I'll be up once or six times overnight. I sometimes try to grade papers or prep for classes from home with DD here, and it takes me about 400x longer than it does at work or when she isn't at home with me. I would have a hard time doing time-sensitive things from home with her there regularly.
I agree with PPs that your DH is not being realistic and kind of being a jerk. If he's so great at childcare maybe he should stay home and work at the same time.
But if your work is flexible, you could get away with something like part-time child care. I wouldn't expect to get a full 40 hours in, but you could get a decent amount done.
I think it could be possible given the nature of your (general) job. I WAH two days a week and send DS to daycare anyway mainly bc I'm paying for it so I'm going to use it. But I definitely could do my work with him at home. BUT I don't have to work from 9-5 - once I get my work done its done, and I can get my work done for the day in about 2-3 hours. No phone calls, no meetings, no emergencies, etc. if I got a price break for PT care I might keep him home at least one of the days.
If I had to do conference calls, spend all day working, etc - no way.
In my experience no you can't. I work from home 1/2 day on Fridays and the older my kids get, it is becoming harder to do. Our nanny doesn't work on fri (our choice). This summer I am planning to hire the 12 yr old across the street to watch them Fri mornings because by then they probably won't be going down for their 9am nap anymore. Sometimes if I have a conf call or something I ask DH to work from home so I can do it.
I am at home with a toddler and there is no way I could work from home at my old job at least (attorney) while watching her. Work for me has always required at least some level of prolonged concentration in order to be productive, and it is next to impossible to really immerse myself in anything work-like while I am with my daughter. Honestly, shorter discrete "tasks" like ordering something online or typing a response like this aren't too difficult, but they tend to take me longer than they would if I wasn't also watching her. Maybe I could do a little, but I certainly could not consistently produce high quality work product day in and day out while watching her, and my previous employer did not allow it anyway. My daughter did not sleep through the night until she was about a year old, so just "making up" full time work at night when I was also trying to get much needed sleep myself would not have worked for us without things breaking down quickly.
Now, as a toddler, my daughter wants to interact with me. She likes to follow me around, she pokes at the computer, she rifles through whatever I happen to be doing, she wants a snack, she needs me to fix a toy or get something down, she covers me with stickers, she wants a hug, etc., etc. I more or less avoid business-type phone calls while she is awake because she usually wants to be heard, too. Sure, there are naps, but you never really know exactly when they will happen or how long they will last; it's sort of like being on call. It's not like you can really ignore the kid for a long period of time if he needs you and you just so happen to be in the middle of something with work. Maybe there are exceptions, but I just don't see how working full time while also watching children is feasible for most people (even for those superparents who handle their kids "correctly" ).
Post by badtzmaru22 on Dec 14, 2012 9:38:35 GMT -5
I did have a good baby, and there was no way I could have worked from home. She was very happy, but just didn't nap more than 20 minutes at a time for the first few months. Daycare really helped get her on a good sleep schedule, but even now, she takes a 20 minute nap in the morning, maybe, and an hour nap in the afternoon. The rest of the time she is go go go.
When she was a newborn, she was on the boob all the time too- 45 minutes on, 45 minutes off. That was totally not conducive to working. Short term disability gives you 6 or 8 weeks depending on delivery for a reason! I had a vaginal delivery that was pretty normal- slight tearing, but overall ok, and at two weeks I was still sitting on a cushion and using the squirty bottle. I would not have felt comfortable showing houses or whatnot with all that crazy still going on.
I don't think it is possible to work while you are the only adult responsible for a child who is awake. It is to work some when a child is napping and after they go to sleep at night and cobble together 6-8 hours a day of work that way. You just have to figure out whether your job is okay with that. If you need to be available and responsive during normal working hours, you need child care.
I WFH back when I had 1 child who was a year old. I got nothing done alone with her. I just did computer work...no calls & minimum in-site stuff. I resorted to working nights & weekends. My DH hated it...he got total child care & no attention/time with me. It only lasted a few months. I loved that job (on my own, working for a great boss who was also a mom, interesting projects) but not worth it to us. I still couldn't WFH now more than a few hours a week except when all the kids are in school. My home life is just too distracting.
So, I'm a realtor and I do work a bit from home, and I did started about 2 weeks PP. HOWEVER - I had a MIL to use all the time (and I needed her 2-3 hours a day when I was working), a neighbour, DH working close by, etc. And then when DS was 5 months and I wanted to go back more seriously part-time, I had to hire a daycare provider.
It is just not possible to get everything done at home when you are caring for your child. It is possible to get *some* work done (booking showings, printing listing paperwork, some marketing, etc) but you need help when you want to show houses, do listing presentations, negotiations, and even just get ready to go.
I think it could be possible given the nature of your (general) job. I WAH two days a week and send DS to daycare anyway mainly bc I'm paying for it so I'm going to use it. But I definitely could do my work with him at home. BUT I don't have to work from 9-5 - once I get my work done its done, and I can get my work done for the day in about 2-3 hours. No phone calls, no meetings, no emergencies, etc. if I got a price break for PT care I might keep him home at least one of the days.
If I had to do conference calls, spend all day working, etc - no way.
This is the kind of job I would want if I have to work, something I could leave at work and not think about at home. Real estate is not like that at all. I have clients calling me panicked at all hours, mainly dinner time or later. DH thinks I just need to set up hours and not take calls at that time, but that means bad service and missed clients and there are plenty of other realtors around to pick them up if I am not there.
You may find you get VERY resentful of deals that fall apart when you have kid. I do, and I didn't worry as much before. But when its a battle just to get out of the house to do work, you get cranky when shit hits the fan. Fair warning