How to Work from Home with Young Children

When you work from home and you are the parent of very young children, it is undeniable that you face numerous challenges. It can be done, of course, but you do need to get a little bit creative if you want to succeed over the long haul. Read this article to learn a series of steps you can follow to handle working at home when you are also the parent of babies and/or active toddlers.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. The very first step is to pursue work from home jobs that you can do with young children present. For instance, you may opt not to work phone jobs when your children are very young as they may cry or make other noises in the background. Typically, employers do not like it when telecommuters they have hired to work phone jobs have a lot of background noise in their home offices.

2. Once you have applied for and gotten a home job that works for you and suits your specific needs, your second step is to schedule your work hours around the needs and schedules of your children. (Obviously, parenting is the most important job you have, so you will want to arrange your work schedule to accommodate the needs of your children.) If you only have one young child, you can schedule your work time at least in part around your child's naps. Some home based workers also find that they can get the most work done after their young children have gone to bed.

3. Step three is to investigate and utilize any no cost or low cost part time childcare options that may be available to you in your area. For instance, you may also want to investigate whether or not there are any childcare trading groups in your town. These are co-op style groups in which work at home moms and dads trade babysitting duties without charging each other any money. You can ask your friends and neighbors and/or inquire about such groups at your local preschools, your town or city hall and/or your local library.

Tips & Warnings

• Since many work at home moms and work at home dads ultimately find that they prefer to work home jobs that do not require them to talk on the phone, they often gravitate toward non-phone home jobs such as freelance writing, data entry, medical transcription, legal transcription, computer programming, graphic design, etc. You may want to pursue these sorts of non-phone work from home jobs, too.

[Susanh]

on 6/22/2009 It's amazing how many moms are working from home while taking care of young children. You've given some helpful tips!