The idea of working a full time job or continuing your career after having a child can be a daunting idea for many moms. Understanding that raising children is a full time job on it’s own, many mothers or soon-to-be mamas may be wondering where they’ll find the time to do both well, how they’ll stay sane and how they’ll find the time to connect with their significant other after children.

Make time for yourself as a full-time working mom by starting the day before the family wakes up. Once the children wake up, you’ll have feedings, diaper changes and playtime before transitioning to work. Moms who work from home have to juggle both parenting and zoom calls while remaining calm and professional.

In this article, I’ll walk through what my weekdays looks like as a mom of twins who worked from home full-time – including how we share household responsibilities to make sure both parents are able to enjoy life, career and family without guilt.

Wake up before the family

If you want an hour or so of alone time to sit with your thoughts or plan for your future, many moms find that the early hours of the morning are perfect.

You can sit quietly with a cup of coffee and stare out the window, cuddle up on the couch with a good book or make progress on that side business you want to start. Either way, you don’t have to worry about responding to baby cried or family needs because everyone else is sleeping.

Change diapers and feed babies

Once the baby wakes up, the day becomes a sprint to make the bottles, change the diapers and feed the baby. This is a beautiful part of the morning because it’s your first time seeing your baby’s cute little face for the day.

If you have older children, then you’ll have to prioritize putting those adorable babies down to feed the older children as well. You may also benefit from making breakfast for yourself at this time if you prefer breakfast in the morning.

Take a walk

If you can squeeze in a walk or some form of exercise with your children then now is a great time do to so. Whether it’s walking with baby in the stroller or taking a bike ride with baby in a carriage, exercise will always do the body good.

Naptime

We’ve had the same routine for naptime for a while now. We’ll put the babies down for tummy time, read them a book and then place them into their cribs.

It helps to turn all the lights off, use blackout curtains to make sure no light comes in and turn on a noise maker.

Start the work day

With the kids down for a solid nap, now is the time to transition to work. If you’re lucky, you could have an hour and a half to yourself to dig into work and focus on finishing a project. This isn’t the time to respond to emails or scroll endless notifications – you don’t know how much time you could have to yourself so make sure to spend that time wisely.

Bring the baby monitor into the home office with you so you can hear the baby cries if you cannot hear them organically.

Lunchtime for babies

When the babies wake up, it’ll be time for another diaper change and bottle feeding combo. You may also have to grab some fruit or veggie table food if your child is old enough for table food.

I typically schedule at least a free half hour in my day for lunchtime to feed my children. It’s important to plan ahead and prep food for yourself to make sure you’re able to have a meal during the workday without feeling hectic or that you have to grab a quick, unhealthy snack between work projects and calls.

Continue workday

When the babies are done with the lunchtime feeding, now is a great time to place them in a play area, bouncer or high chair with a few toys to occupy themselves while you go back to work.

Dinnertime with family

After the workday, it’s time for dinner. I like to have a firm ending to the workday where I log off from my computer and do not return. While working full time, it’s simply not possible for me to both work and make breakfast and dinner. My husband will make dinner for the family so when I log off of work, we’re able to enjoy a meal together as a family.

Family time

With older children in the home, it’s important to still spend that special alone time with the family daily. We like to put on some YouTube and let our teen share her favorite videos from the day or find a family movie on Netflix. We may go out for family desert or take a family walk around a nearby lake. The point is that we spend family time together daily.

Bedtime for kids

The children – teen included – have a firm bedtime at 9PM. The babies are put to bed and the teen goes in to her room. This firm bedtime is important to make sure that parents can get some alone time together and still get to bed relatively early.

Bedtime for parents

The key to getting that early start to the day and all the precious alone time in the morning is making it to bed early so you can get a full night’s sleep. A full night’s rest is important to make sure that you have enough energy to make it through another fun and family-filled day.

Advantages of being a working mom

Your identity

When raising children becomes your full time role, it’s easy for your day to become filled with taking care of children, talking to children, feeding children, cleaning up after children and more. Many moms find it hard to maintain their own identity apart from the children they spend all their time with.

When you maintain a career alongside parenting, it’s easier to maintain that clarity in your personal gifts, strengths, skills and relationships.

Talking to other adults

Maintaining a full time job also means that you’re able to maintain those relationships with other adult humans and not spend your entire day talking to your tiny humans. This means you can have larger conversations about the world, finances, politics (or whatever you’re into) far beyond conversations around baby shark and Cocomelon.

Keep skills fresh

When you maintain your work, you’re constantly using your skills so you don’t have to worry about those skills drying up or having to re-learn or re-skill.

No Employment Gaps

This one’s simple – when you maintain your work even after having children. You’ll have no (or smaller) employment gaps on your resume to worry about.

Watching your children grow up

Many parents worry about missing their children’s greatest moments, like first teeth, words and steps, while working at their full time jobs. However, when you work from home, you have the flexibility to be home for all of those moments while enjoying the luxuries of having a full time income and maintaining your skills.

Disadvantages of being a working mom

Your day is spent working

No matter how much time you actually get to spend in the presence of your child, you will spend your entire day working. Full time work usually means nine-to-five, possibly more if you have a demanding job that requires you to work over time.

With that huge chunk of your day going directly to work, you usually miss the opportunity to spend your day outside when the sun is out. You’ll have to settle for dinner time picnics or very early playground time.

In these moments, it’s important to be flexible about when you spend time with your children. Take them out for that early morning walk or dinnertime movie – no matter how tired you are from the work day. Those precious memories will last a lifetime.

Juggling calls and cries

The many workers who work from a home office and have to sit on endless Zoom and Microsoft Teams meetings will have to manage expectations for the moments where their on a work call and the children start crying or hurt themselves or just want to see who you’re talking to on the phone. While I always welcome adorable kiddo sighting during a work call, it could be stressful for the parent to continue presenting or maintain their line of thought with a cutie present.

Take these moments with understanding and grace, working from home has become normalized in recent years and it’s now common to expect life to happen at any moment.

Something has to give

It’s nearly impossible to be the ideal parent at any moment, but especially when you’re also working full time. Are you really going to care for your family, spend time with your partner, make the meals, keep the home clean and have a social life everyday perfectly? No.

Accept that you won’t have a perfect day every day. Choose the things you’ll prioritize over others and allow some things to fall to the wayside. For instance, eating is a necessity for all members of the family, but it might not be so important that the dishes are clean immediately or that the children’s toys are picked up.

Missing your children’s big moments

If you don’t work from home then you won’t be enjoying the hybrid benefits of a parent who’s able to work and be there for your child’s firsts. For those parents who work full time outside the home or travel a lot for work, you just might miss some of those precious moments that you just can’t get back.

How to stay organized as a working mom

Take days off to schedule family fun and health

For many, full time work means that you’ll be working the same hours that the doctor’s office, museums and banks are open. That means it’s difficult to schedule doctors appointments or other professional offices and many to-do items, including hanging with your family, are pushed to the weekend.

Taking one day off per week would allow you to handle many of these to-do items: make those doctor’s appointment for you and the children, take care of those pesky bills that are pilling up and sit on hold with the cable company to change your plan. With the whole day to yourself, you can use part of that day to take your family out during the week when others are working and enjoy quieter museums, low traffic restaurants and near-empty parks.

Lean on Family for Support

Many moms want to be supermom – you want to have the meals made, perfect home, look gorgeous, bake the cookies and lead the parent committees at school. But it quickly becomes obvious that this supermom image is impossible for most, especially when you’re also working full time.

You can still juggle all the things when you rely on family for help with the juggling. Ask your partner to divide the household labor. If you’re fortunate enough to have a partner that also works from home you can split up the childcare duties throughout the day. Ask you partner to make dinner while you handle breakfast. Dividing up the labor makes it easier for

You can also move in with parents to support you while you work full time. Having parents at home to care for their grandbabies comes in handy when you have an impromptu social invite because you don’t have to find an expensive last minute sitter. When your parents live in the same home, they can help with babysitting, making meals and everything in between.

Create Boundaries

Being a working mom does mean that you have to juggle multiple needs – both from work and family – at the same time but you can thrive in both environments by craeting firm boundaries around when you work and when you don’t.