Working From Home and a Toddler - Can they be Combined?

Farah writes:

I work full-time and have an almost 2 year-old daughter. She is a joy ... and a challenge. Of course. :) I work at home 3 days a week, while taking care of her, and work in the office 2 days a week while various extended family members take care of Piper.

One of the days, my sister (who has a 19 month old girl) watches her, and one of the days my husband's family takes care of her (either his mom, or one of his sisters, both of whom have kids and who all live in the same house).

The challenge that I find is that instead of me or daycare raising Piper, the TV does much of the duty because I am trying to work. Sometimes Piper is content to sit in my lap and draw while I reach around her to get to my computer. .. She has a couple of shows that she really enjoys that I have recorded and let her watch throughout the morning, but I don't like how much the TV has become something constant for her, and I know it's my fault. Occasionally, I turn it off and let her just wander to find whatever to do. I don't believe that I need to be structuring her entire day or constantly entertaining her. But our house is small, and she's explored it pretty much to its limits. I am very empathetic about her boredom; it's only natural. But getting in my 8 hours a day is becoming more and more difficult because she is so discontented.

I also think of new things to entertain her every once in a while, but a lot of the activities that I've read about in my research need to be supervised. I am trying to better manage my time so that I can take time out from work to do some of those activities with her, but I also would love to find some activities that a child of her young age can do independently with minimal supervision from me. I've pretty much tapped my pathetic imagination to its limits.

So I guess my basic question is this: In your experience and training, what activities do you recommend or have tried for a 22 month old child to do 1) supervised, and 2) independently? I ask about both types because I know that she needs more "quality" time with me aside from reading her books (which I do often). And I think if she has more constructive time with me, she'll be more apt to go about her own business with contentment and satisfaction in the times when I'm not doing other things (work, housework, etc.).

Well, Farah, Laura and I have chatted and it seems we're not going to answer the question you pose!  So why are we tackling your letter, then? Well, because the question you don't ask is so very interesting.

When we read your letter, we had similar responses: the problem is not that your child needs more activities to entertain her, nor even that you need a better division of your attention between work and child, but only that you are trying to do the well-nigh impossible - put in an eight-hour work day AND care for a toddler, simultaneously.  I could give you a list of activities for your daughter, but I doubt very much it would really solve this problem.

(Furthermore, it would make this post even more outrageously long were I to try! Though I'm now percolating another post, even as we speak. Hmmm...)

It's also quite true that I also am a WAHM, and that I managed to care for my young children simultaneously, but then, I probably have about the only job on that planet that so perfectly accommodates the mother's own children!

While my response was to start brain-storming ways to work around your dilemma, Laura's was more focussed on the issue of daycare, and daycare avoidance. I'll let her speak for herself:

“From your question, it appears you may be anti-daycare.  This is understandable.  A lot of families feel this way for cultural, philosophical, even financial reasons.  However, I think it’s important to know that the research on daycare demonstrates that a quality care situation can be beneficial for the child.  Children in daycare often learn social skills earlier and show increased language and other cognitive skills (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2005).

As long as the daycare has a low employee turnover rate, low child to teacher ratios, and the teachers have adequate education and training, children can thrive.  Additionally, daycare does not negatively affect the attachment between parent and child.  However, the NICHD did find that parents who place children in daycare very early on may become less sensitive to the child after approximately 3 years, which means the parent may become less adept at reading the child’s signals and understanding his/her behavior.  Thus, it’s important for parents to ensure that if they use daycare as part of their village, they need to continue spending quality time with the child (which sounds obvious, but can be hard to do as busy families are just trying to get through each day!).  That doesn’t mean focusing all of one’s free time on the child.  It just means busy parents need to carve out time where they are engaged with the child, not merely in the same room with them. 

Finally, a daycare situation also provides routine and stability.  A child feels more secure with themselves when they know what’s going to happen next.  Thus, being in the same environment with the same routine might also be easier for a child to handle rather than different caregivers with possibly different routines, even if those caregivers are family.  And, in the end, caregivers in a good daycare will often end up feeling like part of one’s family anyway!”

Laura rightly suggests that you consider why you are working so very hard to avoid daycare. A good daycare - one with well-trained staff, low staff turnover, and low adult-to-child ratios, can be a wonderful environment for your child. Perhaps you've never stopped to consider why you aren't using daycare; perhaps, again, you have very good reasons for it. Still, it's always good practice to examine our assumptions once in a while, see how they match with our experience.

My tendency is to be very supportive of families who choose to keep childcare within the family. Still,  Laura is absolutely right: good daycare often does end up feeling like part of the family. I can't tell you how often I've been invited to childrens' birthday parties, or visiting family members have been brought around to "meet Mary". Many of my clients consider me part of their extended family, and treat me that way.  If you have an extended family who are tripping over themselves to spend time with your tot, though, perhaps you don't feel the need of adding any others.

Which brings us to your dilemma: too much TV, not enough other stimulation, the difficulty (even impossibility) of putting in eight hours AND caring properly for your daughter.

Here are some thoughts I came up with, off the top of my head:

- I note that your employer seems to be pretty flexible, given that you can work from home three of five days. Would it be possible to shift your hours, so that you can do part of your hours during naptime and the evening?

- How about dad?  Can he care for her for a couple of hours in the evening, or take care of her bedtime routines two or three evenings a week, giving you that extra bit of focussed work time?

- How about hiring someone to care for your daughter for the morning? (In your home, if that works, or elsewhere, or a half-day program at a nursery school.) Then you can work during naptime, giving you five or six hours worktime. You might even find that you can produce 8 hours worth of work in only 6 hours, if you're not trying to balance a toddler on your lap half the time!

- Can your daughter go to family care for a half-day the other three days?

What all these ideas have in common, obviously, is that they involve the support of others. Because, truly, it is very difficult to work full-time and care for a toddler full-time - at the same time!

How about it, WAHP's (that'd be 'P' for 'parent')? Any more input from all you out there? Any suggestions for Farah?

Comments

[Kat]

My feeling is that there are very few jobs that will allow us mums to work and take of young children simultaneously. Whenever my son was sick in his first year, I'd call in and tell my boss that I'd work from home but in reality, I got almost nothing done. I'd have to work madly in the morning, during nap times and when hubby came home. Now, if he's sick, I just take the day off. I don't feel it's fair to my son or to my boss otherwise (unless work is very quiet).

But I have to stress, this is in large part because of what I do at work. Like Mary said, there are certain types of jobs that lend themselves well to WAH with a child.

We also have a small living space and I know that spending a day cooped up at home is not my child's idea of fun. Maybe a run around the park for half an hour in the morning will help make Farah's daughter more amenable to quiet, unsupervised play at home afterwards. Similarly, some kind of outdoor play after naptime (or even an hour of playgroup if there's one nearly) might provide enough stimulation to keep her happy for the rest of the day.

As for unsupervised play, my son loves Thomas the Tank Engine so the railway set (setting up the tracks, watching the motorised train go around, hitting the train, demolishing the track, etc.) provides some quiet time for me. I'm also going to start putting his toys on rotation so that every week, he has "new" toys again. Maybe a daily rotation would work? (I'm not sure, I haven't tried it yet.)

[Laura S.]

Good suggestions, Kat!

The other issue here is that a 22-month-old isn't going to spend huge amounts of time playing alone. 20-30 minutes for a child that age is a long time, but for someone trying to get work done, that's not very long at all! Not only is she going to want to check in with her secure base (the parent), but she may need help, or she may want her mother to see what she's accomplished with her toys/activity. Even little interruptions like this are difficult when you need a chunk of time to concentrate, which is often why parents opt for the tellie!

The problem with the TV, however, is that it's a passive activity, rather than proactive. And, too much time in this kind of activity is not very good for a young brain that is pruning its abundance of neurons and wiring together foundational pathways. That's why the American Pediatric Association recommends that children under age 2 watch NO television (but we all know that's a very, very tough goal!). That's not to say a child is being "harmed if they're watching TV, we just want to ensure they're not watching too much of it.

[hilary]

I feel for you. I was in a similar situation last year when my son was turning 1 - at the time it felt like I was completely juggling things and to top it off I was required to be on conference calls from time to time. The truth is I was "boon doggling" with work b/c I could and I was trying to ride out a great situation (work and being at home) for as long as I could things changed and I'm know at home. I couldn't imagine doing it with a 2yr old- my son can sense when I'm halfway checked in etc. I would suggest maybe breaking up your days in half- so someone could come for 3-4 hrs and play Piper out at the park, walk around the block, etc- so that you both could be together the remainder of the day for "down time"

Good luck, you do earn a super mom award :)

[tpon]

I have the privledge of working from home, but I also have full-time care for my son... I recognized early that it wasn't going to be fair to anyone to be stretched so thin... If you don't want your child in daycare, but need a solution try having someone come to you. I get to be around and present and experience some of his day, but if my day is hectic and out of control, I have the flexibility to walk away and leave it in the capable hands of our nanny.

That said, I also understand that I am veyyr lucky to be able to afford the luxury. But we do have friends in the neighborhood who use college students (usually from the education dept.) with flexible class hours or a nanny share to give them blocks of time to focus on what needs to get done.

I do agree with Mary that you may find that you can be incredibly productive in less time, if you are able to focus.

[kathrynaz]

I echo Kat on this one. I work outside the home, but have a very understanding boss who lets me "work" at home when my son is sick. Ive tried doing this, but find it absolutely maddening to try to cram bouts of productivity into the 15 minute intervals that correspond to my toddler's attention span. So, on those days when I need to work at home, I wind up trying to cram my productive time into the hours between when my husband comes home and whenever I just drop from exhaustion! It just doesn't seem possible to serve either my son or my work when I try to do both!

I empathize with you on the whole t.v. thing... elmo and the wiggles are like crack cocaine for my son... He will watch transfixed for almost an hour... sometimes it is very tempting to just leave it on and get things done, but ack! Laura and Mary- Id love to see a post on t.v. and toddlers, because even those of us who "know" it is "bad," often find ourselves "resorting."

[Heather]

I work at home with my now 4-year-old and 3 1/2-month old daughters. I first started staying at home a year ago.

I hired a sitter to work 12 hours per week so that I could have a few 3-hour chunks of time to get a bunch of work done. This way, I knew she was entertained, and particularly in 3rd trimester of my pregnancy with her sister, got some good exercise.

My sitter quit shortly after my second daughter was born, so now my oldest is in daycare 15 hours per week. She enjoys going there, it is a homey environment where she has the opportunity to play outdoors with a lot of other kids. I've had to divide my day into 2 hour chunks, and I find that makes me most productive. This way, my daughters have play time with me, and during their quiet times, I get work done. I don't try and put in a 40 hour work week, I do between 20-25 hours.

The business of running the household also takes some time, but I try to incorporate that into our together time - my oldest daughter helps sort laundry, and helps by opening all the doors between the upstairs bedrooms and the basement. She holds the dust pan when I sweep the floors.

I love being with my kids. Sometimes it is a little unbalanced and we have days where I work a lot and my daughter watches a movie until she goes to daycare. Other days, I don't work, and she rides her bike, and we take walks or go shopping.

Anyway, sorry this is SO long. I just wanted to say that Laura's point about good daycare is exactly right for this WAHM of 2.