Online Motherhood Community & Working From Home

This is Moms, Kids & Biz blog. A blog written by a mom, with hopes that my writing will reach others and provide any type of support as a mom, business woman, or both. I am not great at writing professionally, but I have a lot of feelings about being a mom and being a mom while working from home. I had my son in 2019 and went back to my office job after 3 months. It was never a question between my husband and I, on whether or not I was going back to work after having our son. I knew I wanted and needed to go back and so did my husband. I enjoy having a career and making my own money. I wasn’t going to let that end just because I also wanted to grow my family. So, I went back to work and it did take a little while to feel back to normal. I felt like I had missed out on so much at my job (and I did!). I felt like no one wanted to bring me up to speed and I sort of felt like I was in a trial run, like they didn’t want to fully pull me in all the way yet to see if I was POSITIVE I wanted to be a working mom. I not once told them I was thinking of staying home, in fact I visited my office a few times on maternity leave because I missed my work family so much.

Well, after about one month into being back my son was admitted to the hospital for a few days and I had to take off. This was right after the holidays where I had already taken off, so I was out for about a week total. It didn’t help my case or make me feel normal about my job again. So after about 2 months back, I felt like I had “proven myself” and felt like I was starting to get my old job back pre baby. Well, one month later is when WFH status started for my company and was the beginning of working from home, with my 7 month old. I LOVED maternity leave, but that was because I didn’t have any work pressure and knew I was given these 12 weeks to focus on my new son and my family! Now you’re asking me to do both!?

Man was the beginning of this WFH with baby hard. I cried, was exhausted, felt so dang guilty, and had so many doubts about myself as a mother and employee. My husband was not working from home yet so I was by myself. I never thought about quitting or going part time for my job during maternity leave but during quarantine/wfh with baby I sure did. I felt guilty in that I wasn’t giving my baby all my attention all day and I wasn’t at my computer all day like my colleagues who I know work so hard. I felt like I had to choose. This went on for weeks then my husband worked from home part time which was a huge relief for me. He basically took parent duty ALL DAY those days he was home so I could catch up and help my team out. It gave me a little hope. During this time my company lost employees, some of who I was really close with. The outcome of that hurt my company internally with people frustrated and overworked. My responsibilities changed and I had to work through that too. So, I was getting through okay. Hubby was home part time which gave me more time to work. Then, he had to go back full time. I was CRUSHED. I wasn’t expecting it so soon, and I felt like I was doing okay. All my feelings from the beginning came back and I thought I’d have to do something. Now I’m home m-f 7am-6pm working and taking care of the little guy. I thought about using vacation days to break up my week. I then started to read a lot from other moms in my position. I was not the only one. A lot of articles talked about scheduling and working outside of your normal hours. My son has been on a schedule for feeding and napping since basically 8 weeksish and it’s worked pretty well. But I’ve never thought about scheduling MY part of the day out…I never had to.

During maternity leave I did what I did when I wanted to do it, I didn’t have much else to worry about. After maternity leave, I dropped our son off at daycare and went to work. I didn’t have to worry about feeding him every three hours or changing diapers-it was a nice break from scheduling! But I knew I needed to do something to make this all work. So, I took off today. Today is Wednesday and I took off to give myself a work break and just be a mom today. I did work a little but not nearly as much as I do on a normal day! But, I thought long and hard about my schedule, which I tried out this Monday and Tuesday and boy did it work. And I got in 8 hours of work too. It felt GOOD. I felt like a dang superwoman, honestly. And guess what, I still got to go outside w my son for 30 minutes and spend some time with no phone or computer-much needed and makes me feel better about working while he’s playing by himself. He naps for 4 hours total during the day, so I crank out as much work as I can during those hours. Then, I really calculate my day and stick to it as much as I can. My main priority is my son, and if my day doesn’t go as planned bc he’s sick or doesn’t want to nap, thennnnn so be it! But so far, I’ve been able to care for my son and still get the four hours in of work while he’s not napping. I start my day a little earlier and end it a little later, but guess what? Before baby I worked muchhh longer hours and I don’t have a commute, so really it’s not too bad. I think I thought about it so much and really let my #momguilt get to me.

I don’t think this will work for everyone. Actually I know it won’t. Because not everyone has the flexibility like I do with changing the hours I can work, because not all babies are the same and because not everyone feels the same way about wfh with baby. I get it I feel like I went through all those stages. I hope this blog post makes it to someone who’s having all these feelings and it helps you realize what you need to do to make this work. Go part time? Quit? Find a new job w more flexibility? Short term leave? New schedule? All of these are so okay and I hope you find what’s best for you! Would love to hear what you’ve done to help your situation, I think it’ll go a long way!