Back in the seventeenth century John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, famously said ‘Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.’ For many mums balancing work and motherhood there are no theories, just the feeling that they are metaphorically trying to keep all the plates spinning at once.
So what are the options?
Well, it depends on your child, and let’s face it, they’re all different. In some ways younger babies are easier because they do spend a lot of time either sleeping or feeding. I have memories of sitting at my desk, breastfeeding my baby with one hand whilst typing one handed with the other. Nap times are great for catching up on work, although babies do have a habit of lulling you into a false sense of security by developing a regular routine of sleeping which, as soon as you need to rely on them napping for two hours after lunch, they will decide to change. A baby who starts sleeping through the night from about seven o’clock means you are then free to concentrate on a few hours of work in the evening, assuming you don’t just want to fall into bed yourself, but unfortunately not all children are that accommodating. And once your baby starts teething, you’re probably just going to have to abandon any hope of a routine, and go with the flow for a while.
Childcare, in the form of a nursery or childminder, is the obvious solution to getting enough time to work, but you do have to be earning enough to make it financially viable. It doesn’t have to be full time, I used to send my son to a childminder just one day a week for six hours; it gave me enough time to catch up on work so that I could work around him the rest of the week. I did, however, have to make quite a few phone calls before I found a childminder who was prepared to have him for just one day a week, but as she turned out to be an absolute gem, it was well worth doing.
As your children get older things change. Nursery or pre-school sessions three, four or eventually five days a week give you regular child-free time to work in. And on the day that you tearfully wave your son or daughter goodbye on their first day at ‘big school,’ you begin to discover exactly what you can achieve in six hours a day, five days a week. A routine develops and you can better plan your time. Of course, this all goes out of the window fairly quickly as most children spend their first couple of school years experiencing every stomach bug, cold and non-specific viral infection going as they come into contact with lots of other children in a warm environment. Inevitably there is always a vomiting bug going around the school at the same time as the Christmas play, as my daughter so delightfully demonstrated one year… Having poorly children off school is one of the many times when working from home becomes a blessing – you don’t have to take annual leave from work in order to deal with them. And if they’re poorly, all they usually want to do is sleep or curl up in front of the TV. Apart from the frequent need for sympathy, hugs and/or drinks, you can still get on with some work while they’re doing this.
School holidays throw up another challenge – do you revert back to childcare, in the form of a childminder or, as your children get older, holiday clubs? The solution in our family is for me to cut back on the amount of work I do, so I can spend the holidays doing things with the children instead. Some days they are happy to spend the day at home playing in the garden or reading, allowing me to catch up with some work, and as a last resort there’s always a Harry Potter film to fall back on if I need a couple of hours of guaranteed interruption-free time.
In the end, as with most things to do with being a parent, it comes down to finding out what works for you and your family. Sometimes it’s obvious, other times you might need a bit of trial and error before you find out. Make sure you get the balance right – enjoy your work, but also make the time to enjoy your family too.
