In theory, working from home should be less stressful than commuting to the office every day.

Because you can wear your pajamas, co-workers won’t drop into your office for a “quick chat” right at the moment when you’re finally in the flow of getting things done, and nobody needs to know if you happen to polish off your whole Girl Scout cookie stash from the freezer.

But when you add kids into your working from home equation, it’s easy to feel like you’re not getting any real work done.

Kids will interrupt you for the most trivial of reasons (Mommy! My yogurt is too lumpy!), they might get into mischief if left to their own devices for too long (lock up your Sharpies!), and sticking them in front of a screen all day just backfires. Because then you have to deal with the “screen time zombie effect” later on when they’re finally off screens – which depending on the kid means they’ll be quick to anger, highly irritable, or moody and unmotivated.

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get a free cheat sheet of the best advice for how to work from home with kids, backed by research.

What You Need to Know About Working From Home With Kids

I’ve been working from home with kids in tow for more than 12 years now.

My kids range in age from 12 to 2, and I’ve learned the hard way what works – and what doesn’t. Throughout that time, I’ve studied the best science-backed strategies for being productive while working remotely. And I teach a class to hundreds of remote workers every year about how to actually get stuff done when you’re working from home.

But even after all that and even though my kids’ behavior has always been developmentally appropriate for a child in that situation, at times I’ve still gotten so frustrated at the kid-related interruptions and disruptions to my productivity that I’ve had to lock myself in my closet and scream into a pillow.

So if you’ve come to this post because you’re wondering, “Can you work from home and look after a child at the same time?” the honest answer is: Not exactly. But hang tight because all hope is not lost!

Let Me Explain

The human brain is not designed to do two things at once, as much as we’d like to pretend otherwise. And looking after a child and doing your job are definitely two different tasks.

Both your child and your work will demand your full attention:

• The more your child feels your attention is elsewhere, the more disconnected they’ll feel from you, and the more they’ll interrupt you while you’re trying to focus.
• On the other hand, when you’re never fully focused on your work, you’ll be more prone to mistakes, it will take you longer to get tasks done, and your stress level will skyrocket.

So what in the world are you supposed to do if you need to work from home with children in tow?

While you can’t do two things at once, you can use a handful of simple science-backed strategies that will help you get your work done without resorting to 8 hours of zombie-making screen time for your kids.

Working From Home With Kids? The Best Advice That Actually Works

Below, I’ve compiled all the best strategies for how to work from home with kids in tow. These are the exact same strategies I teach my students in my time management course for remote workers, many of whom are work-from-home parents, so that they can squeeze maximum results out of limited work time.

This is your one-stop shop for everything you need to know about working from home without childcare while still maintaining your sanity. And after the list, you can get a free cheat sheet of all the strategies covered in this post.

If you have any extra advice for parents who are struggling with how to work from home with kids, please share your insight in a comment at the end of this post. We’re all in this together!

But First, a Warning

It took me 12 years to research and uncover all the best hacks for how to work with kids around, adding each one to my toolbox with the excitement of Ariel discovering a new human artifact to add to her treasure trove. Here in one handy spot, I’m sharing all the nuggets of wisdom I’ve gathered over the years so that you can be productive when working from home without feeling like you’re completely ignoring or neglecting your child.

Which means this post is M-E-A-T-Y and chock full of science-backed strategies. So remember this: Even if all you do is use one strategy from this list, you’ll see an impact. And the more you can implement, the better the results you’ll see.

Above all, please give yourself grace. Every day of working from home with kids will not be perfect, and that’s okay. If you got some work done and everybody ended the day still speaking to each other, I count that as a win. And if the day didn’t go so well? That’s okay too because you’ll get another crack at it tomorrow.

1. Share the Load

Every morning, I used to oversee breakfast and get-ready time for all my kids. I would bounce between making food, cleaning up dishes, hunting for matching socks in the dryer, reminding them to finish their food, reminding them to get dressed, reminding them to brush their teeth…on and on and on.

While all that may seem trivial, it added up to 45 minutes (or more) every morning where I was at the kids’ beck and call like a Downton Abbey butler. And then at lunchtime, it happened all over again.

But there’s no reason I had to be the one to oversee their morning and lunchtime routines.

If your kids are used to you making their breakfast and lunch for them, cleaning up their dishes for them, and reminding them to do things like get dressed or brush their teeth, now’s the time to think about handing off that responsibility.

Not only will your child be practicing important life skills and end up happier and more successful as adults because of it, you can recover a solid chunk of time every day where you’ll be able to focus on your work.

After I invited my kids to take over responsibility for their own morning and lunchtime routines, I carved out at least an extra 1.5 hours of focused work time every day. At first, they needed my help and guidance to get comfortable with what I was asking of them, but before too long, I was able to take a step back and officially hand over the reins for those routines.

How to Do It

First, a quick heads up: Strategy #2 below goes hand-in-hand with this strategy because it helps grease the wheels for this conversation, so you might consider having that quick conversation first before your official “share the load” conversation.

With that said, here’s an example of how you might kick this off:

1. Bring it up. At the family dinner table one night, start the conversation by saying something like this to reinforce what’s in it for your kids:

“Now that we’re all working together as [a team *or* insert name from strategy #2], there’s something I need your help with. In the morning and at lunch, I spend a lot of time getting food ready and helping you get yourself ready. But if I could use that time to work instead, then I’d be done faster and could come do something fun with you to start the day, like play a quick card game. So I need you to step up for the team and take over making your breakfast and lunch and also get yourself ready in the morning. Can you do that for the team?”

2. Gauge their reaction. Most kids will be up for it because they want to be part of the team, and they want to feel grown-up. But if for some reason they resist, they might have some underlying anxieties, so try asking them what they’re worried about. After they explain, you can ask what you can do to help so that they feel like they can pitch in for the team.
3. Practice. When they’re on board, you might respond with something like this:

“Awesome! If you can take over making your breakfast and lunch without asking me for help, that will help me get my work done faster, and then we can do something fun together. But I know this will be a change, so after dinner, let’s pretend like we’re going through the whole morning process and see if there’s anything I need to do to make it easier for you. Like maybe we can move some food lower in the fridge so you can reach it better, or we can find a step stool you can use if you need it.”

4. Make it visible. Consider setting up a visual reminder for your kids’ whole morning routine, like these printable routine picture cards designed by my friend Lauren. We got a sheet of magnetic sticker squares and stuck one on the back of each routine card, then put the cards on our fridge. When the kids finish something from their routine, they take the card off and put it in a pocket folder labeled “DONE” that’s also on the fridge. Then every night after they’re in bed, I move all the cards back to the fridge for the next day.

If you’re still shouldering all the routine load in your family, you might be thinking, Sure, that sounds great, but if I don’t make sure they do everything, it won’t get done! So if you’re worried your kids won’t follow through, ask yourself: Does it matter?

• If they wear their pajamas a little longer, that’s not the end of the world.
• If they eat breakfast a little later because they were distracted by playing first thing in the morning, they’ll survive. A bit longer of an overnight fast won’t hurt, and I promise you if they’re hungry, they’ll figure out how to fix that.
• And if you’re concerned they might forget to brush their teeth, you can give them a creative reminder, like storing their toothbrush and toothpaste in a basket or bin with their favorite breakfast item so they’ll pull the whole thing out and get a visual reminder.

Bottom line: Make your expectations clear that your child is responsible for their own routines. Not only will this help you carve out more work time in your day, you’ll be nurturing your child’s independence and setting them up for success later in life.

2. Name Your Team

Full disclosure: This step might seem unnecessary or even a bit silly to you when you’re already stressed about getting work done, but many of my time management students find that their kids do much better when they feel involved in this simple way.

Research shows that kids as young as three can understand the value of teamwork and will even change their behavior to cooperate on a common goal. In other words, when kids feel like they’re part of the team, they can make better decisions in the moment about what will best help the team.

And so when you nurture and reinforce the idea that you’re all on the same team in your family, you set a clear expectation that everyone has a role to play with supporting the family’s common goal. Establishing this common goal is an important piece of the foundation for getting your kids to cooperate when you’re working from home.

For a fun and quick way to start fostering an attitude of teamwork right now, invite your kids to help come up with an official team name for your family.

Then later on, your team name will be a simple and positive way to remind your kids of the importance of you all working together as a team towards your common goal. (And I can tell you that rallying the troops in the spirit of teamwork feels infinitely better than nagging or losing your temper every day!)

How to Do It

To be clear, this strategy isn’t a good fit when you’re working from home with a baby or a toddler, but preschoolers and up can certainly understand the concept of working together as a team and change their behavior to support the team.

Here’s one way you might kick this off:

1. Bring it up. At a mealtime or another time when the whole family is together and isn’t distracted by screen time or other activities, start a conversation, similar to something like this:

“Mom and dad will be working from home so that we can buy food and pay the bills for the house and car. But this will be a little different for all of us, and it might take us some time to get used to it. If we’re going to make it work, we’ll need to work as a team to support each other. So we thought it might be fun to come up with a team name for our family now that we’re going to be working to get through this together. What ideas do you have?”

2. Brainstorm and vote. Let the kids throw out team names and then have a family vote. You can use your last name or something else entirely as your team name (Dumbledore’s Army?), but try to bite your tongue during the brainstorming process and let your kids have fun with it.
3. Make it official. Post your team name somewhere. The kids can decorate a sign, you can write it on a chalkboard or whiteboard if you have one, or you can let the kids use special window markers to post the team name on a window or mirror. Or for an extra dose of fun that will keep your kids busy for a bit (so you can work!), you can get plain white t-shirts and let your kids decorate them with Sharpies to turn them into team jerseys.

Bottom line: Foster an attitude of teamwork with your kids by explaining your shared goal and inviting them to come up with a fun family team name.

3. Bank Your Hours Quickly

I am not a morning person. I love staying up late to read just one more chapter of an unputdownable book, watch Brooklyn Nine Nine reruns, or just scroll Twitter for stupid pet videos without any little people looking over my shoulder.

And so I was resistant to this idea for a long, long time, but even I have to admit it works. The absolute best advice I’ve ever received for how to work from home with kids is to wake up before your kids and get your work done before your attention is split between your kids and work.

For most of my time management students, this simple strategy is the one that makes the biggest difference.

How to Do It

As one example, if you can wake up at 6:00 am and your kids wake up around 7:00 am (and you’ve shared the load on morning routines as explained in strategy #1 above), that gives you a solid 1.5 to 2 hours of focused work time. If you can push it a little more and wake up at 5:00 am and your kids get used to being self-sufficient a little longer like until 8:30 am or 9:00 am, that means you could get half of your work hours in before the day has even really started.

Currently, I wake up at 5:00 am and go to bed at 9:30 pm, which still gives me an hour of kid-free time at night to goof off. My kids have now learned to take care of themselves until 9:00 am, which means I get 4 solid hours of work in before I join them.

I wish I hadn’t waited so long to start waking up early, so I’m passing along this lesson learned to you. If you think it won’t work for you, try it for one week and reevaluate. You might be surprised! It feels pretty darn fantastic to have half your work hours banked before the time most people are starting their day.

Bottom line: Wake up before your kids to make the most of the quiet morning hours when it’s easier to focus and string together a few hours of work time.

4. Fill That Tank

When you see your kids for the first time each morning, you might feel tempted to rush through the morning essentials so that you can get to work as quickly as possible – or get back to work if you followed the strategy in #3 above.

Resist that temptation.

Rushing through your time with your child in the morning will actually backfire, and here’s why: Connection breeds cooperation. In other words, when your kids feel a strong connection with you, they’ll be more likely to cooperate.

On the other hand, when your child feels a lack of connection, that leads to more unnecessary power struggles and less cooperation from your child when you ask them to do something, like when you need them to entertain themselves without accidentally burning down the house so you can focus on work.

But when you start the day by connecting in a meaningful way with your child, that fills their connection “tank,” and they’ll be much less likely to interrupt you later on while you’re working.

How to Do It

Below are a few of the best ways to connect with your child every morning and start your day off on the right foot. Tip: For a handy way to remember to do this every morning, you can get my Family Connection Cards here. In just 10 minutes a day, these powerful cards will make your child feel absolutely loved and stop the power struggles caused by disconnection.

• Give your child a hug. But make sure it’s a good quality hug of six seconds or more. Here’s why. If your child isn’t used to you dishing out impromptu hugs, try a high-five instead and work up to hugs.
• Read a book. Your child is never too old to be read to. For older kids, you may find it fun to take turns reading aloud from the same book. If you don’t currently read aloud to your child regularly, be sure to check out the super helpful tips in this post: Want to Raise Smart, Kind Kids? Science Says Do This Every Day.
• Sit down and just play for a few minutes. No smartphones, no multitasking – follow your child’s lead.
• Go outside together. Take a walk, play catch, or hop on your bikes for a quick ride around the block.
• Get quiet. Start the day with a kid-friendly meditation using an app like Headspace. Meditation helps calm anxious feelings and increases your attention span and ability to focus. And that’s something both you and your child can benefit from!
• Play a board game or card game. We’ve found that Sleeping Queens is the perfect quick game for a wide range of ages, but for more ideas check out our full list of the absolute best family games for all ages. We’ve spent countless hours testing different family games with all different ages to find the cream of the crop!

Bottom line: When you see your child during work breaks, make it a priority to connect in a meaningful way. That will fill their connection “tank” and cut down on their natural urge to interrupt you while you’re working.

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5. Set a Firm Boundary…Together

Even if you were able to bank a solid chunk of hours at the start of the day (see strategy #3 above), you will likely need to work more hours while your kids are awake.

But this can be the most frustrating aspect of working from home with kids because kids don’t understand that you need to focus. And they certainly don’t understand that interrupting you breaks that focus and makes it take longer to get your work done. In fact, one study found that it can take you 23 minutes just to get back to where you left off before the interruption. Yikes.

Your kids will interrupt you because they want a snack, because they can’t get the universal remote to work, because their sibling looked at them funny…you name it.

The mistake I made when starting out as a work-from-home parent was taking an authoritarian approach to preventing interruptions from my kids instead of an authoritative approach. Here’s the difference:

• Authoritarian: Do not interrupt me when I’m working. If you interrupt me, you’ll have consequences that may include but are not limited to loss of screen time, no more dessert, and me duct taping your mouth shut during my conference calls.
• Authoritative: Every day, I’ll need to focus on my work for a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon – about the length of one movie in the morning and one movie in the afternoon. This is so that I can get my work done and get back to doing fun stuff with you at lunchtime and at the end of the day. But in order for that to happen, during that morning time and afternoon time I won’t be able to answer your questions, help solve problems you’ve run into, or talk to you about anything else. Kind of like an ostrich sticking their head in the sand! So I’d like your help coming up with a couple things: First, we need a sign I can put on my door to let you know when I’m in one of those “ostrich” times where I need to focus. And after we brainstorm that, I want to hear your ideas for things you can do while I’m in “ostrich” mode and focused on work.

The first approach seems much easier at first glance, but it has one problem: It doesn’t work. The authoritarian approach to parenting undermines your authority in your child’s eyes, and that means they’re less likely to respect your requests or demands. In fact, kids subjected to the authoritarian approach are more likely to become disruptive, aggressive, and defiant.

But with an authoritative approach, you explain the reason you’re asking your child to do something – or not do something – and then invite them to help you come up with the final solution to the problem. You’re still clearly communicating firm expectations and boundaries, but this way your child feels like they’re part of the process instead of feeling like they’re living in a dictatorship, powerless over their own fate.

It’s near impossible to completely eliminate all interruptions from your kids, but this strategy invites an attitude of teamwork and can drastically cut down on the number of interruptions.

How to Do It

To implement this boundary with your kids, here are a few ideas you can use as jumping off points:

• Make a Sign – Invite your child to design a sign to put on your office door. (Don’t have an office door? See strategy #6 below.) This will communicate to your child when you’re in one of those special focus periods during the day and cut down on interruptions. They might design a stop/go sign, a thumbs up/down sign, or some other creative sign that will help them remember what to do if they feel the urge to interrupt you. Bonus: While they’re making the sign, you can get some work done!
• Brainstorm a List – Your child will be more successful if you work together to come up with a list of things for them to do while you’re working. This is the perfect time for them to catch up on any online learning or projects for school, listen to an audiobook or an educational podcast, or just get out a special toy or activity like play dough or slime. Then before you head off to work for one of your focus times, you can look through the list together, and they can set their intention ahead of time for what they’ll do. (By the way, they’ll be much more likely to stick with it if they make the decision ahead of time for what they plan to do!) For more on this, check out strategy #7 below.
• Share the Science – To reinforce the importance of why you need to focus, you can explain the brain science behind why interruptions make your work take longer in the end. For example, you might share the tidbit that it can take you 23 minutes just to get back to where you left off before the interruption! And then draw the connection for your child by explaining that’s 23 minutes of something fun you won’t be able to do together, like play a game or watch a favorite family show.
• State the Exceptions – Ask your child to give you examples of emergency situations or other times that it would be okay to interrupt you. Together, make a list of these exceptions and post it somewhere everyone can see.
• Plan for a Contingency – Sometimes your kids just want to share their emotions or experiences with you in the moment, and patience isn’t their strong suit. If you find this is the case with your child, you can come up with a positive alternative to them knocking on your office door. For example, you can teach your child how to record an audio message on a tablet or other mobile device so they can share what’s on their mind. Then when your focus time is over and you’re back in the family fold, you can listen to any messages you missed.

Bottom line: Involve your child in coming up with a clear boundary for what will happen when you’re in your focused work mode. When they feel like they were a part of important decisions like this, they’ll be more likely to stick to what’s decided.

6. Make a Space

Note: If you already have a separate office area with a door you can close, you can skip this section. But if you don’t have a separate office area, keep reading.

When I first started out, I tried to work in the same room as my kids. But that can be confusing for your child because they’ll think you’re “on” as a parent when you need to be focusing on work. And therefore, the interruptions will be constant, making everything take longer to get done.

Not to mention that even if your kids aren’t actively interrupting you, the sounds of their playtime or bickering will be enough of a distraction that your brain will not be fully focused on your work. That type of background is called “intermittent speech,” and it’s just about the worst kind of ambient noise for your productivity.

But at that time, I didn’t have a whole extra room to devote to being an office space, so I had to get creative. Because my kids were younger, strategies #8, 9, and 10 below were essential, but they all worked even better when I had a dedicated office space.

How to Do It

Here are a few creative ways you can physically separate yourself from the kid-related hullabaloo so you can focus on work:

• Set up on a porch, patio, or deck – Get a comfy deck chair and grab your laptop, and you’re good to go. If you’re worried about the kids burning down the house while you’re outside, you can set up a baby monitor camera inside the house and turn the volume on the monitor way down so you’ll only hear if someone screams due to mortal danger. (See the apps and tools section near the end of this post for recommendations on the best gear for working from home with kids.)
• Sequester yourself in your bedroom – You can get a cheap small work table to keep in the corner of your room when it’s not in use, or just sit up in bed with your laptop.
• Repurpose another room – If you don’t like the idea of using your bedroom for work, you can find another room in the house and repurpose it. I’ve known people who installed flip-down work tables on the wall of their laundry room, converted a master bath vanity into a workspace, and set up a workstation in a walk-in closet.

You don’t need much space, but it’s best to have a door you can close. That blocks out the sound of your kids but also serves as a visual reminder to your kids that you’re focusing – and a place to hang that sign they made from strategy #5 above!

Bottom line: Dedicate a separate area in your home to being your office space. That signals to your brain that you’re shifting to “work” mode, communicates the shift to your kids, and helps block out the distracting sounds of your kids talking and playing.

7. Choose Your Own Adventure

Suppose you’re on an important conference call with your boss’s boss, and your preschooler busts into your office, demanding a cheese stick NOW. And in two horrifying seconds, you register that he has PBJ smeared all across his face, has a Sharpie uncapped and in hand, and also seems to be missing…his pants?

For most of us, the biggest challenge with how to work with kids around is this: How can you keep your kids busy and engaged so that you can focus on work – without resorting to screen time for several hours a day?

I had to learn this lesson about working from home with kids the hard way: Expecting your kids to be happy doing the same exact thing every day while you work is not a recipe for success. Here’s why:

• Monotony leads to boredom,
• Which leads to your kids interrupting you more often,
• Which leads to you getting frustrated and lashing out,
• Which leads to your kids feeling emotionally disconnected from you,
• Which leads to them interrupting you even more.

The best way to avoid all this is to plan ahead so you can mix it up every day. When you work together to brainstorm a list of things for your kids to do while you’re working, your kids will be much more likely to stay engaged and leave you alone to work.

But Remember This

With all that said, we still need to have realistic expectations for how long our kids can play independently given their age and developmental stage:

• You can’t give a 3-year-old an activity and expect them to be quietly focused on it and nothing else for 30 minutes. For very young kids, you’ll need to use the strategies in #8, 9, and 10 below and work up to longer periods of independent play time.
• On the other hand, if your child is already capable of entertaining themselves for longer periods of time, this “Choose Your Own Adventure” strategy is an excellent way to keep your child busy and engaged while you focus on work.

But here’s the key: Your child needs to have a say in how they’ll be spending their time, at least most of the time. Not only will they be more likely to stick with an activity they had a hand in choosing, you’ll strengthen their brain in a way that will increase their ability to focus and stick to something:

“[Kids] who plan their own time, set weekly goals, and evaluate their own work build up their prefrontal cortex and other parts of the brain that help them exert greater cognitive control over their lives. These so-called executive skills aid children with self-discipline, avoiding distractions, and weighing the pros and cons of their choices.”

The Secrets of Happy Families

How to Do It

Here’s one way you can make the “Choose Your Own Adventure” strategy work to keep things fresh and engaging for your child:

1. Brainstorm. Find a time when you and your child can brainstorm a list of activities they can do independently while you’re working, and set a timer for 15-20 minutes or whatever you need. (Later in this section, you’ll find a list if you need ideas to get your creative juices flowing.)
2. Make a list. Write down every idea your child shares, even if you think it’s silly or not feasible. For this to work well, your child needs to feel like they have a voice.
3. Pick a few. When the timer’s up, look through the list together and ask your child to pick 10-12 ideas (or so) that they want to try in the next week.
   • Typically, your child will need 2-3 activities to keep them busy during a 1.5- to 2-hour work session, but your child might choose to repeat some activities from day-to-day so you don’t need a huge list. By narrowing the list down to a handful of options for each week, you’ll prevent your child from getting overwhelmed and experiencing decision overload when it’s time to pick an idea to do in that moment.
   • If your child picks an idea you’re not jazzed about, share your concerns and suggest an alternative that’s similar if possible.
4. Post the plan. Post the next week’s “bank” of ideas somewhere visible like on your fridge, a chalkboard or whiteboard, or with special window markers on a window or mirror.
5. Set intention. The next time before you head off to one of your work sessions, look through the list together, and ask your child to articulate what they’ll be doing while you work. (Reminder: They’ll be much more likely to stick with it if they set their intention ahead of time for what they plan to do!)
   • For younger children, it works best to have them pick just one idea they’ll do, then set an alarm for yourself to take a break after 30 minutes (or whatever they can handle) and come help them switch gears to the next activity. (See strategy #9 below.)
   • For older children, ask them to pick 2-3 activities they’ll be doing while you work. When they finish one, they can move onto the next one without needing your help.
6. Prep. Help your child get everything they need set up so that they can do what they’ve picked without needing to interrupt you for any reason.
7. Skedaddle. Let your child know you’ll be looking forward to hearing how it goes, then head to your office space (see strategy #6 above), put up your sign (see #5), and get to work!
8. Refresh the list. Once every week or as often as you need to, revisit the full master list you made earlier in this process and ask your child to pick another handful of activities they want to do in the days ahead. You can do this at a family dinner, schedule a special family meeting every week, or keep it impromptu as needed. If you notice your child is not staying engaged with the activities they’ve selected, doesn’t seem interested in anything on the list they chose, or is interrupting you more often, that’s an indication it’s time to mix it up.

Need Activity Ideas?

If you need some ideas for your “bank” of activities, below are a few to get you started.

Pro tip: Some families like to set up clear plastic bins to keep each activity separate so they’re easy to pull out and have ready to go. The benefit of setting up these “Choose Your Own Adventure” bins is that if your child gets bored with whatever activity they selected, they can easily put that one away and see what’s in the other bins to pick what they want to get out next. (By the way, we’ve tried several brands, and these clear bins have stood up best over time.)

• Catch up on online learning or projects for school.
• Listen to an audiobook – Give them an Audible or Libro.fm membership so they can listen to the best children’s audiobooks. (By the way, Libro.fm is the same price as Audible, and you’ll support a locally owned bookstore with every audiobook you choose!)
• Get creative with play dough or slime.
• Write a story and illustrate it – My kids love these blank storybooks, which you can get in packs of six.
• Make a craft, like friendship bracelets, a latch hook project, a cross-stitch design, and so on.
• Play a board game or card game – Check out this list of the best board games for all ages.
• Listen to a podcast for kids.
• Build an epic fort.
• Solve a jigsaw puzzle or a crossword puzzle.
• Play with paper dolls – This isn’t just for girls! My son loves playing pretend with paper dolls just as much as his sisters do.
• Design an obstacle course – If you have more than one child, they can turn it into a competition. Or for only children, they can show it off when you’re done with your work and you can run through the course together.
• For older kids:
  • Do a science experiment – We have this book of 10-minute science experiments for kids, and my kids love it!
  • Try a new recipe for dinner or make a baked good as a family treat.
  • Go for a walk or a bike ride.

Bottom line: Let your kids have a say in how they’ll be spending their time while you’re focused on work. Brainstorm a big list together, then each time before you head off to a work session, ask them to set their intention for what they’ll be doing.

If you want more ideas like this, check out our mega list of fun (and sneakily educational) activities for kids at home. For many of the activities in this list, kids end up learning and exercising their minds but they don’t even realize it because they’re having so much fun!

8. Find Your Rhythm

When I started out working from home without childcare and saw that left to their own devices, my kids would find a way to interrupt me approximately 729 times every hour, I thought the perfect solution would be to come up with a detailed schedule for our days.

Unfortunately, a detailed schedule just added to my stress and overwhelm. Because any time we got off schedule even a little bit, I felt agitated until we got back on track, which wasn’t always possible.

If you tend to get antsy when you’re late to appointments, feel annoyed at others when they’re late to a meeting with you, or grumble when someone reschedules a meeting or appointment at the last minute, you might benefit from thinking of your days as having a rhythm rather than trying to stick to an arbitrary schedule.

Huge important disclaimer: If you’ve been using an hour-by-hour work-at-home schedule for parents and it’s working for you, that’s awesome. You do you! But if you’ve tried sticking to a schedule and it’s not working out as well as you’d hoped or seems to be increasing your frustration rather than decreasing it, a daily rhythm might be a better fit for you.

With a daily rhythm, you’ll lay out a general order for your days rather than specific times. Especially for young kids who don’t have a concept of time and have a harder time transitioning between activities quickly, a daily rhythm can be easier for them to understand and follow.

How to Do It

Here’s just one example of a daily rhythm for working from home with kids:

• Mom/dad: Early morning work – see strategy #3 above
• Kids: Wake up + eat breakfast – see strategy #1
• Kids: Morning routine – get dressed, brush teeth, brush/comb hair; see strategy #1 and consider using something like these cute printable routine cards
• Family: Together time – this is important to minimize interruptions later in the day; see strategy #4; in my family, we go on a quick 15-minute neighborhood walk, get back for 10 minutes of read-aloud time, and then typically do one more quick idea from #4
• Kids: Choose your own adventure – see strategy #7
  Mom/dad: Morning work
• Family: Lunch
• Family: Together time – quickly fill your kids’ tanks before you part ways again
• Kids: Choose your own adventure – or for young kids, this might be nap time; in my family, the kids start by heading to the backyard (kind of like recess!) and then pick 1-2 more activities they want to do after they’re done playing outside, but often they end up playing outside the entire time
  Mom/dad: Afternoon work
• Family: Make dinner together
• Family: Dinner
• Kids: Bathtime + bedtime routine
  Mom/dad: Quick evening work session (if needed)
• Family: Read-aloud time
• Kids: In bed
  Mom/dad: Watch stupid TV shows, drink wine, and/or bust into your secret chocolate stash because you survived another day and actually got some work done to boot, so you deserve it

Tweak your daily rhythm however you need to in order to fit your family. For example, here are a few variations that have worked for other families:

• If your child is young and can’t be left alone for long, your work sessions might align with nap times, and you can also bank a larger chunk of your hours during the early morning before your child is awake and if necessary after they’re in bed for the night.
• If you have a spouse or partner who’s also working from home, you can trade off work time throughout the day. In other words, mom could keep working through the morning and then join the family at lunchtime while dad oversees morning family time and making lunch; then they could switch and dad could keep working through the afternoon into the evening while mom oversees afternoon family time and making dinner.
• If your child is still getting used to the idea of playing independently, you might need to start out with shorter work sessions at first and build up to longer sessions of 1.5 to 2 hours. In that case, you’ll need strategy #9 below.

After you find the right rhythm for you and your family, you can invite your kids to make a poster that shows the daily rhythm and hang it in a common area. If your kids are young and not reading yet, you can make the sign yourself and be sure to add small drawings to each step in the daily rhythm to help them understand the sign.

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Bottom line: Some parents prefer a detailed hour-by-hour daily schedule, but that doesn’t work for everyone. A detailed schedule might make you feel frustrated and possibly lash out at your kids when you get off track. Establish a daily rhythm instead so that you can still have some structure while being flexible.

9. Supercharge Your Focus

We parents like to tell ourselves we’re fantastic multi-taskers. And of all the people in the world, we probably are the best at juggling multiple tasks at the same time.

We can make a lunch for school while feeding the baby breakfast and making our morning cup of coffee. We can read a picture book to a toddler while bouncing the baby on our lap and popping the pacifier back in her mouth every time she spits it out. We can help our big kid with her math homework while starting dinner and surreptitiously double-checking our math guidance with the calculator app on our phone.

But the truth is that trying to multitask is not a good thing for your productivity. Your brain is actually not designed for multitasking, so what you’re really doing is juggling tasks, switching back and forth over and over again without realizing it. Kind of like if you were pressing Alt-Tab or Ctrl-Tab on your computer to switch between apps every few seconds. But trying to multitask makes it harder for you to concentrate, and it adds to your stress.

Even worse? Switching between tasks makes everything take longer. For example, juggling two tasks results in losing approximately 20 percent of your overall productivity, making it take longer to get both tasks done than if you’d just focused on one at a time.

When you sit down to focus on work, you need to make the most of that time, so it’s essential to focus on one thing at a time. When you focus on that one task, you’ll get it done faster and be able to move onto another one. And for that, you’ll need The Pomodoro Technique.

This productivity hack with a funny name solves the problem of how multitasking makes everything take longer. It forces you to focus on one thing at a time and gives your brain the consistent breaks it needs to be productive.

How to Do It

Here’s how it works:

1. Pick one task to focus on. Then set a timer for 25 minutes. You can use a kitchen timer, a timer on your phone, or try a special Pomodoro app like Focus Booster.
2. Work on that one task until your time’s up. Don’t check Facebook, don’t get the kids a snack – just focus on that one task.
3. Take a short break, like 5-10 minutes. And live it up! Listen to a favorite podcast, do a few yoga poses, or crank up the music on your noise-cancelling headphones and host a one-person dance party. Follow whatever rabbit hole your heart desires. If your child is young and you don’t have a partner who’s overseeing the childcare while you focus, you could use this break to go and check in on your child and fill their tank by reading a quick picture book or coloring with them (see strategy #4 above).
4. Repeat steps 1-3. Then every fourth time, replace step 3 with a longer 10- or 15-minute break. This would be a good spot to check back in with your child and fill their tank (see strategy #4).

The breaks may feel silly at first because you’re anxious to make the most of your focused work time, but you are not a computer. You are not designed to run at high speeds being super productive for long stretches of time.

This strategy helps you get more done because it’s designed around how the brain works best. And the brain needs breaks.

Bottom line: Focus on one task at a time using The Pomodoro Technique so that you get your work done more quickly and minimize stress.

10. Set a Timer

Before you head off to a focused work session, try setting a timer to communicate to your child when you’ll be done and joining them again. Even young kids can understand the concept of a timer counting down.

You can use an old-school kitchen timer, set a timer on your oven or microwave, or set up a tablet or other mobile device in a visible spot with the screen locked on a timer app.

How to Do It

First, show your child the timer and explain that you’ll be available when the timer dings. This might take some repetition until your child trusts that when the timer goes off you actually will be back, so here are a few tips to help:

• Hand the timer over to your child and put them in charge of telling you when time’s up. Your kid will love the opportunity to boss you around.
• Set your kid up with their “Choose Your Own Adventure” activity before you start the timer. (See strategy #7 above.)
• Teach your child this phrase: “One thing at a time.” When my preschooler interrupts me in the middle of a Pomodoro session (see strategy #9), I ask, “How many things can Mommy do at a time?” She answers, “One thing at a time.” Then I explain the one thing I’m doing, point to the timer, and remind her that when it dings, I’ll be all hers. Bonus: The importance of focusing on one thing at a time is an excellent life lesson for kids to learn, too.
• Say you’ll need to restart the timer. If your kids are interrupting you a lot and just not getting the point, you can explain that you’ll need to start the timer all over again, which means it will take longer before you can give them your full attention. No need to whip out your stern voice. Just tell it like it is and let them decide: They can keep interrupting you so you restart the timer, or they can leave you alone and get you at the end of the time.

But this is the key: You must stop when the time is up. If you keep going, your kids will lose trust in the timer system, and they’ll start bugging you more and more while you’re trying to focus.

Bottom line: Set a timer before you head off to a work session to communicate to your kids how long they’ll have to wait.

11. Make Screen Time Count

Sticking your child in front of a screen all day typically backfires because then you have to deal with the “screen time zombie effect” later on when they’re finally off screens – which depending on the kid means they’ll be quick to anger, highly irritable, or moody and unmotivated.

Many work-from-home parents find that what works best is to save screen time for the most important times when you need to focus with absolutely no interruptions – like when you have a conference call or you’re trying to meet a deadline. Also, consider setting a timer for screen time so you communicate a clear boundary for when it will end (see strategy #10 above).

With that said, all screen time is not created equal.

Research shows that fast-moving animation or video leads to attention issues in children, and those kids get bored by real-life activities more easily. On the other hand, educational and slower-paced screen time doesn’t have the same negative effects.

In other words, a child who played Fortnite for an hour straight will come off screen time a lot crankier than a child who watched a one-hour nature documentary.

“The quality of what children watch on screens is more important than how much they watch.”

Susan Friedman, National Association for the Education of Young Children

How to Do It

In light of the impact different kinds of screen time will have on your child, here are a few tips to help you make the most of this powerful tool for working from home with kids in tow:

• Sit down with your child and watch an old Mister Rogers episode, or play LEGOs or make art while the episode plays in the background. Then pay attention to your child. This slow-paced children’s show tends to put many kids in a sort of calm trance, and when the episode is over, they aren’t moody like they tend to be after other kinds of television. If your child seems to chill out a bit while watching, consider adding a Mister Rogers episode to your daily rhythm (see strategy #8 above). Guilt-free screen time? Check!
• Set your child up with a kid-friendly documentary during a Choose Your Own Adventure time (see strategy #7). Here are a few excellent documentaries my kids have enjoyed:
  • The Biggest Little Farm – available to rent on Amazon here
  • Chasing Coral – available on Netflix here
  • The Elephant Queen – available on Apple TV+
  • March of the Penguins – available to rent on Amazon here
  • A Reindeer’s Journey – available to rent on Amazon here
  • Spellbound – available to rent on Amazon here
  • Walking with Dinosaurs – available to rent on Amazon here
  • Several documentaries on Disneynature have activity packets you can download as a supplement to the documentary
• My kids love watching short video adaptations of children’s books. You can purchase these story time videos on Apple TV, or some libraries participate in Kanopy Kids so you can get free access to a whole bucketload of them. After you log into Kanopy and go to the Kanopy Kids section, look for the “Story Time” category. (Side note: You’ll also get access to lots of kid-friendly documentaries through Kanopy!)
• Let a famous actor read aloud to your child. Through Storyline Online, you can access free videos of actors reading children’s books aloud.
• Children’s book author Kate Messner put together an amazing resource of videos with authors reading aloud, leading kids through art activities, and more. She’s done the hard work of finding all the awesomeness, so you just need to queue up a few of the videos for your child to watch.
• Let your child FaceTime or Skype a relative. For example, if their grandparents are retired, set your child up so they can make a video call and chat. The grandparents will be happy, and your child will be entertained for a bit!
• When it comes to apps and games, some are better than others for staving off the screen time zombie effect. Here’s a list of the best educational apps for kids that won’t make them moody and unruly afterwards.
• If your child wants to play a fast-moving app or game, set a timer or an app time limit to keep the amount of time reasonable and minimize the negative effects. For example, on iOS devices, you can use the Screen Time settings to configure a time limit for specific apps.

Bottom line: Choose the best kind of screen time for your child so that you don’t end up with behavior issues to deal with later on when you rejoin the family after a work session.

12. Remember Three Is a Magic Number

Let’s say your kids are set up with a sneakily educational activity (see strategies #7 and 11 above) that will keep them busy for at least 30 minutes (strategy #9).

But when you finally sit down to focus on work, your mind buzzes with All The Things. You feel the pressure of the gabazillion tasks you need to get done right now, but you know you have limited time so you feel overwhelmed and paralyzed. So instead, you end up just checking email or doing the easy tasks that aren’t important and won’t move the needle.

The solution? MITs. Otherwise known as Most Important Tasks.

Your MITs will give you a roadmap for your work day. If you end up with a few extra minutes where your kids are distracted and quiet, you’ll know exactly what to work on. You won’t end up wasting your precious focus time, floundering around trying to decide what to do.

You’ll feel infinitely better about how much work you’re getting done, plus when you sit down to work you’ll be focused on your top priorities instead of getting distracted by the chime of the latest Facebook notification.

How to Do It

Every morning, this is the first thing you should do before you check email or read the news:

1. Pull out your to-do list.
2. Pick the three tasks that are most important to get done that day, and jot them down. Just three! Or if you prefer, you can pick your MITs the night before. But pick the three things that must happen today.

I can hear you right now. “Uhhh…three? Just THREE?!?”

To be clear, after you get your MITs out of the way, you can always do more. But don’t even pick out any of those “bonus” tasks until after you’ve finished your MITs first. Because when your list has more than three items on it, you’ll waste time trying to decide what you’ll do first, and you’re more likely to bounce back and forth between tasks. That means you’ll lose time to context switching, which will make everything take longer to get done.

Keep in mind that MITs should be tasks, not huge projects. More along the lines of “Write email to boss” and not “Plan next 5 years of product launches.” For example, here are my MITs from the day I finished writing this post:

1. Write section about MITs
2. Reply to student who needs help accessing time management course
3. Finish list of activities for kids at home that will keep them happy + busy + learning

I did the first two with my morning tea before the kids were awake (see strategy #3 above), then I picked away at the third throughout the day. But because I’d already gotten the two Most Important Tasks done early on, the pressure was off, and later in the day, I was able to focus without feeling overwhelmed.

You’ll have a new set of MITs every day, so feel free to use whatever works: a Post-It note, your phone, or the back of a Costco receipt.

Bottom line: Before you do anything else each morning, pick your three Most Important Tasks for the day and jot them down. Then when you get time to focus, do your MITs first.

The Best Apps + Tools for Working From Home With Kids

Below, you’ll find a quick run-down of the most essential tools if you need to work from home with children in tow. You certainly can make it work without everything on this list, but if you’re looking to optimize your work-from-home setup, these tools are worth it!

• A time-tracking app – One of the dangers of working from home with kids is constantly feeling like you’re not getting enough work done or working enough hours. To combat that, I highly recommend to all my time management students that you use a time-tracking app. Not only will the timer of an app help keep you focused on the task at hand, you’ll be able to see exactly how much focused work time you’re getting in during the day and make adjustments if necessary. But more often than not, my students find that they’re actually working more than they realized, which eliminates that unnecessary guilt.
  My pick: Toggl. I’ve used just about every time-tracking app known to mankind, and this one does everything you need and is available on several different platforms. Plus, they have a free version.
• Noise-canceling headphones – These are a lifesaver! When you can hear every little noise your kids are making, it’s near impossible to give your work your full attention. And when you can’t focus, everything will take longer to get done, keeping you away from your kids longer and increasing the chances they’ll interrupt you.
  My pick: Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 or TaoTronics Active Noise Cancelling Headphones. The Bose headphones are expensive, but they work like magic. If cost is an issue, ask if your company can reimburse you for the headphones. Otherwise, the TaoTronics earbuds are more cost effective and still work great.
• Baby monitor – If your kids are on the younger side or if they tend to get into mischief when you’re not around, invest in a high-quality baby monitor and one or two cameras. Set the cameras up in the main areas where your kids will be hanging out like the living room or kitchen, then set the monitor to automatically switch between the two camera views and put the monitor on your desk in your peripheral vision. If your child yelps or screams for some reason, most monitors will light up to catch your attention, which is helpful if you have noise-canceling headphones on. Also, you can glance over and take a quick peek as often as you want to make sure everyone’s still where you expect them to be.
  My pick: Infant Optics DXR-8. We’ve had this baby monitor for years, and it’s still going strong. It’s even survived a few drops to the hardwood floor!
• Smart doorbell camera – Consider getting a smart doorbell so you can rest assured that no one is knocking on the door while you’ve got your headphones on. Just set up the app to give you an alert if someone’s at the door so that you see it while you’re working.
  My pick: Eufy Video Doorbell or SimpliSafe. Go with the Eufy if you just want a doorbell because it has lots of features and is cost-effective, but if you want a home security system, we love our SimpliSafe system.
• Headset – If you’ll be on an important video call and you’re worried your kids will screech and scream and turn the TV volume up to the max, most noise-cancelling headphones can handle your audio needs, but you can also get a high-quality headset. Headsets typically don’t pick up on as much of the background noise as the built-in microphone on your laptop or your headphones.
  My pick: Jabra Evolve 75. As with the noise-canceling headphones, ask if your company can reimburse you for the headset.
• Wi-fi router – If you haven’t replaced your wi-fi router in a while, you might not be getting the best speed and performance you could be. This is especially important if you do a lot of video calls or events.
  My pick: TP-Link Archer AC4000.
• Desk and chair – Duh, right? But you’d be amazed what an ergonomic desk setup will do for your productivity! Before I got real office furniture, I didn’t realize how much being hunched over my laptop in a not-so-ergonomic chair was impacting my focus. It’s hard to do your best work when your back hurts and you have to squint at your tiny laptop screen.
  My pick: A desk with adjustable legs like the IKEA GERTON + OLOV combo package and for the chair, I splurged on the Herman Miller Aeron and never looked back. I used to have a budget office chair at a previous job and my back always hurt at the end of the day. But when I was ready to invest in a high-quality chair I saved up for the Herman Miller, and it was well worth it.
• Laptop stand or external monitor – If you have a laptop, it’s best to use a stand to raise your laptop and avoid straining your neck. Or as another option, you can hook up to an external monitor to avoid eye strain too.
  My pick: Rain Design iLevel 2 or the HP 27q monitor. I used to have a laptop stand then upgraded to this external monitor (plus a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse trackpad), and now I refuse to do any work on my laptop at home without hooking up to my full setup.

Get Your Free Cheat Sheet: Working From Home With Kids

Print this cheat sheet right now as a handy reminder of the best advice for working from home with kids so that you can keep your kids busy + happy while you get your work done.

Remember: Even if all you do is use one strategy from this list, you’ll see an impact. And the more you can implement, the better the results you’ll see.

1. Get the free cheat sheet. Join my weekly-ish newsletter and as a bonus, you’ll get the printable! Just click here to get it and subscribe.
2. Print. Any paper will do the trick, but card stock would be ideal.
3. Keep your cheat sheet somewhere handy like on your desk or your nightstand.
4. Try one. Pick one strategy to try for a few days to see how it fits your personality and your family. If at any point you notice your frustration increasing or that you’re not able to get the work done that you need to, revisit the cheat sheet and pick another strategy to try.

Here’s a sneak peek of your printable cheat sheet:

Your Turn

What’s your best advice for working from home with kids? Share in a comment below!

The post How to Work From Home With Kids—Without Losing It appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.

This is to you, the mom who has one foot in each world. To you, the one who feels like a failure at home and a failure at work because you can’t give 100% to both. You, the one who fantasizes about not needing sleep so you can finally get it all done. Or maybe half of it done.

This is to you, the mom who wakes up at 4:00 am to pump because it’s the only time the house is quiet and nobody’s hanging on you. To you, the one who sets up the pump and sits down to hook up the tube and the flange and the bottle, and your milk lets down—just as the baby wakes up. You, the one who doesn’t want to wake the rest of the house, so you stop the pump, press a nursing pad to your chest, and go to get the baby. To you, the mom who sits back down to start the whole process all over again except this time with a squirmy baby who keeps kicking the pump flange, spraying you both in milk.

This is to you, the one who can shower, do your hair and makeup, and get dressed in 7.2 minutes. To you, the mom who can do this in 7.2 minutes while also keeping your baby happy in the bouncy seat because your partner already had to leave for work. You, the mom can even keep the baby happy in the bouncy seat by practicing your 9:00 am presentation while channeling the energy level and voice of Elmo.

When You’re Running Late

This is to you, the mom who walks the fine line between hurrying your slowpoke kid and losing your patience because everything. Takes. So. Long. To you, the one who smiles big when that slowpoke shows you his massive wobbly LEGO tower, even though you know you’re already 10 minutes behind schedule. You, the mom who gets all the diaper bags packed and the lunches made and everybody loaded in their car seats and buckled, and you’re about to back out of the driveway when you hear, “I have to pee.”

This is to you, the mom who pulls back in the driveway, unbuckles both kids, traipses back inside, sits the big kid on the potty, and waits. To you, the mom who waits. You, the mom who waits and waits and waits even though nothing happens.

This is to you, the mom who does all this, reacts only with a heavy sigh, and repeats the whole ridiculous process all over again. To you, the mom who always, always puts your purse in the backseat. You, the one who knows why this is important.

When Even Your Commute Isn’t a Break

This is to you, the one who sings “Old MacDonald” on the way to daycare. To you, the mom who can’t think of any more animal sounds so you make them up. The pink snorfallus says “snorf.” The hairy bumble says “bum-bum.” The vanilla snackimal says “yum.”

This is to you, on the mornings you have to reach back with one hand while driving to keep the pacifier in the baby’s mouth. To you, the mom who can do this and still be a better driver than some people are with both hands on the wheel. You, the mom who can already feel the crick in your back, but you do it anyway because keeping the peace is more important than saving yourself pain.

This is to you, the mom who parks in the daycare parking lot, gets out of the car, and opens the back door to discover the baby’s carseat fell victim to the most epic of epic blowouts. To you, the one who thinks of your 9:00 am presentation and your pristine white blouse. You, the mom who hands your phone to the big kid to buy yourself time, extracts the baby and holds her at arm-length, then completes a diaper change, full body wipe-down, and a costume change in the trunk of your car.

When You Have to Leave

This is to you, the mom who stops at the infant room and hands over a baby with arms reaching for you and tears running down her little face. To you, the one who turns toward the big kid classroom while holding that big kid’s hand. To you, when your big kid migrates from your hand to a full body lock on your leg. You, the one who has to pry each pudgy little finger one-by-one from your leg. To you, the mom who puts on a brave face even though your throat is tight from leaving your little ones like this.

This is to you, the mom who distracts your kid by pointing out an in-progress craft involving toilet paper rolls, fingerpaint, and glitter. To you, the mom who never, ever allows glitter in your house, so you know this will be your ticket out the door. You, the mom who’s almost to the door when your kid notices and runs up to you crying, grabbing you from behind for another hug.

This is to you, the mom who turns around and crouches down for a proper hug. To you, the one who lets go second. You, the mom who glances down at your white blouse to see a smudge of blue fingerpaint.

This is to you, the one who gives your kid one more hug anyway.

Related: When Working Mom Guilt Strikes at Daycare Drop-Off

When It’s Time for Work

This is to you, the mom who finds a wrinkled cardigan in the trunk of the car to cover up the stain. To you, the one who delivers that 9:00 am presentation. You, the one who rocks it even with the fingerpaint smudge.

This is to you, the one who runs into your boss’s boss on the way out of the presentation. To you, the one who graciously accepts the compliment. You, the one who listens while your boss’s boss suggests you travel out of the country to deliver the presentation to another office, and you know you should be pleased but in reality you think of prying those pudgy little hands from your leg and the baby’s face streaked with tears.

This is to you, the mom who turns down lunch with your co-workers. To you, the one who knows it would take too long and you have too much to do and you can’t just stay later because daycare pick-up doesn’t make allowances for having lunch with friends for fun. You, the mom who hears the group come back from lunch, laughing at something together, and you put your headphones on because you wish you were laughing too.

Related: To My Kids, on the Days When I Feel Like I’m Failing As a Parent

When You Can’t Wait

This is to you, the one who gets everything done that needs to get done and still leaves with exactly the right amount of time to pick up the kids. To you, the one who inches your way through traffic and cranks up the radio when Don’t Stop Believin’ comes on. You, the one who parks a little crooked and hurries inside because you can’t stand to wait any longer.

This is to you, the one who missed those pudgy little fingers wrapped around your neck. To you, for when the baby face looks up and shines just for you. You, for when your heart feels full.

This is to you, the mom who heads home, tidies up the house with a baby on your hip while your partner makes dinner, then feeds the baby and the big kid and almost forgets to feed yourself. To you, the one who tucks them into bed. You, the one who tucks them into bed again. And again. And again.

When It’s All Over…Sort Of

This is to you, the one who finally collapses on the couch with a glass of wine or maybe a cup of hot tea along with your laptop so you can catch up on email. To you, the mom who sees your boss’s boss sent you an email. You, the one who gets a jolt of adrenaline expecting more accolades from your presentation.

This is to you, the mom who opens up that email. To you, the one who gets a wrinkle between your eyebrows when you see the only thing your boss’s boss wrote was three question marks. You, the mom who racks your brain.

This is to you, the mom who remembers the blowout—the phone as a distraction. To you, the one who scrolls down in the email thread. You, the mom who sees it.

The picture of you, taken by your big kid through the back window while you changed the baby’s diaper. The picture of you, bending over with a clear shot down your blouse. The picture of you, sent by your big kid to your boss’s boss and your boss and actually it looks like to the whole department.

This is to you, for blinking five times to clear your eyes. To you, for cradling your head in your hands. You, for picking your head back up, taking a swig of wine, and crafting a polite but witty reply.

This Is to You, Working Mom

Your kids may not see everything you do. Maybe not even your partner. But I see.

I see you.

This is to you, mom. For doing all this and more. And for getting up at 4:00 am the next morning to do it all over again.

Your Turn

Been there? Share in a comment below.

The post This Is to You, the Mom Who Leaves for Work appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.

The topic of paternity leave has made the news more than usual lately. Here are a few highlights:

• Dads who take two or more weeks off after their child is born end up more involved in that child’s care nine months later—including feeding, bathing, changing diapers, and so on—compared to dads who don’t take any paternity leave. Even later in the child’s life, those paternity leave dads stay more committed and involved in parenting. This is good news because kids with involved dads are more likely to be happier, experience success at school, and have more friends, plus they’re less likely to engage in risky behavior like drug and alcohol use.
• Dads who take paternity leave end up spending 23 percent more of their time on household chores than dads who don’t—and it’s not fleeting. Research shows this shift stays in place even three years after paternity leave is over. With household division of labor being one of the top causes of marital strife, this effect could help strengthen marriages during what can be a tough transition time.
• Virgin’s CEO Richard Branson announced that new dads at Virgin Management can take up to a year of paternity leave. This is a far cry from what other big-name companies offer. For example, Google and Facebook are known as the most generous on paternity leave, but they offer 7 weeks and 17 weeks paid leave, respectively.

In other words, paternity leave is good for kids and good for families, and some companies offer a decent parental leave for dads.

Also, countries like Sweden and Canada are starting to catch on. In the U.S., we now have three states that mandate paid paternity leave: California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Three out of 50 is a bit embarrassing, but you have to start somewhere.

Now, guess how many U.S. employers offer paid paternity leave.

Just 14 percent.

Here’s the Moral of That Story

Paternity leave is all-around awesomeness for kids, moms, and dads. Check. Understood.

So if you’re lucky enough to have access to paid parental leave as a dad, count your blessings and take the maximum time allowed…right?

As it turns out, that’s not quite how it works in corporate America.

At the billion-dollar company where I worked and where my husband still works, dads were allowed to take up to two weeks sick time as paid paternity leave. Then if they had any vacation hours beyond that (up to two weeks), they could take that, too.

In theory, new dads could take a month paid paternity leave after the birth or adoption of a child.

And Here’s the Reality

I know of only one dad who took the full paternity leave available to him:

My husband.

The company is in the high-tech space, which means the vast majority of my co-workers were male. I knew a lot of men who became dads in the time I worked with them.

To be fair, I didn’t keep tabs on all my co-workers to find out if they took the maximum paternity leave available to them. I’m sure plenty of dads happily took their leave and didn’t blab about it to the world.

But the dads who did talk to me and other co-workers about their paternity leave?

They bragged about taking as little paternity leave as possible.

Let Me Explain

One dad planned to take two weeks off, but he ended up back in the office for half days by the end of the first week and for full days in the second week.

Another new dad said he took two days off and was back at work. Even when he was at home those two days, he was online during and after business hours, catching up on email and other work.

When I was in the middle of conversations like this, it seemed as if these guys felt they had to prove their commitment to the job—to me and everyone else in the conversation.

I bit my tongue.

Why?

To be clear: No judgement on new dads from me. I bet you feel like you can’t win, either way you go.

If you take your leave, you’re helping your partner out. You probably didn’t realize the long-term effects I mentioned above, but what new dad wouldn’t want to be there for his partner during a stressful time? Not to mention getting to know the new little person you’ll be living with now.

On the other hand, you might feel like you’re letting your boss and/or your co-workers down. You may even feel like if you disappear for a week or two (or four), they’ll realize they don’t need you as much as they thought they did. And everyone wants to feel like they contribute at work, so I’m sure that’s not a good feeling. (Actually, I know it’s not a good feeling because I felt that way while on maternity leave with my two eldest girls.)

So let’s say you decide not to take any paternity leave. Now you’re letting your partner down.

And that brings me to the most important reason I’m sharing all this with you.

Being a Family Man Isn’t Always Socially Acceptable

Why did those new dads feel the need to brag about taking as little paternity leave as possible?

Because the social norms of corporate America discourage the idea that a man should take time off to bond with his new child. A baby.

I mean, why do you need two people to take care of a tiny little baby?

Many people still buy into the notion that a man’s career should come first, before his family.

When the boss needs him, he should be available and responsive.

One of my husband’s bosses once called his cell phone just before we sat down to dinner with our family. Ty answered the phone and said, “I’m having dinner with my family. I’ll find you in the morning.”

His boss was taken off guard and fumbled through an apology. Ty’s reply probably surprised him. Because you’re supposed to hop to when the boss calls.

Another of Ty’s bosses would regularly text after hours about non-urgent issues. Ty would always wait to text back until the morning, but others in the group replied to the boss right away.

I’m not saying all this to toot my husband’s horn, though I am a pretty big fan of the guy.

He learned the hard way through his life experiences that family must come first before career. You don’t live to work. You work to live.

But his behavior is not the norm in corporate America.

The Icing on the Cake

To be clear, women can be complicit in this “paternity leave is for slackers” mentality, too.

Even when a man has a female boss, she’s not necessarily more understanding.

One dad I know worked in a group with team members in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The group’s manager—a woman—decided to hold a team-building summit in Europe. Three weeks before the dad’s wife was due to have a baby.

During the planning stages for the summit, it became clear that his boss expected him to attend.

He said no, that’s too close to my wife’s due date. His boss was taken aback.

She asked, “Well, were your other children born early or late?” Implication: If they were late, you should travel.

If a man doesn’t want to travel for business within the reasonable window when his wife might go into labor, that should be the end of the conversation.

I share this story not to pick on this dad’s boss. It’s just one example to show how so many of us play this “career first” game, especially when it comes to fathers wanting to be there for their families.

What’s the Answer?

Men might not be taking their available paid paternity leave for several reasons, which is a topic for another day. And I haven’t even touched on the ridiculousness of how few men have access to paid leave in the first place.

But the most insidious reason is when a man wants to take his allowed leave but feels he can’t because it will damage his reputation at the office.

This cultural norm must change.

Paternity leave is good for your child, good for you as a dad, good for your partner, and good for your marriage. Now and later.

If you want to take your full leave, worrying about your image at work should not stop you.

Because one day, that job will be gone. What’s left will be your child, your partner, and you. Your family.

This Is Your Job As a Dad

If you’re one of those dads who quietly took their full paid paternity leave, or close to it? It’s time for you to speak up.

You don’t have to make a big deal about it, but let’s balance out the paternity leave conversation.

Not only will you be helping your own family, but you’ll be paying it forward to other families too:

Fathers who take paternity leave make their brothers 15 percent more likely to do the same. Similarly, dads who see their male coworkers take time off are 11 percent more likely to take leave themselves.

If you take the paid paternity leave available to you, own it. You’re an awesome dad, and the world should know that.

So share your story.

Explain what happened while you were on paternity leave. The bliss of your baby falling asleep on your chest. The agony of your baby waking up every hour between midnight and 5:00 am and crying inconsolably. How the time flew by. The paradox of wanting more time but also being relieved to be back at work.

Then talk about what happened when you came back from leave. That you got back in your groove. That you weren’t penalized for putting family first.

Show the world that being an awesome dad is nothing to be ashamed of.

Your Turn

What’s your paternity leave story? Share in a comment below!

The post The Surprising Reason Dads Don’t Take Paternity Leave appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.

My youngest daughter is almost 2 years old, and she’s never been to daycare.

Until last week.

We’ve always had a bit of a hodge-podge childcare setup for her.

When I went back to my corporate job after maternity leave, I stretched my vacation hours as long as possible to give me what amounted to a part-time schedule for several months. Since she was still sleeping six hours during the day, my husband Ty had one afternoon a week where he worked from home. I had one full day a week where I worked from home. Then we used babysitters and relied on friends to fill the gaps.

All that made the working mom guilt almost nonexistent.

And sure, sometimes it was stressful to balance the work schedules and meeting requests for me and Ty, plus the school and work commitments of 2-3 babysitters. But I am so incredibly grateful that we’ve been able to keep our child in a home environment with lots of one-on-one quality time.

Why the Change?

In my latest adventure of quitting my desk job so I can work from home as a full-time blogger, I’ve been with my youngest pretty much 24-7.

And it’s been absolutely wonderful. Lots of baby board books and LEGOs and cuddles.

She takes a 2-hour nap everyday, so I work then.

But as it turns out, trying to launch a new career that will support my family is hard to make happen in 10-12 hours a week.

On top of writing for this blog, I’m writing an e-book and compiling an e-course—plus freelancing to make ends meet in the meantime.

As a recovering perfectionist, it’s always been hard for me to admit when I have too much on my plate. Hard to say no. But I can’t lie to myself any longer.

I simply cannot get it all done just by working during nap time. And yet, I feel guilty that I can’t make it work while being home with my child full-time.

After talking things over with Ty for weeks, we decided to try a drop-in daycare for one morning once or twice a week.

At First, I Wasn’t Worried

My toddler is super outgoing and fiercely independent.

She’s the kind of kid who walks right up to another kid she’s never met and gives them a big hug.

Ty and I are both pretty reserved when meeting new people, so her sunflower baby personality^† sometimes catches us by surprise. We thought daycare would be a breeze for our youngest.

Baby Sunflower: “She wakes up happy, her rhythms are fairly predictable, she adapts to change without undue protest, she’s open to new experiences but not impulsively so, she’s moderate in both her positive and negative expressions of emotions, and she’s fun to be around.”

Find out your baby’s personality type in this book: Baby Hearts: A Guide to Giving Your Child an Emotional Head Start.

^† This site is reader-supported. When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

A couple days before we planned to drop her off, we explained what would happen. She would go to school, just like her big sister, and Mommy would leave and go work for a little bit then come back to pick her up.

For two days, we majorly hyped up the idea of going to school.

“Do you want to go to school and play with other kids?” or “Do you want to make some new friends?” or “Are you excited to go to school just like your big sis?”

“Yeah!” she would yell, every time.

She’s got this, I thought.

And Then It Happened

On the morning we’d be dropping my child off, absolutely EVERYTHING was exciting to her.

Picking out her clothes for school, packing her lunch, stocking the diaper bag. Even brushing her teeth wasn’t a battle on that morning.

After we parked, I got her out of the car and plopped her on my hip. She was so amped up, her little legs kicked the entire walk from the car to the front door.

And then we were inside.

I saw three other kids already there, all older than her. But she’s always been drawn to older kids, probably thanks to having a big sister five years older than her.

Still, I wasn’t worried.

I handed over the paperwork at the front desk and signed in.

Then I glanced down at my child and saw she was sucking her thumb.

It’s too early for her to be tired, I thought.

I walked to the play area where another girl was building a tower.

“Look! They have so many LEGOs!”

Bending over, I tried to set her down.

She didn’t let go.

A teacher noticed what was happening and came over to get my child engaged in playing.

She was having NONE of it.

I tried getting her involved in a craft they had set up. Nope.

I tried showing her the reading nook. No interest.

I tried getting her to climb the indoor jungle gym. No luck.

A Turning Point

The teacher tried to take my child from me, and she absolutely lost it.

She screamed “Mama! Mama! Mama!” She wrapped her arms and legs so tight around me, I could have let go and she wouldn’t have moved an inch.

Buckets and buckets of tears poured down her cheeks.

“Mama will be back soon,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “I promise.”

My voice cracked.

I let the teacher peel her off me, and I turned to walk away.

Her screams got louder, and I glanced back.

The entire top half of her t-shirt was now wet. Her arms were stretched out to me as far as she could reach. She was frantic.

I hurried. Before I lost it too.

Working Mom Guilt Strikes Again

The second I sat in the driver’s seat, my composure vanished and a flood of questions rushed through my mind.

What was I doing to the poor girl? Was this really necessary? By working from home the last few months, had I set her up for failure?

I glanced at my face in the rearview mirror. Realizing I looked a lot like my child had a couple minutes earlier, I took a few deep breaths to try to get a handle on my emotions.

It didn’t work.

The mom guilt pushed me further and further down.

I knew I should have given her more time to warm up. We should have had a practice visit where I didn’t leave.

Sure, she’s independent and adventurous, but it was stupid of me to think she didn’t need time to get used to the idea.

Above all, here’s what I couldn’t stop asking myself: Was working from home bad for my child?

Even though I still felt horrible, I calmed myself enough to get back on the road.

But I couldn’t shake the image of my child reaching for me, her face red and wet. Screaming my name.

Every time that popped into my head, a fresh wave of guilt crashed over me.

I raised an arm to drag my sleeve across my eyes, and it was already soaked.

Related: This Is to You, the Mom Who Leaves for Work

Then I Remembered

When I was working at a desk job 4-5 days a week, I left my child with a babysitter.

And that screaming for me, the uncontrollable crying?

That happened when I left for work then, too.

So what happened at the daycare was nothing new.

Yes, my child is independent and adventurous. She just has a hard time when Mom leaves for work.

For toddlers and preschoolers, separation anxiety is perfectly normal.

“Virtually every parent who has left a toddler with a caregiver has experienced the crumpled face, the arms velcro-locked around your knees, the wail that rips through your heart.

It’s the normal response of a securely attached toddler who protests what she perceives as a life-threatening separation from her mother. Your toddler will learn, over time, that you do return when you leave, but she is not yet capable of understanding this fully.”

I’m not making it harder on her by working from home most of the time.

And I can feel good about the fact that the vast majority of the time, she gets to be at home with someone she trusts and loves.

Will I continue with my plan of using drop-in daycare to get my work done?

I’m not sure yet.

But it might be time to practice saying no a little more often.

Your Turn

How do you cope when mom guilt strikes? Share your tip in a comment below!

The post When Working Mom Guilt Strikes at Daycare Drop-Off appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.

A few months ago, a friend who was expecting her second little one asked me to write a post on how to keep breastfeeding when you’re returning to work after maternity leave.

I don’t talk about breastfeeding much here because:

1. Nursing can be a challenge, especially at the beginning. It works out for some mamas and babies—and not for others. No need to add more stress to your life if your baby is getting the nutrition she needs.
2. You can find plenty of breastfeeding tips out there from people who are pretty gung-ho on the matter and eager to help you.

But sometimes it can feel like all that breastfeeding advice is from folks so determined to help you that their excitement is a little suffocating.

And yet, on the other side, you have some folks who are hellbent on being naysayers. That sweet friend who asked me to write this? While she was pregnant, a co-worker told her it would be silly to even try to keep breastfeeding at work. That it “just wouldn’t be worth the trouble.”

What’s it to that person if my friend wants to give it the old college try?

Here’s what I say: Do what you want. If you want to keep nursing while you’re working, go for it. If it’s adding too much stress to your life, think about stopping. Formula will be an added monthly expense, but if it’s your sanity at stake, it’s worth it.

No guilt. No stress. Your baby will be fine, either way.

6 Secrets to Success for Breastfeeding at Work

With both my girls, I kept breastfeeding after returning to work. Was it a pain in the butt? Yes. Am I happy I kept going past the initial hiccups? Yes. If I had stopped, would that have made me a selfish mom? Heck no.

If you want to keep breastfeeding after returning to work, here are the practical tips that helped me keep going, even when it was tough. A lot of these breastfeeding tips overlap with what you’ll hear from the experts. The difference is that I just want you and your baby to be happy and healthy—whether that means you keep nursing or switch to formula or some combination of the two.

Before we get to the tips, a quick disclaimer: This post will not teach you everything you need to know about nursing and pumping. There are whole books about the basics of breastfeeding^†. This post focuses on the gotchas of nursing while working. In my experience and from talking to my mom friends, these are the areas most likely to trip you up on your goal of continuing to nurse after you go back to work.

^† This site is reader-supported. When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Read on, and let me know in a comment if you have any tips to add!

1. Get Your Baby Ready

While you’re at work, your baby’s caregiver will give him bottles of your pumped milk. This means your baby will need to practice drinking from a bottle before your first day back to work comes.

You might hear conflicting advice on the right time to introduce the bottle to a breastfed baby. In general, you don’t want to introduce the bottle super early (like the first month or so) because your baby is still figuring out how the whole breastfeeding thing works.

On the other hand, you don’t want to leave bottle introduction until a day or two before your first day back at work. Your baby may need more time than that, and if he doesn’t take to the bottle right away your stress level will skyrocket. You’ll start to panic that your baby will STARVE while you’re at work.

Two weeks before you’re scheduled to be back at work is a decent amount of time to introduce the bottle. That’s what I did with my youngest. It worked well, even with my stubborn baby.

Exactly how do you introduce the bottle? For a decent step-by-step with some practical tips, check out Introducing Your Breastfed Baby to the Bottle or Cup.

2. Scope It Out

On your first day back at work, you don’t want to find yourself leaking through your shirt while frantically searching for the lactation room. Here are a few things you can do to make sure you know what to expect:

1. Before your first day back, call your HR department and ask if lactation rooms are available. If the answer is no, ask for their ideas on how to accommodate your needs. All you really need is a clean, private room with a power outlet. They could give you the key to an empty storage room, or they could have a lock installed on your office door. But if they tell you to use the bathroom, tell them to try again. According to U.S. law, most workplaces have to provide accommodations for you. Just in case you need it, here’s a summary of federal and state breastfeeding laws.
2. The first thing to do on your first day? Well before the time you need to pump, find the lactation room or whatever space has been provided for you. That way, if you have trouble finding it, you’ve given yourself plenty of time to track it down or call HR for help.
3. Now scope out the room. Make a mental list of any improvements you’d like to make:
   • Is there a lock on the door? If not, make a sign that says “Private—Do Not Enter.” Or buy an official-looking sign and ask HR to reimburse you.
   • Is the chair decently comfortable? I’ll get to this in a bit, but the more comfortable you are, the more successful you’ll be at getting your body to comply with being hooked up to a machine and giving up the goods. If it’s a folding chair or a stool, ask if you can use another chair from somewhere else in the office. If that’s not possible, think about bringing in a better chair from home. (Just remember to label it with your name.)
   • Is there a table for your pump and/or laptop? You don’t need anything fancy here, but trying to balance your laptop in your lap and hold the pump to your chest may not be very comfortable.
   • Is the lighting gross and harsh? The lactation room at my office had an unpleasant overhead fluorescent light, but some lovely nursing mother who paved the way before me acquired a floor lamp for the room, with nice, warm white light—and a foot switch! Again, ask if you can repurpose a lamp from elsewhere in the office. If you can’t do that, think about bringing a lamp from home.
   • Does the room have a sink and paper towels for cleaning your pump pieces after you’re done? If not, find the closest bathroom where you’ll need to get your cleaning done.

3. Stock Up

Before your first day back, consider picking up a few essentials:

• A reliable breast pump. If you already have a pump, great. If not, get one before you go back to work and start pumping every day to get some milk stored up for your baby for that first day you’ll be gone. I’ve used both Medela and Ameda pumps, and they were decent. But I LOVE my Spectra pump that I got after Bailey was born. The Spectra is more comfortable for me to use than other pumps I’ve tried, plus it seems to get more milk out than those other brands.
• Extra pump parts. On my second week back to work after having Bailey, I went to the lactation room at my scheduled time, got everything set up, and sat down to pump. The motor turned on, but there was no suction. I checked all the connections, and everything looked good. I tried again. Nope. As it turned out, one of the tubes had some condensation built up and needed to be dried out. Easy fix if you have an extra tube on hand, which I did not. On another day, I got to the room and pulled out all the pump parts and realized I was missing a kind of important part—the flange. I didn’t have an extra on hand, so I had to make a quick run to Babies R Us to pick one up, then rush back to work and pump before my next meeting. Take it from me: Always keep a full set of spare parts in your pump bag.

• A nice bag to carry your pump. Look for something that can pass for a professional bag with less of an “I attach this thing to my boobs to suck them dry” vibe. A lot of pumps come with bags, but I found a fun work bag at an outlet store that worked just fine. This pink bag is so pretty! It’s pricey, but you deserve to treat yourself for making the commitment to keep nursing your baby after returning to work. If you’re ordering online, just be sure to check the dimensions of the bag and compare to the size of your pump to make sure it will fit, along with a bag of pump parts and a cooler bag for the pumped milk.
• Extra nursing pads. Keep them in your desk at work and in your pump bag. No matter how prepared you are, you will probably get delayed on pumping on some days. Meetings will run over, and people will stop by your desk for unplanned visits. They won’t know that your breasts are about to burst, so have extra pads on hand in case you need a fresh pair. I tried reusable pads, but they felt lumpy and made me self-conscious that they were vaguely visible through my shirt. Here’s my favorite brand of disposable nursing pads. They absorbed a lot, and I couldn’t see any signs of them when I was dressed.
• Cleaning supplies. My absolute least favorite part of pumping at work? Having to clean all the parts after I’m done. It’s tedious, and I’m ready to get back to my desk. It feels like it takes forever to clean all those nooks and crannies! You can buy sterilizing bags for your parts that you just throw in the microwave. Or you can rinse everything out and ask your partner to be the official pump part sterilizer every night. Check out the third tip in 7 Baby Must Haves That Make the Perfect Gifts for New Dads for all the supplies he’ll need to fulfill his duties in this important role.

4. Take Care of Yourself

When you’re pregnant, everyone tells you to keep hydrated and eat healthy and get plenty of rest. But you know when all that is even more important? When you’re a nursing mama.

Once you get back into the swing of things at work, you might get caught up in something and forget to break for lunch. You might not get up to refill your water bottle because you’re trying to get an important email out. And you’ll be sorely missing the days when you could catch up on sleep by joining your little one in a midday nap.

Anytime I let one of these areas slip, I could tell the difference when I sat down for my afternoon pump session. Tiny, tiny amounts of milk. My decreased milk supply would stress me out because that would mean my baby wouldn’t have enough milk lined up for the next day.

Here are a few tricks that worked for me:

• Drinks. When I’m pregnant or nursing, I can’t get enough of COLD water. My insulated water bottle was an essential part of staying hydrated at work. I took it with me to meetings, the lactation room, and even to go out to lunch so I could have a few sips in the car. On some days, I’d also bring an Honest Tea juice box for a fun treat. What I love about their juice is that it’s mixed with water so it’s not a huge dose of sugar.
• Snacks. The demands of the workday make it easy to forget to eat regular, healthy snacks. But what you don’t want is to be starving and turn to the vending machine out of desperation. It’s not the best fuel for your body when you’re nursing, and it won’t help you feel good about yourself. Keep a few snacks in your desk so you’re not tempted by the siren call of those mini powdered donuts. One thing I’ll definitely be trying out after my currently gestating baby is born? Lactation cookies. The oatmeal and other ingredients are supposed to help sustain your milk supply. A guilt-free cookie! Try this basic recipe or if you’re a fan of chocolate, try these Chocolate Almond No-Bake Lactation Cookies.
• Rest. You have a newborn at home, so a full night’s sleep probably isn’t happening yet. But try to get decent sleep as much as your little one will allow. Avoid the trap of staying up until 2:00 am catching up on email for work because you’ll definitely feel it the next day. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and like you have to work at night to catch up, it may be time to think about saying no at work more often.

5. Psych Yourself Up

I know moms who can be just as productive while they pump as they are at their desk. My body was a little more high maintenance.

If I got set up to pump and then tried to get right back into whatever I had been working on at my desk, my milk would never let down. At the end of the pumping session, I’d have a quarter of an ounce to show for my 25 minutes of pumping. It felt like a waste of time.

However, if I forced myself to disconnect from my laptop and phone at the start of the pumping session, my milk would let down and I would get 4-5 ounces by the end of the session. After my milk let down, I could be productive. I just needed to fully relax for a few minutes at the beginning. Which is probably not a bad thing to incorporate into a working mama’s day anyway!

Here are a few things that worked for me. I’d do each of these one at a time, progressing to the next if one trick didn’t work in that moment.

• Focus. Put your phone down and close your laptop. The world can wait a couple minutes while you disconnect.
• Breathe. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Count how many seconds you breathe in, and try to double that time while you breathe out. For example, if you breathe in for 5 seconds, try to expand your exhale to 10 seconds. Typically, 3-5 deep breaths would do the trick for me.
• Watch a video. I kept a few sweet videos of my baby on my phone. If relaxing with deep breaths didn’t get my milk to let down, watching a video of my baby usually did the trick.
• Try something weird. I discovered an odd trick that worked for me, every time. I’ve searched online and can’t find anyone else who’s talked about it, so maybe I’m the only weirdo. But here it is: do a few Kegel exercises while you pump. There is some controversy about whether Kegels help or hurt, but I wasn’t worried about just doing it as a last resort to get my milk to flow. I will note that it was only when I did the push variation that I saw the impact.

If you are still having issues with not pumping enough milk, check out I’m not pumping enough milk. What can I do? or these Supply Boosting tips. Or check out the book The Breastfeeding Mother’s Guide to Making More Milk.

6. Keep Your Appointments

At some point, you’ll be in a situation where you’re tempted to skip one of your pumping appointments. A last-minute meeting will crop up. You’ll be trying to meet a tight deadline. Or maybe you’ll just be tired and not want to get up and go through the whole elaborate pumping routine when you can just zone out while going through email at your desk.

There will be lots of reasons to skip your pumping sessions.

Which makes this my most important tip of all: Keep your appointments with yourself.

If you skip a pump session, your milk supply will decrease. There’s no question of that.

So if you find yourself thinking of skipping your appointment with the lactation room, remember that you’ll pay the price. Maybe not that day, but probably the next day when you sit down to pump at that regular time. You’ll get less milk and be frustrated that you “wasted” all that time with so little to show for it. The next day when that pump time rolls around, you’ll think, “Why bother? I didn’t get much milk anyway.”

Instead of pumping every three hours like clockwork, now you’ll be going five or six hours between pump appointments. This sends the message to your body that it doesn’t need to produce as much milk.

When I tripped up and missed a few appointments, this is exactly what happened. And then when I pumped the next time, my milk was nowhere to be found. Not only was I missing my skipped appointment, but I was also impacting my other appointments.

All this to finish one email or to go to a meeting where I could have gotten a recap from a co-worker instead. Was it worth the added stress?

I gave myself permission to decide between continuing to pump or weaning my baby. Weaning was awfully tempting because it meant I could leave all that pumping stress behind. But here’s what I realized: I was the one creating the stress by skipping my appointments!

After that epiphany, I renewed my commitment to myself and my baby and stopped skipping my appointments. And? No more stress about not getting enough milk.

Want More?

For more general tips on going back to work after maternity leave, check out 9 Secrets for a Successful Return to Work After Maternity Leave.

Your Turn

What are your tricks for keeping up with breastfeeding after you go back to work? Share your tip in a comment below!

The post How to Keep Breastfeeding After Going Back to Work appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.

Two weeks before my first day back to work after maternity leave for my second child, I met a friend for afternoon tea. We chatted for an hour, each of us bobbing our babies in our laps to keep them content.

For the first time in weeks, I had to carry on a conversation with another adult that extended past the territory of “How old is your baby?” and “Do you want your receipt?”

But my alone switch kept flipping to the ON position several times during the mommy date. Suddenly, I would hear myself saying—in a regular voice for everyone around me to hear—the things I say to my baby when no one else is around. Like “You need to sleep, you little turkey lurkey” and “Did you make a popo?”

Plus, my eyes kept drifting down to the baby, anxious to make sure I hadn’t accidentally let her head loll forward and smack into the table, and also just to see her sweet little face because I missed it.

Then I’d catch myself. Oh wait, grown-ups are supposed to make eye contact.

So I’d pull my eyes back up to my friend’s face, a little sheepish for having looked away. And probably also for saying “popo.”

Clearly, I wasn’t quite ready for my return to work after maternity leave.

Going Back to Work After Baby Isn’t Easy

Everyone knows you need to figure out childcare before going back to work after maternity leave, but after being in “mom mode” 24-7 for weeks (or months), many new moms have a hard time getting back into a groove at work.

When I was a first-time mom headed back to work after maternity leave, nobody told me my old work clothes might not fit. I had no idea the extent of the exhaustion that would settle into my bones. I didn’t yet know how it would feel to be pulled in two diametrically opposed directions—your baby and your career.

But by the time my second maternity leave rolled around, I thought I was a pro at going back to work after baby. I’ve done this before! I know how it works! And yet, that second transition back to work still threw me for a loop.

So I set out to put together a back-to-work checklist for moms who are returning to work after maternity leave. A checklist that goes beyond the “duh” advice to figure out childcare or the tips you’ll find written by bosses, not by moms.

9 Tips for Returning to Work After Maternity Leave

The list below includes tips that worked well for me when returning to work after maternity leave the second time and advice I wish I’d had the first go-round. I also asked friends, co-workers, and more than 100,000 members of this community to share their own advice for a successful transition back to work after maternity leave and included the best tips from them.

1. Stock Up

A few things you might want to pick up before the big day:

• A breast pump. If you haven’t picked up a pump yet, I’ve used both Medela and Ameda pumps, and they were fine. But I LOVE my new Spectra pump^†. It’s more comfortable to use than other brands, and it seems to get more milk out than those competing pumps.

^† This site is reader-supported. When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

• A decent bag to carry your pump. Aim for a professional look and maybe less of a “I attach this thing to my boobs to suck them dry” vibe.
• Extra nursing pads. Keep them in your desk at work. Meetings will run over, and people will stop by your desk for unplanned visits. They won’t know that your breasts are about to burst, so be prepared in case you get delayed on pumping. (More on that in #7.) Here’s my favorite brand of disposable nursing pads. I loved that they absorbed well, and they weren’t visible through my shirt.
• A framed photo of your baby. Some moms find that it eases being away from their babies to have a picture on their desk. Then again, others find it a little upsetting to be reminded of being away from their babies. Bring one just in case, and if you end up not liking the constant reminder you can always take the photo home.
• Healthy snacks. When you get back into the daily grind, it’s easy to forget to eat regular, healthy snacks. But what you don’t want is to be starving and turn to the vending machine out of desperation. That won’t help you feel good about yourself, and it’s not the best fuel for your body if you’re nursing. Get some good snacks to keep in your desk so you’re not tempted by those mini powdered donuts.
• Dinners. You think you were low on time for cooking after baby was born? Now you’ll be away from the house all day and your normal dinner prep time will be eaten up by sitting in rush-hour traffic. Bake a couple meals and freeze them before you go back to work so you have a quick dinner option if you need it.

If you plan to keep breastfeeding after you go back to work, check out 6 Secrets to Success for Breastfeeding at Work for more essentials you’ll need.

2. Look Good—And Feel Good

Don’t go trying to stuff yourself into your pre-pregnancy clothes.

Because they probably won’t fit. Then you’ll feel like crap because it’s been WEEKS since that tot popped out of you, and you still aren’t back to “normal.”

But here’s the deal: It took 9 months (no, 10!) for your body to get to where it is, so be patient while it finds its way back—and it may settle in a different spot than where it started. Some doctors estimate it takes 6-10 weeks just for your uterus to get back to pre-pregnancy size, let alone the rest of your bits and pieces.

Check out these tips for the best postpartum clothes, and treat yourself to a few new pieces. And after the last couple months you’ve had, you most definitely deserve a haircut and a mani/pedi, too.

3. Buck the System

If you choke up every time you think about leaving your baby in daycare, spend some time brainstorming some creative childcare solutions so baby doesn’t have to be in daycare 50+ hours a week.

Thinking outside the status quo box could save you some serious money AND give you more time with your sweet babe. Here are 5 childcare ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

4. Ease In

If possible, schedule your return date for the middle of the week. A full-time schedule of 40+ hours away from your baby is going to be a shock to your system—and your baby’s. See if your childcare provider will let your baby ease in as well.

One example scenario: Go back to work the Thursday before your leave is officially over, and work half-days. Your baby will get a couple half-days with the new caregiver under his onesie belt, and you’ll get some practice with your routine. Then use those couple half-days you worked to cut down on your hours a bit the next week. For example, you could work 6.5-hour days for the next week, then the week after that bump up to 40 hours.

5. Practice Saying No

After my first child was born and I returned to work, I let myself drown in obligations to other people.

Every time I stayed up til 1:00 am catching up on work email because I had too much work to do during the workday, then woke up at 6:00 am to get us ready for the day—I wasn’t on my A game for my child. My patience was razor thin, and my temper bubbled right at the surface, ready to spill over.

Every night I was stressed about all the things I had to get done that evening after she went to bed—which was pretty much every night—I rushed through story time at bedtime, skipping sentences and sometimes entire pages when I thought I could get away with it.

I wasn’t in the moment, and my mental health was suffering.

So I started saying no at work. Here are a few tricks that have worked for me to set boundaries at work. Read through these tips to arm yourself BEFORE you get a bazillion people dumping work on you during your first week back in the office.

6. Meet With Your Boss

Schedule a quick meeting with your supervisor, outside the office if you can. That will lighten the mood, and you won’t run into people who assume you’re back and start emailing you about all the stuff they want you to do.

Ground you might want to cover:

• Have there been any changes you need to be aware of while you were out? Reorgs, changes in leadership, a shift in priorities for the department?
• What are your boss’s top priorities for you when you get back? This will help you focus and hit the ground running on what’s most important, instead of getting bogged down in unimportant tasks.
• Is your boss willing to let you try out some flexible work arrangements? Maybe you want to work a half day from home every week, switch to a part-time schedule, or use a co-working facility. The answer may be “no,” but if you don’t ask? You’ll have a 0% chance of hearing “yes.”

7. Give Your Baby a Gift

If you’re nursing, the best thing you can do for your baby when you return to work is to make sure you’ll be successful with pumping.

Call your HR department before you go back and ask if lactation rooms are available. If not, ask if they have ideas for how to accommodate your needs. You just need a clean, private room with a power outlet. That could mean getting the key to an empty storage room or having a lock installed on your office door. If they tell you to use the bathroom, tell them to take a hike. According to U.S. law, most workplaces have to provide accommodations for you. Brush up on federal and state laws here.

Side note: If your childcare provider is near your workplace, consider leaving during your lunch break to feed your baby. It’ll save you a pump session and give you time to bond with your baby. Be sure to discuss the logistics with your provider ahead of time.

For more tips on breastfeeding after you return to work, check out 6 Secrets to Success for Breastfeeding at Work.

8. Do a Dry Run

Pick a day near the end of your leave to test out your new schedule. If you’ll need to be in the office by 8:00 am, set the alarm for when you’ll need to get up. Run through your new routine and work out the kinks.

Maybe you’ll find that you need 20 minutes, not 10, to feed your baby. Or you could discover that getting to the daycare in rush-hour traffic takes twice as long as you thought. If you need to shave some time from your getting-ready routine, try setting out your outfit the night before. Try it on to make sure it fits you well. Iron it and check for spit-up stains. Time saved in the morning is more sleep for you.

Having a practice day will help remove some stress on that first day back in the office. And a little less stress is something every mama needs.

9. Change Your Purse

More specifically: Change where you PUT your purse or wallet in the car. Keep it in the backseat with baby.

Why? Nobody thinks they’ll be the ones to forget the baby in the backseat, but when you factor in sleep deprivation and feeling frantic with a more complicated routine getting yourself to work—it’s sadly not outside the realm of possibility. I’ve made some bonehead moves, like showing up to the grocery store, going to get my baby out of the carseat, and realizing I never buckled her up.

The danger is that you get on auto-pilot, baby falls asleep and doesn’t make a peep, and you drive from home to work without stopping at daycare first.

“Given the right scenario, I would say this can happen to anyone,” says [memory expert Dr. David Diamond]. “It has nothing to do with how much parents love their kids. It is, to me, a tragic way of learning how the brain works.”

Each of us has dueling memory systems, Diamond explains. The first – in the primitive, “reptilian” part of the brain – directs our habits. It’s the system that lets you drive home from work without thinking consciously about every turn. The second system – located in more advanced brain regions – is responsible for short-term plans, such as “Buy milk on the way home.” And as anyone who has ever forgotten that milk knows, the primitive “habit system” is much more powerful. “It’s very difficult to keep in your mind that you want to override your habit system,” Diamond says. “And it can take over almost immediately.”

Best insurance policy: Train yourself to keep your purse or wallet in the backseat.

Want More?

If you’re nursing, check out 6 Secrets to Success for Breastfeeding at Work.

Also, you’ll find more tips in these books:

• Happy at Work, Happy at Home: The Girl’s Guide to Being a Working Mom
• The Milk Memos: How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business with Babies – and How You Can, Too
• What Happy Working Mothers Know: How New Findings in Positive Psychology Can Lead to a Healthy and Happy Work/Life Balance

Your Turn

What’s your advice for returning to work after maternity leave? Share your tips in a comment below!

Social media photo by Kris Kesiak.

The post 9 Secrets for a Successful Return to Work After Maternity Leave appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.

My maternity leave ends in three weeks.

I realize a 12-week leave is a luxury that many don’t get because the U.S. sucks in that department.

But instead of feeling grateful for the time I’ve had at home with my squiggly little newborn, I find myself whining like a 4-year-old.

These images keep running through my head…

My baby girl smiling after she’s done eating, half asleep with milk dribbling out the side of her mouth…

Ducking into a lactation room to pump in between meetings, and gritting my teeth because why is my body being so damn SLOW? I have 5 minutes to wrap it up AND wash everything AND drop the milk off at the fridge AND get to my next meeting…

Reading Mouse Paint to Bailey for the 42nd time of the day, and her laughing like it’s the first…

Leaving her with a stranger in a roomful of other babies, knowing that when my baby is hungry or tired or just wants some reassuring cuddles, she might have to wait a while. No. She WILL have to wait a while…

Bailey’s perfectly content sigh that always comes midway through a nap in my arms…

Rushing to pick up my baby from daycare, so I can get home and have one hour (maybe) with her before she goes to sleep for the night…

A Rude Awakening

We know how important the bond is between a mother and a baby, but at the arbitrary milestone of 12 weeks (or 8, or 2) we act like that bond is a baton you can hand off to a stranger like it ain’t no thang. (Sometimes a poorly paid, undertrained stranger.)

Disclaimer: I’m NOT in any way suggesting all women should stay home with their babies and not go back to work. I applaud the moms and dads who do take on that job, but to each their own.

Me? I enjoy my office job, and I want to work. But there’s a disconnect between “Here, have 12 weeks off work so you can focus on taking care of your sweet new baby” and “Break time is over, beyotch, get your ass back to work.”

In the U.S., you’re lucky to have ANY amount of maternity leave paid for by your employer. But what about after that leave? A transition back into the workplace definitely isn’t baked into the system.

But Hey, You Got Options

• Option #1: Go back to work full-time, stick your baby in childcare for 50 hours a week (factoring in commute times), and savor your weekends. See above re: pumping, strangers, etc.
• Option #2: Switch to part-time work to dial back your work obligations. Keep in mind you probably won’t get a real price break on childcare that’s part-time versus full-time. Nannies are more flexible with time, but the cost of nanny care is a butttload higher than a daycare, so part-time nanny care won’t save you anything compared to full-time daycare. And if you have a part-time salaried position, unless you’re very strict with yourself, it’s easy to end up working just as many hours as you did when you were earning a full-time salary. Which means you’re making less money AND probably paying for full-time childcare. Still, you have the theoretical promise of more time during the week with your baby.
• Option #3: Quit your job and be a stay-at-home mom. It’s a big financial pill to swallow if you’re used to two full-time paychecks, but many people are able to make it work.
• Option #4: Set up opposite work schedules for you and your partner. Maybe the love of your life goes to work from 6 am to 2 pm, and you work from 12 pm to 8 pm, so you just have to figure out childcare for a couple hours a day. But you’ll be sacrificing quality time with your partner, which probably isn’t very healthy in the long run.

(Oops, I almost left out the best option: Have a nursery built next to your office so you can pop in whenever you want throughout the day.)

I don’t know what the solution is – better tax breaks for childcare, employers stepping up to help families, people writing more books, women having fewer babies?

But I do know this: News articles and statistics and policy proposals don’t matter much when you’re faced with the very real decision of what to do when your leave is over.

What I’m Doing – Plus 5 Creative Childcare Solutions

I’m switching to a part-time work schedule for the next three months or so. I hope I can be strong and say no when it’s necessary.

Part-time is the best option for me right now, but I find myself ravenous for stories of other childcare solutions.

The beauty of these childcare ideas is that you’ll save some serious money AND get more time with your littles.

(For tips on transitioning back to work, you’ll need 9 Secrets for a Successful Return to Work After Maternity Leave.)

1. Keep It in the Family

One of my friends is blessed to have lots of family in town.

She works part-time in the office two days a week. Her mom takes care of her kids one of those days, and her dad hangs with them the other day. The kids get to form a great bond with their grandparents, and my friend saves beaucoup money. No huge childcare bill every month? Sounds mighty nice.

2. Get a Nanny With Baggage

Roo has a Rachel.

Rachel is Roo’s friend, and they each have a baby. Rachel comes to Roo’s house and watches the babies while Roo works. Roo pays Rachel, but it’s much more economical because Rachel is bringing her own baby to work so the hourly rate is lower than a traditional nanny setup. Rachel benefits because she gets to spend all day with her baby and make a little extra scratch while she’s at it.

Everybody wins! Especially the babies.

3. Bring Baby to Work

One mom I know uses a group work facility with an on-site daycare.

If she needs to focus on work for a couple hours, she pops into the co-working facility, drops her kids off in the daycare area, and gets down to business in the nearby (soundproof) work area. Mama doesn’t have to leave her workplace 45 minutes early to pick up her kids and then start the commute home because THE KIDS ARE ALREADY THERE WITH HER.

And if her littlest one gets hungry and needs to nurse, the daycare staff just call her over for a few minutes, and after that she gets right back to work.

4. Swap Your Baby

Some folks are starting babysitting co-ops with other families.

First, you find a few families with similar parenting philosophies. You could try a group of friends, church folks, neighbors. Then you swap babysitting when you need it. No money exchanges hands, but you use a point system to keep everything fair.

5. Share the Love

One couple I know works from home most of the time, and they both work part-time at 30 hours a week.

Dad works 7 am to 1 pm, and Mom works during the baby’s morning nap and again from 1 pm to 5 or 6 pm, depending on how good that morning nap was. If one of them needs to go into the office for a bit, the other watches the baby.

The best part? They don’t lose 1-2 hours of their day to commuting during rush hour – and they’re not paying for someone to watch their baby while they sit in traffic NOT working.

Want More?

Check out 9 Secrets for a Successful Return to Work After Maternity Leave.

Your Turn

What’s the best childcare solution you’ve ever heard of? Share your thoughts in a comment below!

Social media photo by Aquila.

The post 5 Creative Childcare Solutions You Will Totally Love appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.

My cube-mate Jenny said something a few weeks ago that surprised the heck out of me.

She has a wicked long commute, so in order to pick up her sweet baby boy from daycare before they close, she has to leave the office at a very specific time.

You know how that goes. Meetings run over, your boss needs something by the end of the day, people stop by your desk to share a laugh about goats who sound like people screaming.

The world conspires against you, and you’re rarely out the door when you want or need to be.

So what did Jenny say to me?

“I feel like you do a great job balancing work and home.”

The Old Me

I’ve been at the same company for more than 16 years. As a young’un, I would work all hours of the day and night when I had a big project to get done. I still remember one night where I worked straight through to 6:00 in the morning.

On my way out the door to head home for a quick shower and costume change, I ran into all the early birds just arriving for the start of their work day. Early birds with rather large eyes at the sight of me just leaving.

When I came back from my maternity leave after having my first child, I had a completely new role at the company. I felt like I had to prove myself. I came back as a 20-hour part-time employee, but I would regularly find myself working from home while the baby and the rest of the world were sleeping. So week after week, I racked up 25, 30, even 40 hours a week.

I bumped up my part-time status to 25 hours, and my total hours for each week bounced around 40-45. I went up to getting paid for 30 hours a week, and my norm climbed to at least 50. Even my boss told me to stop working so much.

Plus, I was just SO. FREAKING. TIRED. All the time.

My problem? I had no boundaries. When opportunity came knocking, I just didn’t know how to say no.

A Turning Point

Around the time I admitted defeat and became a 40-hour-a-week employee again, the company required all employees to get a health risk assessment at our on-site health clinic. A nurse would check our blood pressure, glucose, and BMI. And then the company would tally up all our stats so they could tell us how much money we’re costing everyone by being so sedentary and unhealthy and oh by the way, could we cut out that daily visit to the vending machine for a Honey Bun and Mountain Dew?

My appointment was on a Wednesday at 9:00 am. That morning, I was running late getting my 3-year-old out the door to drop her off at daycare.

I pleaded with her to hurry up, even though it was ME who pressed the snooze button and got us off track to start with.

After I had to nag her bite-by-bite to eat her breakfast, she didn’t like what she was wearing and wanted to change. I took a deep breath.

When I called her in to brush her teeth, she was building something with her blocks and wanted to finish. I said, No, we have to do it now. Mommy has an appointment. She drug her feet, then I brushed her teeth super fast and probably a little rougher than usual.

We finally got in the car, and I buckled her in. Then she remembered it was show-and-tell day at school, and she forgot to pick something out to bring. I said, loudly this time, No, we don’t have time.

She cried.

When we got to school, she was still crying. And I was beyond annoyed.

She was clingy, of course, because her mom was being a TOTAL ASS to her, and she was looking for reassurance that she was still loved.

But I just wanted to get out the door and to my appointment before I was too late. So for the first time since the month she started daycare as an infant, I walked away while she was still crying for me.

The Cost of a Vial of Blood

Exactly 90 seconds after I got in the car and started driving away from the daycare, my child wasn’t the only one crying.

What the hell was I doing? Treating my only child like crap, just to make it to a stupid appointment. An appointment I could easily reschedule.

I barely got it together by the time I pulled into the parking lot at work.

And I made it to the appointment just 5 minutes late.

The minute the nurse slapped a cotton ball and band-aid over the pinprick in the crook of my arm, I was back out the door to the parking lot. I rushed to the car, and the tears started again.

It felt like I’d never get there.

When I pulled into the daycare parking lot for the second time that morning, I ran inside and scooped up my girl into a hug and didn’t let go.

She’d moved on, of course, so she started squirming after a minute. It’s not like I’d done irreparable damage to our relationship, but it was a tear in the muscle we’d developed as a mother and daughter.

I stayed to play with her for a little while, then left for work again. As I walked out, I promised myself I would never again prioritize anything silly like that above my girl.

Every time I stayed up til 1:00 am catching up on work email because I had too much work to do during the workday, then woke up at 6:00 am to get us ready for the day—I wasn’t on my A game for my child. My patience was razor thin, and my temper bubbled right at the surface, ready to spill over.

Every night I was stressed about all the things I had to get done that evening after she went to bed—which was pretty much every night, period—I rushed through story time at bedtime, skipping sentences and sometimes entire pages when I thought I could get away with it.

I wasn’t in the moment.

So I started saying no at work—and I’m still learning.

Here are a few things that have worked for me, plus a few others I found in articles and blogs. If this is something you’ve struggled with too, I hope these tips can bring you a little more balance. Our loved ones deserve it.

1. Remove “Later” From Your Vocabulary

Sure, you’re swamped right now. But you’ll have more time later, right? Wrong. According to a study on time perceptions, we typically “imagine that we’ll be less busy in the future.” But we are mistaken. Later is like a mirage in the desert. When you get there, you realize it was a trick of the mind, and now you’re screwed.

Stop telling yourself you’ll have more time later. It’s a lie.

2. Make a List

I may go a little overboard on lists myself, but here’s one list everyone should make: your top priorities. I’m not talking about things like pay the mortgage, finish the budget spreadsheet for your boss, or hit the grocery store so your kids don’t end up with leftover airline peanuts and soy sauce packets for their lunch. I mean the big, overarching priorities of your life.

Spend a few minutes and write them down. Here are a few ideas:

• Leave work by 5:00 pm to spend time with my family
• Sleep 7-8 hours each night
• Get at least 20 minutes of physical activity each day
• Spend most of my time at work on projects that use my strengths
• Establish myself as the go-to expert on spreadsheets throughout the company

Now that you’ve written them down, narrow your list down to the top 4-5 priorities most important to you. These are the things that MUST come before everything else. Write them down on a credit card-sized piece of paper and keep it in your wallet. Write them on your white board at work. Post a copy on your fridge at home. Make an image with Recite and set it as your computer’s desktop wallpaper.

Anytime you get an email, voicemail, or office visit asking you to take on something new, look at your list. If the new project doesn’t help you with your top priorities, odds are it’s NOT WORTH your time. In fact, taking on more work that doesn’t align with your priorities can make you look bad at work. You either won’t get the new project done on time (or at all), or your higher priority projects will have to take a backseat to make room for the new project. You’ll be about as effective as a T-Rex trying to make the bed.

3. Buy Some Time

Before you get some practice saying no, it will probably feel uncomfortable to say no right at the moment you’re asked to help. We often say yes just to avoid that uncomfortable feeling of letting someone else down. Buy yourself some time to review your priorities list and make peace with saying no.

Try this response: “Thanks for thinking of me. Let me check my project list to make sure this is something I can commit to. I’ll get back to you by the end of the day tomorrow.”

Then after you review your priorities, here’s how you say no: “After checking my project list, I can’t take this on and give it the attention it deserves right now.”

4. Screen Your Calls

Speaking of buying yourself some time, phone calls are horrible for putting you on the spot.

If you have trouble saying no in the moment, there’s no shame in screening your calls.

People have meetings. You’re allowed to take a bathroom break. No one expects you to be at your desk 24-7.

So take advantage of that, and let your phone calls go to voicemail.

5. Don’t Apologize

If you’re too overloaded to take on something new, that’s no reason to apologize. Everyone has a project list, and everyone has to prioritize what’s on their own list. You’re no different.

If you say “I’m sorry,” all you do is make yourself seem weak. And you’re not. You’re a strong mama bear guarding what’s important (or papa bear, or childless bear, as the case may be). That is no reason to apologize.

6. Make No Excuses

The person you’re turning down doesn’t care if your kid’s been sick all week. They don’t care if you have 10 other high-priority tasks to get done that week. They couldn’t give a rat’s behind that you’ll be up until 3:00 am cleaning because your mother-in-law just announced she’s coming to stay for the weekend.

As with apologizing, excuses come across as weak. They also put a condition on your “no,” giving the other person an opening to combat your excuse and convince you to do what they want anyway.

7. Say “Yes, But…”

This works best when it’s your boss asking.

Try this: “Yes, I can help out with this project. But I’ll have to put the planning for the VPs’ Parkour tournament on hold while I focus on this new project. Is that acceptable?”

The key here is to be specific about what you have to put on the back burner. It gives your boss a chance to weigh the two options.

8. Offer an Alternative

I don’t do this nearly enough. But after seeing it recommended in several articles, I’m going to try it out more. Follow up your “no” with a suggestion of someone else who might be able to help. This gives you a chance to throw new opportunities to more junior-level colleagues, and it demonstrates that you want to be helpful even if you can’t take on the work yourself.

Instead of offering up another person, you can also share your thoughts on possible solutions or approaches for the project—or even just offer a small amount of your time. For example: “Thanks for thinking of me, but I have to pass on this project right now. But I’d be happy to sit down with you for 30 minutes to brainstorm how to get the CEO to stop making dumbass comments to the media.”

Your Turn

What’s your trick for setting boundaries at work? Leave a comment to share!

The post 8 Ways to Say No at Work – Without Feeling Guilty appeared first on Happy You, Happy Family.