Can You Work From Home with a Toddler?
Working from home is becoming more common, especially among parents with young kids at home. Working from home gives parents more quality time with their kids, and it can save families the cost of daycare, but is it even possible to work from home and take care of your kids? And what type of job could you do?
How to Work From Home with a Toddler
The most important thing you can do to make the most of your time as a working parent is to be ultra-prepared and organized. This means you know exactly what task you are going to work on and have everything you need lined up ahead of time to do it. Before you go to bed at night, prioritize your work and review your schedule for the following day. You’ll be working in increments, so it’s important to be strategic and utilize uninterrupted blocks like nap time wisely.
Keeping a routine is going to be very important not only for the working parent, but also for the kid/s at home. When you create a schedule and stick to it, you will actually carve out more time to work and have quality family time and your children will also be informed and know what’s happening. Be sure to tackle the most important items on your to-do list and know that you’re probably not going to get everything done you’d hoped to during the day.
It might be possible to trade off blocks of time for work and child care with a partner, family member or even a friend that also has a child. It might be helpful to hire someone for childcare, even for a short time during the week where you can prioritize uninterrupted time to focus solely on work. We are living and working in a time where it’s possible to come up with creative and out-of-the-box solutions to be parents but also have careers and work.
What Type of Job Can You Work From Home with a Toddler?
There’s a common misperception that working from home means that you can also be watching your kids at the same time. While there are some things you might be able to do like listening to a zoom meeting holding your child on your lap, you have to treat your job like a job and honor the level of professionalism there would be if you were in the office, versus at home, which requires planning and boundaries.
If you are going to be home working and have a family, you’ll need to figure out realistically how many hours you can actually work which will likely be part-time unless you have help. There are plenty of remote positions like virtual assistants, freelance writers and bloggers, transcription, data entry, social media, graphic design, etc. that might be flexible enough and with non-traditional hours to allow you to both work and be a parent.
You could also consider looking for a job where you can bring your child. Working as a nanny might provide you a situation where the family wouldn’t mind if your child was also present. There are also driving, delivery and in-home service jobs like cleaning, organizing, meal prep, etc where you also might be able to have your child come along.
Being a parent and managing to work isn’t always easy, but with some planning and persistence it is doable and more and more companies are taking this work life balance into consideration. Search our work from home jobs here today.