My Work At Home Mom Schedule With 3 Kids Under 6
My Work From Home Mom Schedule With Young Kids
Figuring out how to manage your day as a work at home mom with kids to take care of can be extremely difficult. Your work is important but it has to take the back burner to managing meals, changing diapers, wiping snotty noses, dispelling fights, and giving your kids all of the time and love that you want to prioritize giving them. It can seem impossible to also find remaining time for work.
I have three kids, ages 5, 3, and 7 months. Raising them is a full-time job in and of itself! However, I also run two blogs to earn a part-time income for our family. There’s no one working from home schedule template or routine that’s guided me through the last 5 years. With each added child and each change in season, I’ve had to be flexible with my schedule. In some seasons I’ve had more time to commit to my work and in some seasons I’ve had far less. My blogs require a decent amount of time and attention. I’m fortunate that my work on them is very flexible and I can fit it into the opportunities that I have as a stay at home mom. (If you’re on the fence about trying to start working from home as a stay at home mom starting a blog could be a great option! You can read my post here on how to begin building one. I also have a post with several money-making ideas to pursue as a stay at home mom that you can read here if you want to work from home but blogging’s not your thing.)
In this post I’m going to share how I fit work on my blogs into my schedule as a stay at home mom. I will discuss how I’ve managed it in previous seasons with less and younger children and how I manage it today with 3 kids 5 and under. I realize that everyone’s work from home looks quite different and you may not have the flexibility that I have with my blogging schedule. Whether you run a similar business or not and whether you’re in one of the same seasons or not I hope that sharing my experience will help you to manage your own schedule and find balance as a mom working at home.
Work From Home Mom Schedule With A Baby
When I had just a baby at home I was able to have probably my most predictable work from home schedule as a mom. I didn’t start my blog until my first baby was about 6-7 months old. If I had started it sooner the early months would have been really hard to find time and energy to dedicate to work. It would have been a life season where I would work on blogging as I could, even if that meant not at all for weeks at a time. I would have fit it in whenever I was able to while prioritizing care of my baby and SLEEP.
Once my first baby was about 6-7 months old I was able to develop a pretty consistent schedule for my work from home. At that time the baby napped twice a day for at least two hours each nap. Many days I napped myself during her first nap to catch up on sleep and I then dedicated her afternoon nap every day to work. I would also often work on more of the mindless tasks for my blog in the evening or on weekends. If I was feeling more energetic on a given day I would devote both nap times to working. Basically during this season of life I worked from home during one or two long nap periods during the day and then also worked many evenings and occasional weekend days.
Work From Home Mom Schedule With A Baby And A Toddler
When I became pregnant with my second child my first was about fourteen months. I had very severe pregnancies with non-stop nausea and I had to put my blog on hold throughout my entire pregnancy. Fortunately by that time I had built the blog up to the point where I could do that without losing all of its momentum. I love blogging and it is a job to me, but when life seasons like my pregnancies would hit it was simply impossible to continue working on it.
After the pregnancy I had to find a new balance for my work from home schedule. My first child no longer took a morning nap but still continued to nap for 2-3 hours every afternoon. Meanwhile the new baby was on a three hour sleep and feeding schedule which meant she had several short naps rotating throughout the day. Somehow I actually got a decent amount of blog work done even while my second was a newborn! I did a lot of work in the evenings early in this season and fit it in whenever naps were aligning for the kids or when my husband was home on the weekends.
Later into my season with two littles at home their naps became aligned in the afternoon. My oldest was starting to not need a nap as strongly but I had her still stay in her room for 1-2 hours with books every day. Some days she fell asleep and some days she just enjoyed reading. Either way it gave me a good chunk of quiet time to do my own work every afternoon. I also continued to do more of my mindless labor while watching tv with my husband in the evenings or on weekend days when he was home.
Work From Home Mom Schedule With 3 Kids Under 6
Finding time for my work at home became significantly more challenging once I had my third baby. Again my pregnancy was extremely traumatic with her and I had to take a break from my blogs for the entire length of the pregnancy. I also had to continue to neglect my work for over six months after she was born as I was hit with several other severe medical conditions that hindered my ability to blog. However, I was able to jump back into my blogs by about seven months postpartum.
So far in this season I’m holding a very flexible work from home schedule. I’m trying to prioritize my children and home and be patient with myself about what I can or can’t accomplish. However, I’m still finding consistent pockets of time to work! My oldest is away at kindergarten every weekday so that lightens some of my load. On those days I have my middle child do quiet time with books in her room during the baby’s afternoon nap. This gives me a good chunk of time every weekday to continue to work. Twice a week my middle child is also away at preschool. On these days I’m able to work during the baby’s morning and afternoon naps! I also continue to do more of the mindless work for my blogs occasionally in front of the tv in evenings and on weekend days when my husband is home.
This loose schedule will have to shift in the summer months when my oldest (non-napping!) child is home, but for most of the year it will provide me with ample time to keep my blogs running and growing. When I know that a busier season is ahead I can also work ahead and keep content and promotion ready to more easily publish during the busy months.
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As you can tell, my work from home schedule has never been set in stone. It’s had to shift from season to season depending on when and how many children are home, when nap times occur during the day, what my energy level is with babies, the status of my medical health, and more. If you’re a mom then I imagine you have many of the same variables to coordinate with! I found it helpful in the past to keep a planner for life and my blogging so that I could plan out my priorities with blogging tasks and keep myself to various deadlines. (I use and created the Busy Boss Business Planner to help other moms trying to keep track of business and life with kids to do the same!)
Whatever schedule you aim to follow as a working stay at home mom, remember to be patient with yourself and to be mindful of your priorities! I want being a mother to always be my number one job and highest priority, even if sometimes I’d rather be putting time into my work. If you hit a crazy season in motherhood it may be best for your family and well-being to step back from some of your work. That’s been hard for me but I’ve had to do it several times. How working from home fits into a life with kids is going to look different for each and every one of us, and it will probably continue to change from season to season!
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