6 Must-Dos When Working From Home With A Toddler
For quite a while, working from home was a perk given to a few as an enticement and to show employees that the company cared about work/life balance. And I loved it! Having one or two days a month where I didn’t have to commute was perfection. However, with the current state of things, EVERYONE is home. Not just the big people, the little people (aka the little terrors aka the loves of our lives aka the people we want to hide from so we can go to the bathroom alone).
In the beginning, it was extremely uncomfortable for me to work from home and watch my daughter. Uncomfortable bordering on impossible. But once I sat down and really thought through things and fully accepted that we are all in the same boat, I came up with boundaries and strategies to remain productive at my job while taking care of my toddler.
Communication
- The first thing I did was to tell my boss and those I worked with closely that I could not do back to back meetings for prolonged periods. This either resulted in meetings being rescheduled to accommodate my needs OR me having to have followup meetings with folks if the original meeting could not be rescheduled
- I let folks know that meetings at lunchtime could not happen. It was dedicated time for my daughter
Dedicated Time
- Every day after lunch I take a walk or a bike ride with my daughter. This is non-negotiable. This gets her nice and tired and ready for her naptime
- Every day I park my daughter in front of the TV and have her watch Blippi for one or two hours. Now I know this will be controversial. But I use this time to fully go through emails and have follow-up chats regarding meetings I have missed or meetings where I could not give my full attention. There has to be some give and take. And relaxing my rules around screen time is something I had to give.
“Extended” Hours
- For me, even with setting up boundaries around meetings and the extended TV time I give to my daughter to get things done, there are still days where I cannot finish my work. This led me to start utilizing more hours of the day. I wake up around an hour and a half before I know my daughter will get up, brush my teeth, splash some water on my face and do some morning stretches. Then I sign right on to work. This gives me an uninterrupted hour of work time. And at night when she goes to bed, I sign on for another hour to tie things up. Now unless there is a deliverable due where really long hours are needed, I would advise you not to work too far into the evening. There is no need to burn the candle at both ends. I limit myself to only one hour of late-night work.
Letting Go
- One thing I noticed around the end of the second week working from home is that I started getting stress headaches and bouts of anxiety. After I communicated my scheduling needs to my coworkers, the headaches eased up a bit but they were still there. That’s when I realized that something more was needed. So on days where my husband was around, I left the care of my daughter to him FULLY. I didn’t go to check on them when I heard her crying in the next room. I didn’t go down to check if she had eaten. I left it all to my husband (and if I found out that he hadn’t fed her lunch… happened once… I made sure he had a horrible, guilt-filled night).
All in all, I allowed myself to let go of the reigns a bit. I didn’t skip taking a morning shower or wait until her nap time to eat something. Allowing myself to have a moment of self-reflection led not only to diagnosing my issue, but it forced me to act because things were getting worse by the day.
