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How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

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Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#51

Post by codeyperson »

adamrezich wrote: post #46
ipaddr wrote: post #16

You take parental leave or your wife/husband does. How do you go into work and manage a baby at home. You don't.

What do you do after the leave is over though? This is what my wife and I are trying to figure out right now, as we plan to have a child sometime in the next year or so. Both of our jobs offer decent maternity/paternity leave, but then after that... what? Do we try to alternate days of working from home? It's as though society has become disinterested in supporting stay-at-home parenthood. My wife and I need both of…

Don't sleep on daycare. It's good for the Childs social development. And a good daycare centre will follow modern pedagogical practices. If and your partner both enjoy your jobs, you'll appreciate not having to compromise your careers. And the break during the day is welcome, believe me.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#52

Post by latkin »

adamrezich wrote: post #46
ipaddr wrote: post #16

You take parental leave or your wife/husband does. How do you go into work and manage a baby at home. You don't.

What do you do after the leave is over though? This is what my wife and I are trying to figure out right now, as we plan to have a child sometime in the next year or so. Both of our jobs offer decent maternity/paternity leave, but then after that... what? Do we try to alternate days of working from home? It's as though society has become disinterested in supporting stay-at-home parenthood. My wife and I need both of…

What is there to "figure out"? Someone needs to look after the kid. If you as parents are unable due to full time work, you need to hire someone else to watch the kid (nanny, daycare, etc) or find a volunteer (extended family, friends, etc).

If you can't swing it financially, you have various choices -- Don't have kids, find higher-paying jobs, reduce expenses, or move closer to extended family/volunteers.

Nobody is "disinterested in supporting stay-at-home parenthood." On the contrary, the tax code is structured to give significant advantages to single-income (or at least lopsided-income) households over dual equivalent-income households.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#53

Post by paxys »

tptacek wrote: post #42
paxys wrote: post #37

Why is this even a question? WFH doesn't mean "work from home while simultaneously doing household tasks, meal prep, laundry, and childcare". If you aren't able to do your job for 8 hours a day without distractions – whether from home or the office – then you should be taking a leave of absence or coming up with an alternate arrangement with your employer. Articles like these are exactly why companies are reconsideri…

In 29 years of working with software development teams of varying sizes I'm not sure I have ever worked with a team in which a reliable, contiguous, distraction-free 8 hours of work was a norm across every team member. In fact, if there's one through-line I've seen in every working environment I've been in, it's that there are always a couple high-performing team members who get their real work done after dinner. If…

In your 29 years did you ever work in an environment where it was the norm to bring your toddler to work and take care of them all day while attending meetings and committing code?

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#54

Post by bryanlarsen »

This is totally possible as long as you don't have a colicky baby, you have flexible work and a supportive partner. Newborn sleep 12-16 hours a day, you work while the babies are sleeping.

When I did it, I got about 4 hours of work done during the 9 hours of my partner's work+commute and another 4 after my partner came home.

One indispensible tool was the combination of a standing desk and a front carrier. My baby slept well in that. Another trick was to take them to the park, tire them out and then they'd fall asleep in the stroller on the walk home. Park the stroller in the back yard and pull out your laptop and work in the back yard.

And one of the newborn naps should be a parent nap too, since you likely didn't get a solid 8...

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#55

Post by latkin »

deltarholamda wrote: post #36
adastra22 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking care of a newborn baby is absolutely full-time job. I don't know how to interpret "we did it as two full-time tech workers" other than "we grifted our employers by getting paid full-time to work part-time as we juggled having a baby at home." I'm as pro-natal as they come, but a newborn should have your full undivided attention.

I took care of a newborn while working from home. It's quite doable. It helps to have long arms, but you can keep the infant in one of those baby slings while you tap away. They get all the attention they could need, especially if like me you tend to talk to yourself. With a baby you no longer seem like a crazy person. When they get a bit older, you can put them in a Bumbo and have them on your desk, if you can do it…

It sounds like you are assuming work = solo work. My day is about 25% meetings, my wife's is about 90% meetings. We can't participate in meetings with a baby in the room (let alone strapped to our body!) who might start screaming at any moment. Sure, we could fake it -- camera off, muted, jump out periodically to tend to the baby -- but then we're not really fully engaged in work.

Even if I had no meetings, I can't concentrate on solo work with a wiggly/screamy thing on me or in the same room. One of the biggest benefits of WFH for me is avoiding the distractions of the office. Babies are FAR more distracting than anything at the office.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#56

Post by latkin »

jimbob45 wrote: post #7
xrd wrote: post #2

Feels like this only works if your bosses (your spouse and employer) are willing to acknowledge the realities of WFH with a baby. Otherwise, forget it.

The first six months are by far the most difficult. Once you can get the baby on a consistent sleep schedule, you can start to plan around that. Granted, you won't have time for much else in the world but you also won't be at risk of being fired. The real crime here is that maternity/paternity leave is far too short and it seems that most employers simply look the other way for the first year in observance of that fa…

Depends on the kid. Mine was a superstar sleeper from 2-6mo (8p-7a every night, predictable 90min-2h naps during the day), and then as he got older his napping took a nosedive -- shorter duration, lower quality, less predictable.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#57

Post by adamrezich »

latkin wrote: post #52
adamrezich wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do after the leave is over though? This is what my wife and I are trying to figure out right now, as we plan to have a child sometime in the next year or so. Both of our jobs offer decent maternity/paternity leave, but then after that... what? Do we try to alternate days of working from home? It's as though society has become disinterested in supporting stay-at-home parenthood. My wife and I need both of…

What is there to "figure out"? Someone needs to look after the kid. If you as parents are unable due to full time work, you need to hire someone else to watch the kid (nanny, daycare, etc) or find a volunteer (extended family, friends, etc). If you can't swing it financially, you have various choices -- Don't have kids, find higher-paying jobs, reduce expenses, or move closer to extended family/volunteers. Nobody is…

It is rather absurd that one man working a city government IT job cannot support his family within said city without having to have his wife work (when she would rather raise children and keep the home instead). A few short decades ago this was an uncontroversial, common sentiment.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#58

Post by popalchemist »

tptacek wrote: post #27
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That wasn't a norm historically and it's not a reality for probably most working families. The norm historically is that people lived in homes with extended family like grandparents. There were always multiple people taking care of young children. I get that you want to defend your own parenting experience, but I think you are ignoring what you left on the table.

I don't think that's been true in the United States for a very long time. In fact, multigenerational households are at a high now , from a low over 50 years ago.

That doesn't make it any less true; you simply need to widen your gaze to include more of history. Multi-family homes was the case for more of history than it wasn't; the nuclear family arose with modernity. Further back, as in millions or hundreds of millions of years, prior, we also lived in tribes.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#59

Post by tptacek »

paxys wrote: post #53
tptacek wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 29 years of working with software development teams of varying sizes I'm not sure I have ever worked with a team in which a reliable, contiguous, distraction-free 8 hours of work was a norm across every team member. In fact, if there's one through-line I've seen in every working environment I've been in, it's that there are always a couple high-performing team members who get their real work done after dinner. If…

In your 29 years did you ever work in an environment where it was the norm to bring your toddler to work and take care of them all day while attending meetings and committing code?

Bringing toddlers into work? Not on the regular (it happened). Working from home with toddlers? Absolutely. Once again: we are commenting on a story about WFH jobs.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#60

Post by tptacek »

popalchemist wrote: post #58
tptacek wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's been true in the United States for a very long time. In fact, multigenerational households are at a high now , from a low over 50 years ago.

That doesn't make it any less true; you simply need to widen your gaze to include more of history. Multi-family homes was the case for more of history than it wasn't; the nuclear family arose with modernity. Further back, as in millions or hundreds of millions of years, prior, we also lived in tribes.

Yes, you're right, I have paid insufficient attention to the parenting norms of hunter-gatherer societies and their implications for work-from-home software development jobs. Thank you for the note.
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