Conversation Starter
Related Posts
Subject Expert
Does EY gds provide wfh?
Additional Posts in Consulting Moms
Good morning and Happy Monday 🤍 How are you ladies getting workouts in since all the gyms are closed? I’m looking for 10 women who would be interested in doing a fitness program with me. Workouts are more fun with other people 💜 I would love for you to join me and we can do the program together. https://www.teambeachbody.com/shop/d/BODStandalone?referringRepID=2457456
Is The Ladders legit / worth it?
Mentor
Take a look at Lessontrader.com. An online marketplace for teachers to buy and sell resources. All of your hard earned work for virtual learning can be posted on lessontrader and make you some extra money! FREE membership with discount code “vipfree”. Once you upload a lesson there is nothing else needed. Just wait and collect once someone buys your stuff.
Additional Posts (overall)
Rising Star
Conversation Starter
Conversation Starter
Conversation Starter
Enthusiast
New to Fishbowl?
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Not doable, IMHO. Not with a job in consulting.
Picture this. You return to work after your leave. Your baby is around 3.5 months old. She naps 30 mins at a time during which you used a bathroom, turned on your laptop, had a snack, looked at your calendar for 15 minutes.. she is up.. now you are trying to extend that nap.. rocking for 15 mins during which you got pings from the client (you showed "away"), you understand she won't nap now.. you start the routine.. play.. she hates tummy time and cranky from lack of sleep so she's fussing, you can't take your eyes off her for the next 2 hrs.. your pings are unanswered, the client is not happy... you put her down for nap again, rushing to your laptop.. log-in, ping the client, read email... oh shoot, you have a meeting for the next hour.. 40 mins into your meeting your baby is screaming, she's up again.. you think I'll try to extent a nap again.. bluetooth headset in one ear, walking around the house wearing a baby, she feel asleep (thank god). The meeting is running over, someone is calling you out.. you start talking and waking up your baby.. needless to say your answer is not helpful to anyone on the call... someone calls you with an urgent question after, you would've told them to call later but you feel guilty for your underperformance.. so you are on that call, looking at your laptop.. the baby is content in her bouncer for once. Starts fussing 20 mins later, you are desperate so you turning on TV and put her in front of it. She is quite for another 10 mins. You have to end the fall bc its time to change her diaper and feed her. After the feeding, she spat up.. time to change her clothes... logging back in you see 15 pings, tasks piling up, client frustration growing... oh, and you haven't even taken your baby for a daily stroll..
I don't know anyone whose babies were super predictable perfect nappers so I wouldn't expect that to be your case. As babies grow, they need much more stimulation, food preparation, etc.
This were my days when our nanny couldn't come in.
Pro
Omg. This takes me back….I wasn’t trying to wfh…just shower and do laundry and that was a challenge….thank you for the laugh.
I worked from home with my now toddler since she was 4 months old. I single-handedly made it with with occasional help, but she was in school by 3 years. She’s now 4.5 and loves school and thrives in it. She’s an independent kiddo and we personally made it work, my workload was very heavy but I used to manage during naps and late nights and kept her busy with her toys and things (at this rate we have our own lil Montessori). We didn’t have any family around and I personally had a hard time trusting others at that time so made it work. Also once the pandemic started my spouse was WFH for almost a full year.
PS - this was difficult and I can’t believe time flied and I managed. Wouldn’t recommend it, but I did it. We now have a much healthier balance and we both as parents put in the work to keep it flowing.
Many of us were forced to do this during the early pandemic and it cost us all sanity, mental health, a level of stress we’d never experienced before, work performance, some had to sacrifice their jobs or take leave, etc. It’s not sustainable, and if you do it you end up doing both subpar, rather than doing either one well.
I did this in pandemic,costed me my sleep, as i worked from 4-9 in morning, with kid from
9-5 while husband worked.6-10 again in eve …i was a zombiee.it significantly impacted my health, our relationship and obviously my performance at work.. i would never choose it unless that is the only option to survive
Chief
Haha NO I’ve said this like five times recently on this app… you need childcare. It is some crazy covid stuff that people now seem to think you might not.
Pro
I see your posts on this and wish there was a super like button.
Even if your child is super independent, you’re stepping away at a minimum for feedings, diaper changes, and when it’s nap time to put them down and get them up. When my daughter is home with me because she’s sick, I can get some work done, but no where near what it takes to be successful. And that’s with a husband who splits the day with me when she’s home with us.
Rising Star
Maybe you can sort of survive doing this for a few months, but as soon as they start to crawl it’s impossible. But why torture yourself? The only thing that has kept me sane as a mom is good childcare
My baby goes to nursery full time (8.30am - 5.30pm) but stays home whenever she’s sick and let me tell you I can’t do any work outside her naps… I wouldn’t be able to make it work for us.
And you don’t know what type of mapper you will have….maybe minimal. Also. I found if hime with baby hard time work during. So because I was so exhausted…
Babies need activity and stimulation. This isn’t fair on either of you.
Rising Star
It is SURVIVABLE short term when the kid is sick or the nanny unexpectedly cancels but is no way a doable plan A.
No
No. Just no.
A hard no….
Just echoing all the hard NOs here for another data point if needed
Rising Star
I have a friend who is a independent contributor in a highly technical field and literally has 4 meetings in a month, has been able to keep her 3 yo at home with her since birth. She also doesn’t work Fridays and is super competent in her field which is very niche. I and most working women I know can’t do it even though childcare is bleeding us… If I had resources, I would probably get childcare for few hours during weekend as well…
I have FT daycare and a babysitter 4 hrs on Saturday mornings. 🙋♀️
As another data point, I have been WFH while having my parents watch mine for most of the day while I pop in at times to feed and put down for naps. (My baby didn't do well with bottles, though older now and having better luck transitioning to sippy cups.) Even with just that I find it rather distracting, and have to do a lot of working around meetings, with some coordination with the husband (who is also WFH and juggling meetings). Eagerly waiting to get off the waitlist at daycare because this is not sustainable and I know I'm not as productive as I should be.
I also do a lot of catchup work at night as that's the only way I'm able to get by. But that's after dinner, bath, and bedtime routine. So really working nonstop.
Our friends did that for a while (2 years), but she was a teacher with a schedule that had breaks built in during the day. With that said, she said it was total hell. From my side, I tried to take a few listening in calls when our baby was sick, and I couldn’t even make it through the hour.
The hardest part about a schedule like this is you have no time for yourself to mentally decompress. It's incredibly wearing.
Chief
No no no no no no no no noooooooo
Unless your job is extremely flexible with which hours you work and meetings are minimal or you have back up, it’s super super hard. Kept my daughter home as long as I could in the pandemic since she was too young to be vaccinated. She went to my parents 3-4 days a week but they are older and sometimes had appointments making it hard on those days. Eventually, I basically got in trouble for it and was told I need distraction free work time and the stress of it all really got to me. I hadn’t missed any client deliverables and was doing well but that didn’t seem to matter. I am grateful for my own sanity and balance that she is in preschool now but her school closes for COVID cases and it’s really just hard if you have stuff that isn’t flexible going on.
Don’t do it - either quit your job or find childcare options that work for you. After zero childcare options during 2019, I took a LOA for a few months until I was comfortable with my childcare options
Or downsize your role to create more time in the day / less guilt that you’re not fully invested in it… but even then it’s hard