The benefits of part-time childcare for work-at-home parents..

During the short time I’ve been a parent, I’ve also been working 20-30 hour weeks (with the exception of a few weeks off over the holidays- which was much needed and enjoyed!).

I know it’s nothing in comparison to those of you working 40 hours or more each week at home or in a traditional office with little ones at home (I’m in awe, seriously), but it has given me a glimpse into how hard it is to balance work, life, marriage, and motherhood.

During the past few months I’ve been able to experiment with a few different ways of working from home, and although I stubbornly tried to do everything with just evening and weekend help from my husband, I’ve given in a little bit and found a solution that I think would be helpful to anyone in a job position similar to the one I’m in:

Get 10 hours of outside help a week.

You might be thinking, “I can make due without extra help,” or “Why can’t you just work while your husband’s home? Or while the baby naps or plays? Or just sacrifice a little sleep?”

And you’re right. It definitely can work if you choose one or more of the above options. However, just 10 hours of outside help (from a neighborhood babysitter, family member, or friend) can improve your quality of life in drastic ways.

I assumed (like I’m sure most people in my position do) that my flexible job would be perfect with a new baby! She could play or sleep while I work at home, and everything would be great! Surprisingly, no. I don’t necessarily need daycare 5 days a week like some working moms, but I quickly realized I needed something in between.

For me, personally, finally accepting some help has made a world of difference in my mindset, mood, quality of work, marriage, and helps me enjoy my baby so much more (rather than being frustrated all day that she won’t take just one long nap so I can check my emails!).

I have part-time help from family now, but I would be more than willing to set aside a part of my paycheck to have all these other areas of my life improve if I needed to.

Trust me, I tried it all without help. My baby plays in her jumper or pack and play by herself for about 10-20 minutes before she starts hysterically crying, she only naps for 30-45 minutes at a time (she’s always been this way), and for the first month of Ella’s life, I would sometimes pull almost all-nighters to keep up with my workload, which caught up with me, made me sick, braindead, and irritable.

As for having my husband watch her while I worked, we did that for a few months, but I didn’t like what it was turning our marriage into. I know plenty of couples do this, and maybe they’re just better at it, but I was sacrificing every spare second with my husband so that I could work, and I didn’t like the uncomfortable feeling that I was letting parenthood come in the way of our friendship, and turn me into a task-obsessed shell of a person.

After trying all of these different approaches and feeling like none of them were quite right, that’s when came with my 10 hour solution.

Once I decided I needed some help, I considered the following solutions:

• Friends I could potentially ‘baby swap’ with (I could watch the kids for two days a week, and my mom friend could watch the kids another two days a week, adding up to 10 or more hours of time alone to work during the week)
• Getting one of the neighborhood teenage girls to babysit at our house for 3 days a week after school while I work at my laptop, adding up to about 10 hours
• Taking advantage of one of the daycares we have in walking distance (there’s a 2- day-a-week option that’s cheaper and adds up to 15 hours a week)

In the end, my mother insisted that she be the one to watch the baby (for 10-15 hours a week, 3 days a week total, which feels like more than enough!), since she lives just down the street. 

It feels good to know there are plenty of other options (and I have friends who have used all of the above on a tight budget- so it’s possible!) if I ever needed to.

Again, it might cost some extra money or take some extra coordinating on your end, but I’m all for it if makes a night and day difference in the quality of my life.

Happy living, and happy parenting!