Why do we all have this vision and ambition to have children and work from home to spend quality time with them? In reality, we are not spending any extra ‘quality time’ with them by being at home. We are sat at the laptop/ computer feeling stressed and guilty because we have a child who is always either hungry, thirsty, bored, or just wants your attention.
Children of course don’t understand that you’re busy and being at home is something that not all families get to do. They don’t understand that if they just let you get on, you’d be done so much quicker and then they can your time all to themselves and everything will work out best for everyone. Instead, they whinge and cry and jump all over you to get your attention, so you get almost nothing done. I’m struggling to see where the fun is in that!
So, I have had to try and find a way in having a child at home whilst I work and be sure to get some work done. I have written this blog to share with you how I have managed to work from home with a little girl who is now 3, get some work done and keep her happy and well looked after.
My partner and I started this business when we were pregnant with our daughter Ava. So far it has been the perfect tool to teach us many new skills. We have made mistakes like everyone does and we have learnt from these. These mistakes were more in the website building areas than anywhere else, but we did our research and fixed the issues we had. We have very much enjoyed this process and now run a business with actual customers which we are very proud of.
This takes a large amount of time in the week to update our website, add new products, respond to any customer, supplier queries etc, of course in addition to this we also have to pick, pack and dispatch our orders to our lovely clients on a daily basis. So, how do I do all this with a 3 year old? Please keep reading and I’ll be sure to tell you!
Just a quick overview on our daughter, Ava. I don’t want you to think she is a very relaxed, lazy child which makes this all easy. Because she isn’t and it’s not! She is usually described as ‘the most active child I know’ by all of our friends and family. She does not stop. She walked at 9 months, she climbed out of her cot at 11 months and was put into a toddler bed. By 1, she could climb on her windowsill in her bedroom and would play with the handle (which we decided to remove to avoid any accidents and keep her safe). Ava hasn’t napped since she was about 18 months, and it has never been a problem for her.
Here is an example of a day with just Mummy and Ava whilst Daddy is out at work.
We often start the day with a 30 minute HIIT workout that we do together. We usually choose something different on YouTube every time that’s fun, and loud, we do half an hour of running around, jumping, squatting, and having a laugh in our living room. One of Ava’s favourites is actually one both Myself and Ava’s Dad (Richard) put together in the first covid lockdown. Richard is a personal trainer and during the first covid lockdown he put workouts together for other people to stay fit and healthy at such a difficult time. (www.activegoals.co.uk). Ava loves it and it helps calm her down first thing. Burns a little bit of that energy and means she can spend some quality time with her Mummy! Then, I’ll bring the laptop into the lounge (exactly where I am now) and sit on the couch and do about 90mins of work whilst Ava watches a film. She has some toys in here too that she will play with at the same time with the film on in the background. Her favourites are the Bee Movie and Madagascar 2. Such an Animal Lover!
Often, we would then have some lunch and then head out for a 60-90 minute walk if the weather allows! Living here in the UK, that is of course not always the case. Ava can walk around 3.5 – 5km without her pushchair so that helps get her out of the house and burning some energy. She is just started learning to ride her bike too which she loves so we may also do a kilometre on the bike too.
In the afternoon I’ll usually find her something to do / play with that we don’t keep out all the time. These are toys she usually uses for a couple of hours, and we put them away to keep them exciting. She has wooden puzzles, a wooden train, Animal building blocks etc. Most of which we sell on www.nurserystore.co.uk. Ava will play with these in her bedroom whilst I work next door in the office for a while. After that it’s dinner time as a family and then we might do something together before we start the bedtime routine. Once Ava is in bed both Richard and I get our last bit of work done before we settle for the evening.
I have written this blog to really show you that being at home with a child is possible whilst also working from home. Of course, we are lucky that our work hours can be flexible as long as we get it done. But there are always ways to do it. Please feel free to head over and check out some of my other blogs at www.nurserystore.co.uk/blog
Until next time,
Sera