I’m currently colleagues with two moms of babies and toddlers. When I talk to them, I am reminded of what my life was as a work from home remote tips when you have babies and toddlers. I was a remote worker before anyone had ever heard of remote work! Way before the pandemic made telework a way of life for the majority of the nation, I was juggling work and deadlines WITH bottles and naps.
But, I’m realizing how challenging working from home and raising babies and toddlers was back then. When I got pregnant, I never once thought of daycare as an option. Nothing against daycare but I knew I wanted to stay home with my children. But I had a new home, mortgage, and many expenses, so not working was out of the question.
Fortunately, a coworker had had a baby the year before. She had asked her supervisor if she could work from home. She was reliable, diligent, and productive. Rarely missed a deadline. When I got pregnant, I was a little hesitant to ask my supervisor to also work from home, but had a feeling that I would be permitted to follow in my co-worker’s footsteps as I was a very reliable Editorial Production Editor.
I formulated a proposal and asked to work on manuals that I was currently managing. You see I had been an Editorial Production Editor for manuals, books, journals, and newsletters for about 4.5 years and had a reputation for knowing my products inside and out, adhering to schedules, and having strong relationships with authors, copyeditors, proofreaders, indexers, and typesetters. As an Editorial Production Editor for a health care and legal publisher, I was the point person who handled each book, manual, journal, and newsletter from raw manuscript to printed product. I was young, but knew that I had a lot riding on each product and had to step up as the buck literally stopped with me.
But, there were downsides to working from home…many downsides. The days were long. The nights were even longer. And I worked weekends. Many weekends. I also did a lot of my work over the summers when my husband was off for summer break.
Life was hectic. I was tired all.the.time. Some days I couldn’t see straight. I definitely knew that my children were relying on me to keep them safe and did the best I could. But I also I had my client who made constant demands on me and remote projects that had to get done. From the time my oldest was 3 weeks old, I had sole editorial responsibility for 4-6 books, journals, manuals, and newsletters in my remote job. Somehow I made it work. I definitely did not have any work-life-balance during those years.
But, I did come up with tips for surviving the work from home with babies and toddlers years:
- Daily Schedule: Make a schedule for the day. Once my baby woke up, I changed her diaper, put her in a clean outfit, and gave her a bottle. After she was fed, we played with toys. I noticed immediately that I wasn’t talking to anyone during the day. It was just me and my baby but the house was silent. So to eliminate the silence, I started narrating my day. “Here’s a new diaper.” “Let’s read a book.” “Is that the school bus coming down the road?”
- Naps: Put your baby on a napping schedule as soon as you can. When my oldest was 4-6 weeks old, I started putting her to bed after her last bottle at midnight. Soon she was sleeping 2, 3, 4, and then 5 hours at a time. With 5 hours of sleep, I was more alert during the day. 5 hours became 6. 6 hours became 7 and so on. The more she slept, the more I slept, and the more alert I felt during the day.
- Nap/Bedtime Routine: About 15 minutes before nap, I would warm up her bottle, find her favorite blankie, and starting reading her baby board books as she drank her bottle. Once she had finished her bottle, I put her in the crib with her lullaby music to help her sleep.
- Office Remote Work Space: I know some people can work anywhere, anytime, but I am not one of those people. Back then, laptops were not common, neither was having more than one computer at home. I don’t know what I would do now without my Lenovo Thinkpad! My only choice back then was to set up my home desktop computer to use for work. We have a 4-bedroom home…one bedroom became the baby’s nursery and we had the master bedroom, which left two bedrooms. I set up the bedroom opposite the baby’s nursery as my home office with desk, hutch, bookshelves, and folding chair. It was small and hot, but I liked having all my work in one designated spot in the house. later we installed a ceiling fan.
- Office Equipment…Laptops, Printers, etc.: That bedroom was so hot with the desktop computer and combined printer, copier, fax machine whirring away 24/7. Oh and did I mention that we had to install a phone jack in my home office for the dial-up modem? No wifi back then. I connected my desktop computer to the phone jack with a very long cord…Ethernet Cable. It was pioneer times and I was practically on the Oregon Trail! Don’t even get me started on how long it took to connect my computer to the internt via dial up. Think the Muppets connecting to the internet with a screeching dial-up modem…the “internet handshake.”
- Remote Work Routine: No matter what you are doing, a reliable routine is always a plus. Now back then, I knew I was neurodivergent in some way, but didn’t yet have a name for or a diagnosis for what ailed me. It would be 15 years before I got the diagnosos of ADHD, but I had survived high school, conquered college, crushed working, and succeeded at a graduate program, so I had some executive functioning skills, but I was no where near having a work-life-balance.
- Time Management Skills: One trick that helped was a having a hat…that’s right I had a baseball cap from a ski trip to Killington, Vermont. Once my baby was down for a nap, I put that baseball cap on and it was off to the races…uh work. Wearing a cap made me instantly focused on getting my work done in whatever time I had…usually 2….but sometimes 3 hours…while my baby slept.
- Recordkeeping: To further complicate my already complicated work-life-balance, I was paid in a variety of ways…by the hour, by the page, by the project, and later by the click. I needed every single dollar so to keep track of billable hours, I maintained a detailed log of billable hours, mileage, travel expenses, and doing business expenses, like printer cartridges, paper, office supplies, etc. I invoiced my client once a month without fail. For projects billed by page or completed projects, I billed once each project was done.
- Disaster Plans: Life with babies and toddlers is unpredictable and transcends planning. You never know when a sick or cranky baby with throw off your precarious work-life-balance. Having contingency plans was a must. I am not even joking! I developed a sixth sense of sorts about my baby’s health and never made set-in-stone plans as I never knew what the day would bring. I knew the phone number of the pediatrician and the exact hours for the “no appointment needed sick kid” visits. And…I’m not proud to say this…but can say this now that I no longer have babies and toddlers…but back in those days…I never told my client that my child was sick…instead I always said that I had female issues or stomach problems. No one wants to ask any questions! Desperate times called for desperate measures and I never wanted anyone to “dump” me as a remote worker because of my kids. I know that employers and clients are now more understanding of working moms, but back then I was a pioneer in the work from home remote space.
- Daily Calendar Scheduling: In fact, all doctor’s appointments, day trips, work deadlines, and remote meetings were loaded in to an online calendar, similar to the Skylight Calendar Max.
- Let It Go!: In the words of Frozen’s Elsa, “Let It Go.” And adopt a Get ‘Er Done mentality. Establish what absolutely needs to get done each day. Daily you must manage baby and toddler care, your hygiene and sleep, remote work, bottles for baby, food for toddlers, food for you, basic cleaning, and recycling/trash pickup. But…something has to give. For me what had to give was…deep cleaning, cooking from scratch…microwave meals and easy prep meals work, doing dishes on a daily basis…I used paper plates a lot and don’t regret it, and massive home improvement projects.
- Have fun!: Work is work. Work pays the bills. Work has to get done no matter what else is going on in your life, but make time for fun. I set up play dates with mom friends, story times at the library, days out with grandparents, day trips, and even errands.
Working remote with babies and toddlers is not for the weak, but with planning and flexibility it is doable. I had my fair share of challenging times:
- Making copies at the office to make a FedEx deadline with a baby and toddler securely fastened in the double stroller. To keep the toddler happy, I fed her M&Ms after the healthy snacks had been eaten. You do what you have to do to get the job done!
- I once asked the FedEx lady who I saw on a daily basis, but was only “Hi and Bye” with to come in to my kitchen to hold my baby while I frantically wrote out FedEx labels. She was such a good sport! Email was in its infancy back then and you couldn’t send large files over the internet so I had to copy and FedEx galley proofs to my book authors.
- Or the day I had to take a very rare conference call in the downstairs bathroom while my toddler was supposed to be watching Blues Clues. She started pushing the Fisher Price Baby & Toddler Push-Along Toy Corn Popper in to the closed door as I kept putting the phone on mute. Yikes!
- Or taking my toddler to a free Kindermusik class with the goal of persuading the teacher to join my Do-Re-Me & You MLM downline. My toddler had already been to Kindermusik class that week and knew that this class was not for him!
The hectic and unpredictable baby and toddler years won’t last forever…enjoy them whenever you can!
Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this post. The views expressed are my own. This post contains affiliate links.
