Working From Home with Young Children – 9 Success Tips

Working from home with young children to care for at the same time can seem impossible. Have you had to suddenly start balancing working from home while taking care of children? It’s not easy, is it? How are you handling it? I have many years of experience. Here are some of the ways I made it more manageable.

I worked from home with small children the last nine years of my corporate career. I negotiated a deal with my employer to work from home 2 days a week, starting after my first baby was born. He hadn’t ever had someone work from home before and my arrangement was on a trial basis. 

I didn’t have childcare those 2 days, but I was determined to make it work. (That employer later told me that he knew I was more productive working from home than I was when I was in the office full-time. I set a precedent for future employees of his to have that kind of flexiblity.)

Over time, I hired a nanny and changed employers and eventually ended up working from home full-time. Unfortunately, my nanny quit, for a work from home job, right before my 3^rd child was born. After that, my childcare was no longer consistent. I had some sitters come a couple days a week for some time. Unfortunately, that eventually turned into 1 day a week, then none. By that time, my husband also worked from home full time, so we tag-teamed it. It was definitely a struggle, but I was incredibly productive during that time.

Ways I Created More Work Time In My Day While Working From Home with Young Children

Be Savvy when scheduling calls

I tried to schedule conference calls and other calls that I would be expected to be talking (not on mute) around nap schedules. One of the last things I wanted was for the person on the other end to know that I was working from home with small children around. I also tried to keep all my calls to as few days as possible. When scheduling on those days, I would stack them back to back. I always tried to start the lineup during times I knew someone would be watching my kids or when they’d be napping.

When it was just my husband and I, we would try to align our calendars so we weren’t both on calls at the same time. It didn’t mean we were completely available, but one was available to tend to screaming while the other was on a call.  It didn’t always work out, but we were usually able to arrange things in a doable manner.

Take full advantage of nap time

Creating blocks of uninterrupted time while working from home with young children is so important. When I had a project to do that I needed to focus on, I would plan to do it during nap times, when I didn’t have any calls. I maintained a “quiet time” as they got older to allow me to continue to have time to work on things. This was usually either playing in their rooms or a time to watch a movie on the couch. If I had projects that I still needed to focus on that I couldn’t get done during the day, I often worked after I put the kids to bed to make up for the interrupted times during the day. (I’m a night owl, though. Many of my other work from home mom friends would get up early and crank it out before the kids woke up.)

Keep entertaining toys on the floor near your desk

I always had a bunch of toys on the floor near me so that the babies could play with them in my sight while I was working on my computer. I fully utilized the playmats, music tables, bumbo chairs, rattles, lightup toys, whatever kept their attention. One of the best toys was a facial tissue box. They would spend a lot of time pulling those tissues out of that box. People often felt it was a waste, but it was a cheap way of keeping little ones occupied (as long as they didn’t try to eat the tissues).

One thing I would recommend, though, is if you have a power strip with a lighted on/off button to keep the light/switch hidden. When I had one like that, every kid liked to flip that switch and shut everything down on me unexpectedly. 

Everything won’t always be perfect while working from home with small children milling around.

Here’s my most embarrassing working from home with babies moment. One day, I was on an all day call with the CEO, all the SVPs and many other employees of our company. This was one of those grueling all day update meetings. That afternoon, my crawling baby started crawling under my desk towards wires and that “all powerful switch.” I called out, “Mister,” in a sassy, sing-song voice to reprimand my child in a loving way (He was not yet old enough to understand. He was just drawn to that all powerful light.)

Unfortunately, the speaker immediately paused in a confused way. I started receiving texts saying, “OMG! Mute your phone!” (Unbeknownst to me, one of my other kids unmuted my phone when I used the restroom a few minutes prior.) In the moment, I didn’t realize that they thought something else was going on than me chastising my baby.  Oops!!

Ways I Managed the Housework While Working From Home with Young Children

Take advantage of unproductive time

I found ways to get housework done during unproductive “work hours”. For example, I regularly had a set of reports that would need to be run. They always took some time, and locked up my computer so I couldn’t do anything else at the same time. I would always use that time to throw in a load of laundry or switch loads.

Keep meals simple

I would try to spend as little time as possible in the kitchen during this time. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the healthiest lunches (it was usually Mac & Cheese, chicken nuggets, or sandwiches of some kind). For dinners, I tried to make meals where I could toss all the ingredients in the slow cooker or in a pan and let it cook while I tended to children or did a little more work.

Enlist help from your spouse

When things would get really busy and overwhelming, my spouse and I would have conversations on how he could help more with some of the household things. He didn’t always see what I needed done, so we had a system where I would put all my household priorities on the whiteboard near our kitchen and he would tackle things that he was willing/able to do. If we didn’t have a way of communicating these needs, he didn’t know how to help. That usually ended up with me taking on too much and having an emotional breakdown.

Establish routines

Find areas in your life where you can have predictable routines. For example, one routine I developed was to make sure the dishwasher was fully loaded and run it before going to bed. I would empty it first thing in the morning, so we could just load it as we went throughout the day. This helped make it so the only things that piled up on the counter were “hand wash only” dishes, or the “soaking” dishes, as my husband would say. Now we run the dishwasher twice a day, so I try to keep the nighttime routine, but I usually have a run and empty midday, as well.

Additional Things I Did While Working from Home with Young Children

Homeschooling

A year before my 3^rd child was born, we decided to start homeschooling. It didn’t seem like a crazy idea at first. I had a nanny so I was able to work during working hours and school in the morning and evening. Besides, they were young, so they didn’t need too much “school time”.

Fast-forward a couple years, and it became a bit crazy working full time without childcare and homeschooling. The thing is, it wasn’t all bad. We were flexible with our schedule and made it work.

Young kids don’t need to be instructed all day long. Older kids, who have more workload, can usually do a lot independently. We usually did a little bit of instruction around meal-times, and they did independent work while I was working. It actually worked best when we were drilling our memory work while eating together…the kids always wanted to show daddy what they knew during dinner.

Pray your way through working from home with young children

Another thing I did regularly was pray. I prayed for God to help me to prioritize the important things. I prayed for Him to manage my schedule to get everything done that needed to be done. As a result, I am convinced He multiplied my time during that season.  

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, nor for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

– Colossians 3:23-24

I hope this helps to give some ideas on ways to make things easier for you if you’ve had to transition to working from home without childcare. What tips do you have to add?