Work from home moms

[moonstone523]

Do any of you have a nanny or family member watch your child while you work from home?

How is it going?

Any tips?

[grk2012]

My BIL watched DS here at home for a few months when I still had my other job. It was a good arrangement. What kind of tips are you hoping for?

[moonstone523]

Like... Did you stay in your office all day and pretend you were not home. Did you come play with baby at lunch? Etc. etc

[drloretta]

I freelance from home. I do my work when DD is napping or at preschool (she goes PT).

[Deleted]

I work from home and have a nanny M-W, all day. Thursday and Friday I am home with DD. I have had this arrangement or some variation thereof since she was about 11 months... I had her in daycare when she was an infant because I intended to work more hours at first, then cut back.

I work in my office all day. We have an open floor plan and typically DD goes out and about with her nanny for most of the day. They come home for "quiet time" since DD doesn't really nap anymore. I may interrupt my work time for a few minutes to say goodbye when they leave or hello when they return, but basically when the nanny is here I am at my computer.

When baby #2 arrives we are not sure if we'll have both kids with the nanny or just the younger one while DD is preschool (still deciding this), but in either case they will be sticking closer to home so I can nurse as needed, assuming BFing goes well as it did with DD. I imagine that the only time I will spend with the baby during nanny hours will be to nurse, and that the rest of the time they will be out of the house or in another room.

[SusanBAnthony]

A friend of mine who worked from home and her h was a sahd, had to pretend to leave the house, and then sneak back in. Otherwise the kids wanted her all the time and would come bug her, banging on the office door and such. As they got older obviously that didn't work, and they knew better by the too. But as toddlers, it was effective.

[Deleted]

Dec 16, 2012 22:17:46 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

A friend of mine who worked from home and her h was a sahd, had to pretend to leave the house, and then sneak back in. Otherwise the kids wanted her all the time and would come bug her, banging on the office door and such. As they got older obviously that didn't work, and they knew better by the too. But as toddlers, it was effective.

This has not been my experience, but my DD seriously LOVES her nanny and I think it helps that they are always going out on exciting adventures together. The nanny is more fun than I am, LOL. I was totally afraid the above would happen, though, and it is definitely a valid concern, especially depending upon the child's personality and relationship with both mom and the caregiver, which is of course impossible to predict!

[anna7602]

We had a nanny until we moved this past January. Until then, DD was in preschool three days/week and we had a nanny to fill in other hours.

Now, she is in preschool FT-ish (9-3) and I have cut down my workload to fit into those hours, more or less. Sometimes I still have to do work on nights and weekends, but less so than when she was younger. This week is a total disaster as I gear up for her 2-week school break with no back-up childcare, but that's a special case. When we were still in NY, I made sure to enroll her in vacation camps and things like that during school breaks and the summer. I haven't found anything like that where we are currently and just try to adjust my work schedule accordingly.

[moonstone523]

Dec 16, 2012 22:14:19 GMT -5 @carmensandiego said:

I work from home and have a nanny M-W, all day. Thursday and Friday I am home with DD. I have had this arrangement or some variation thereof since she was about 11 months... I had her in daycare when she was an infant because I intended to work more hours at first, then cut back.

I work in my office all day. We have an open floor plan and typically DD goes out and about with her nanny for most of the day. They come home for "quiet time" since DD doesn't really nap anymore. I may interrupt my work time for a few minutes to say goodbye when they leave or hello when they return, but basically when the nanny is here I am at my computer.

When baby #2 arrives we are not sure if we'll have both kids with the nanny or just the younger one while DD is preschool (still deciding this), but in either case they will be sticking closer to home so I can nurse as needed, assuming BFing goes well as it did with DD. I imagine that the only time I will spend with the baby during nanny hours will be to nurse, and that the rest of the time they will be out of the house or in another room.

My daughter is currently refusing the bottle, so I might be nursing as well. However, I would like to get her on the bottle before going back. We'll see. The problem is... I travel sometimes and while my boss said I didn't have to for 3 months once I returned we have a big company wide retreat that I'll need to attend. It won't look good if I don't. She must take the bottle before the end of January.

[orval]

My office is in my basement so I go down and usually don't come up (I only work in 4 hours at a time). Sometimes I need a drink or use the restroom. It doesn't bother them. DS is used to it since it has been this way since he was 4 months old.

[Deleted]

Dec 17, 2012 8:57:47 GMT -5 moonstone523 said:

My daughter is currently refusing the bottle, so I might be nursing as well. However, I would like to get her on the bottle before going back. We'll see. The problem is... I travel sometimes and while my boss said I didn't have to for 3 months once I returned we have a big company wide retreat that I'll need to attend. It won't look good if I don't. She must take the bottle before the end of January.

This was the story of my life with DD. She never took the bottle, ever. Even at daycare she would just wait for me and then gorge herself. Honestly, it was horrible and I feel your pain. Definitely keep trying with your DD. Try having your H or another caregiver give the bottle when you are out of the house. Taste your breast milk as well to make sure it tastes good after being stored--we did not do this until we were a couple of months into the bottle battle and I discovered my milk tasted terrible due to excess lipase which I am sure was a cause for her refusal. kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/milkstorage/lipase-expressedmilk/ for more info on that. I also feel like we did wrong by trying a dozen or so different types of bottles... I am sure that we confused her that way and wish we had just picked a bottle that she didn't hate and stuck with it. She ended up taking the Gerber Nuk bottle on the rare occasion she took half ounce or so at all.

Good luck. I have no really great advice as we were never able to get DD to take a bottle. If nothing else, from all the reading I did it seems that if you are gone and the baby gets hungry enough she WILL take it eventually. We also started solids earlyish (4.5 months) to help other caregivers to be able to feed her occasionally and that gave me some relief.

[hocus]

I've done this for 3 years more or less. We have a full time nanny.

With my first -- I found I could "pop" out and visit until maybe 8 months and it wasn't too disruptive. Around 8 months we gated my door so my kid couldn't crawl in and I started being more structured in my day.

Now with 2 kids. I live on a schedual to reduces my unplanned run ins as they are ddisruptive. I wake up my toddler and dress her before the nanny comes. The baby normally is up but I don't wake him if he sleeps in. When the nanny comes I leave for preschool. I come back and go to work. My nanny usually goes out around 10:00 and then comes home with both kids at 12:30. I have lunch with the kids and then go back to work at 1:00 and my nanny puts them down for naps. I try generally to stay in my office until 6:00. I sometime visit with the kids at 4:00 but only if I can really stay out for 30 mins or so.

[moonstone523]

Dec 17, 2012 10:11:18 GMT -5 @carmensandiego said:

Dec 17, 2012 8:57:47 GMT -5 moonstone523 said:

My daughter is currently refusing the bottle, so I might be nursing as well. However, I would like to get her on the bottle before going back. We'll see. The problem is... I travel sometimes and while my boss said I didn't have to for 3 months once I returned we have a big company wide retreat that I'll need to attend. It won't look good if I don't. She must take the bottle before the end of January.

This was the story of my life with DD. She never took the bottle, ever. Even at daycare she would just wait for me and then gorge herself. Honestly, it was horrible and I feel your pain. Definitely keep trying with your DD. Try having your H or another caregiver give the bottle when you are out of the house. Taste your breast milk as well to make sure it tastes good after being stored--we did not do this until we were a couple of months into the bottle battle and I discovered my milk tasted terrible due to excess lipase which I am sure was a cause for her refusal. kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/milkstorage/lipase-expressedmilk/ for more info on that. I also feel like we did wrong by trying a dozen or so different types of bottles... I am sure that we confused her that way and wish we had just picked a bottle that she didn't hate and stuck with it. She ended up taking the Gerber Nuk bottle on the rare occasion she took half ounce or so at all.

Good luck. I have no really great advice as we were never able to get DD to take a bottle. If nothing else, from all the reading I did it seems that if you are gone and the baby gets hungry enough she WILL take it eventually. We also started solids earlyish (4.5 months) to help other caregivers to be able to feed her occasionally and that gave me some relief.

THIS is my discovery for the day. h tasted my stored BM and declared it unfit for our child. I did a taste test too and agree that the fresh is 100% better. I have a freezer FULL of BM. I want to cry. I did the scalding today and froze. I'll do another taste test tomorrow and see if that helped.

I want to CRY. I need her to take the bottle. I can not fly across the country with out her taking the bottle. I don't know what ill do.

[Deleted]

Dec 17, 2012 21:20:30 GMT -5 moonstone523 said:

THIS is my discovery for the day. h tasted my stored BM and declared it unfit for our child. I did a taste test too and agree that the fresh is 100% better. I have a freezer FULL of BM. I want to cry. I did the scalding today and froze. I'll do another taste test tomorrow and see if that helped.

I want to CRY. I need her to take the bottle. I can not fly across the country with out her taking the bottle. I don't know what ill do.

I am so so so sorry. I had a freezer full of milk when I discovered the issue too. It is such an awful feeling, my heart goes out to you. I know I cried over my frozen milk when I discovered the lipase issue.

Keep working at it! Just try, try, try and make sure you are having people other than you try when you are out of the room, even out of the house. She will NOT starve herself. If worse comes to worst, I have a friend whose baby didn't take a bottle and they fed her breastmilk with a spoon.

Please PM me or post again if you continue to have trouble. I will continue to rack my brain to come up with things I did and I know there are a few other moms on the board who have been through it too (because I posted about it a ton when I was going through it and got some good advice).

[Deleted]

Plus, she'll be about 4 months old by the end of January, right? You CAN start solids then if you want to and need to travel and are concerned about her getting enough to eat. We started DD at 4.5 months like I said and it was a huge relief for me to know she had options for something to eat that did not come directly from my body.