Working remotely is ideal for parents with small children. You can be present for your child’s needs and pay attention to their daily development while earning a living at home. As ideal as it sounds, the balancing act that this requires can be exhausting. Parents of Children With All Special Needs (POCWASN) helps support parents with special needs kids — the focus is on getting parents to engage in self-care. Remote working parents need to focus on self-care, also. Working remotely may be here to stay for many employees, so it is a good idea to plan in advance with some survival tips.

Tips for Working at Home with Young Kids

Developing flexible hours is necessary to successfully work at home with little ones since babies and toddlers have needs that do not fit neatly into certain hours of the day. It may help to come up with some flexible time strategies to present to your employer so that you can meet the needs of your position while caring for your child at home. Early morning and mid-evening split shifts may be best for accommodating your parenting responsibilities and attending work tasks.

It may be practical to think about your work hours in terms of project achievement or milestones. A task-oriented plan frames work hours differently as you are considering units of time needed to accomplish a task. If you work as part of a team, it may help strategize your time collaboratively to tackle and complete a specific project. By taking on assignments in this unified way, you may find that conceptualizing your schedule around family needs is more manageable. ThriveYard suggests creating a three-section priority list for your tasks to focus on the most critical first.

Being comfortable while working from home, especially for new moms, is more critical than it would seem. You can purchase professional, stylish tops that accommodate virtual staff meetings — and many options are also suitable for breastfeeding. Leggings come in a zillion prints and soft materials that offer flexibility as you transition between work and parenting responsibilities. Think about versatility and comfort, like a dress made of jersey material.

You can find an Old Navy promo code and other online discounts and coupons that can save you money on new items for your wardrobe. Strategies for comfort and scheduling your time are essential. A few additional necessities will make working at home with children more feasible.

Work-at-Home Necessities

As you tackle remote work, a high-speed internet connection will ensure productive work hours. If your current internet connection isn’t up to the task, it may be time for an upgrade. Fortunately, many cities have access to 5G now, which brings ultra-fast speeds that will meet all your connectivity needs for work and home, reducing stress and saving time and energy for more critical tasks.

A designated space for work is another crucial factor for successfully working at home with young children. Consider a workspace that enables you to have easy access to your work supplies and computer. Set up an area where you will not need to pack up at the end of each day to use the space for some other purpose, enabling you to quickly transition from parenting responsibilities to work projects.

Working at home with small children is a feat. You can balance these responsibilities through flexible scheduling; treating yourself to comfy, professional clothing; and setting yourself up with the necessary tools for an effective workday. Be sure to make time for yourself in all of this. Use time-off to decompress and disconnect from work. Try to schedule self-care time such as a massage or a visit with friends. Above all, be patient with yourself as you navigate this new working and parenting way.

If you or a loved one has a child with special needs, see what POCWASN can do for you.

Janice Russell believes the only way to survive parenthood is to find the humor in it. She created Parenting Disasters so that parents would have a go-to resource whenever they needed a laugh and show parents they aren’t alone. She wants every frazzled parent out there to remember that for every kid stuck in a toilet, there’s another one out there somewhere who’s just graced their parents’ walls with some Sharpie artwork!