Opportunity to Work from Home??

What you are contemplating is impossible! You would have to hire a sitter for the summer so you could actually work.

You're going to get a lot of answers that will echo what I'm going to say - working from home is work, and work requires childcare. You CANNOT successfully work from home with small children not being cared for, you just can't.

I have been working from home 3 days per week (plus 2 in the office) since my youngest was born 8+ years ago. Before my two youngest were in school, they were in daycare or with a sitter 5 days a week while I worked, even on my work from home days. Now that they are all in school, I don't have childcare because they're all old enough to keep themselves busy for 1.5 hours after school until I'm off the the clock at 5. During the summer, though, they are in day camps, with a sitter, or at a friend's house. I can't just expect my younger guys to entertain themselves while I'm busy meeting deadlines, taking conference calls that might last an hour or more at a time, and just doing my job.

The "make your own hours" thing always sounds good and like it's a way out of childcare but really, are you going to have the energy to log in and work for 4 or 5 hours at night after the kids are in bed? Are you really going to be able to get up a few hours before them to get some work done? I can tell you that, with my boss's blessing, I'll trade daytime hours for early morning or late night hours if I want to go to a school event or appointment during the day and don't want to burn a vacation day. It's a great option here and there but really, it just makes your day that much longer and makes you that much more tired.

Bottom line? If you can find childcare for those 20 hours a week and what you would make is more than the cost of childcare, go for it! The nice thing about working from home is that you can hire a less experienced, younger sitter for the summer as a mother's helper and pay a little less than what you might pay a regular sitter. In the fall when a teenager who might work out for the summer is back in school you'll have to figure something else out but by that time, you may be over your training and in a groove where you figure out what days/hours you need coverage and when you can squeeze in some productive time around naps or at the start and end of the day. You're not going to get 20 hours in like that, but even an hour a day could save you money on childcare. Childcare is must though.

You need to hire help if you want to consider this opportunity.

first off, this new opportunity needs to be a good thing, not a further source of anxiety. that concerns me.
on the other hand, you're right to understand that working from home is no cakewalk. your kids are very small and won't be able to leave you alone long enough for you to focus on your work, assuming that the work is something that requires focus (and pretty much all useful and gainful work does.) so if you do this, get a mother's helper to occupy your kids during your working hours.
too many moms think that 'working from home' means they get to spend more joyful hours with their kids. work is work.
it's cool that this job will allow you to tweak your hours once you're trained. it sounds like an overall good gig. but do get help while you're getting trained and used to it. your anxiety and frustration will be much eased.
khairete
S.

I've worked at home for many years. When my company first started sending people home they did so with the warning "Working at home isn't a substitute for child care. We expect you to be there and work your hours not be running back and forth to tend to your children's needs. If you have young children you need to set up with someone to watch them during your working hours. If you can't do that then please don't work at home."

Get someone to watch the kids during the day while you are in training. Since it's summer you can hire a couple teenages to watch during the day.

You can't work from home with your kids underfoot any more than people can take their kids to the office and expect to get anything done. Work is work, and it requires your full attention. Maybe a family day care provider can work with her kids around, but that's about it. Working from home saves commuting costs and the costs of a professional wardrobe, and it offers some tax advantages because you can deduct the cost of your home office, supplies and a portion of all utilities. My husband and I both work at home, and we deduct a portion of our insurance, snowplowing, maintenance, heat, water, electricity, telephone and internet.

So, calculate your hourly rate with the job. If you're making minimum wage, that's a problem. But if you are making considerably more, and if you can pay a sitter or mother's helper less than that, then it's worth considering. You're going from 18-23 up to 38-43 hours per week so that's definitely full time. You have to treat it as such. Your 2 year old naps probably, so you could hire a mother's helper (like an 11 year old kid) to play with your 5 year old. You're still there if there's an emergency but you can certainly be in your office working with the door closed while they are elsewhere. Make a firm rule about not coming into your office unless someone is bleeding or on fire. Resist the urge to go out of your workspace every time you hear a kid cry or an argument over toys. If you have to, put in a fan or one of those air filters to create "white noise" to block out the sounds. You are working. You cannot attend to kids any more than you could at the office.

You can probably find a high school kid who can help out with both kids during the summer. Maybe you can defer some of the extra hours until September.

When your older child goes to school, maybe you can trade some hours with another mom of a toddler. She watches both kids at her house 2 days a week, then you take 2 days. If you're not working while your own toddler is awake, you can watch another child (so the other mom can work or have her own time) during the same hours.

You refer to "our monthly income" so you apparently have a significant other. That person needs to come home, help with dinner, do bath time and story time and bedtime so you can put in a few hours. Yes, you can work after they go to bed, but don't save all the work until 8 PM when you've tired and have been going full tilt all day long. You can also put in time on the weekends. If you get 2 extra hours 5 days a week, that's 10. If you do 6 hours on Saturday and 4 on Sunday, that's the other 10.

But you will be just like every other working parent, which is that you will be missing some of what goes on in your kids' lives. That's the way it is. Meantime, the kids learn that another parent can care for them equally well and that there are other neighbors, friends or relatives who love them and can care for them. They learn that Mom always comes back, but that Mom has a life and needs and responsibilities. They learn that they are strong enough to function with another human. These are all positives.

As long as you have someone to watch your kids (preferably out of the house) you should be fine. Once the older one is in school your childcare costs won't be as much and you will find you have more time and structure in your day.
I think the best thing about working from home is zero commute, I say go for it!

Okay. First thing first.

When grown ups go to work their kids go to child care. Period. You should not have a job where you take your kids. That's silly to try and work with kids at home.

What do you expect???? Your 5 year old to be your 2 year olds babysitter all day while you train? That's silly.

You have to go to work and you have to take your kids to child care. Whether that's a neighbor, a friend, a relatives home, or what ever but they have to be out of the house during the time you are working.

If you can't do that then you can't take on more work.

I work from home full time and have regular office hours 8-4:30 M-F My 2 year old goes to full time daycare and once my now 7 year got to be about 5 1/2 I started letting her stay at home during school breaks and summer.

If you decide to take this on, it would be best to have some sort of child care during the time you are to be online training. Most companies who allow people to work from home would have this type of requirement.

You already know working from home is work and you can't "work" for a company and manage your children at the same time. It just does not happen because something somewhere will give. So consider whatever salary you would be bringing in and weigh it carefully with child care costs.

As a business owner... I would not hire someone to work from home until they had demonstrated their self discipline, motivation and most of all, capability to work from home with NO disruptions from children or pets (barking in background of conference calls, etc).

I have nothing against hiring someone to work from home if they have proven these steps. My husband and I work from home running our company and there is no way we could do it with children underfoot or pets being loud. On conference calls, we put the dogs in another room so there is no issue of a bother. I have to be spot on with my numbers or I could cost us thousands of dollars. Same goes for negotiating trafficking for our products which are shipped by the truckload all over the US. I have to be ready for a call at anytime dealing with transportation companies to make sure our product is delivered when promised and in prime condition. That part of my job along with CFO is very time consuming.

Consider how much time you will truly be investing with this opportunity. It sounds as if you don't have as much control over the time during training and then after that you can make your own hours. Be careful if you start considering "writing off" portions of your house expenses. Talk to your tax counsel to make sure you follow those rules by the book. We do not write off any expenses due to home office because the pros do not outweigh the cons in the long run (for us). IRS is very picky and the last thing you want to do is raise a red flag with excessive expenses, in their opinion.

There are many things to consider, please weigh everything out carefully and I wish you the best of luck!

you can do it easily
You older one will be in school during your younger ones nap time you can have 2 hours per day, so that is 10 hours. Put the kids to bed by 8 (mine were in bed by 7:30 at those ages) and you have another 2 hours a night and you have 20 hours. If you son is at home during nap time then you have him nap, watch a movie, or just have quiet time for those two hours.
If the pay is good enough then you can have a person come in for a few hours a day to play with your kids and do it that way as well, or find a home daycare to have them go to half the day.
Kids can and SHOULD play by themselves while you do something, it's a very important skill to know, so look at this as helping them gain their independence.

I've always worked from home and I love it. We did part-time childcare when the kids were small. They went to the daycare 2 days a week, and then the other days I had a part-time nanny for a while. She was only there for about 3-4 hours, but I have a flexible schedule and I'd work at night or in the morning to get more work time in. Then as the kids got older, I could cut back on childcare time and still get enough work done. Now that they are in school, I work for the 6 hours they are away and a little in the very early morning before everyone is up.

For your training months, it sounds like you'll need to do a standard childcare set up with a nanny at your home or something. That way you can take lunch and other breaks with your kids and still enjoy the summer with them. Just a thought.

For the first few months while you are working during the day you will need to hire a babysitter or a mothers helper. That should be easy during the summer as there will be lots of students looking for something to do. Then the sitter can take the kids to the park or whatever while you work and your kids don't have to spend the whole summer trying to be quiet while you work. When your five year old starts kindergarten you can try to work while the two year old naps (if he naps) or wait until dad is home.

Hello,

I disagree with many of the other responses. When my oldest was an older baby, I worked from home 3 days per week. However, it worked with him and his schedule. I woke up early and worked from about 6-8:30am. (2.5 hours) Then I took a break when he got up at 8:30, had breakfast with him, played, went to a park even or went on a run/walk. Had snack and about 30 minutes of TV (he was around 18 months old at this point) - while I checked email and responded to any phone messages about 10:30-11am.(.5 hours). Would then do chores with my son (laundry, household cleaning, etc.) for an hour, followed by lunch a bit after 12. Then he would nap from 12:30-3 while I worked another 2.5 hours. We would do the rest of our day and he went to bed about 7ish and I would work about 7-9 or 9:30pm. I tried to be in bed by 10:30 since I got up EARLY. But it worked for us and on those days we got to do playdates, go to Mommy and Me classes, swim lessons, etc.

I really don't know how the kindergarten schedule will work versus your 2 year olds schedule. Elementary with a 3 year old right now is tough - pick up from school interferes with my 3 year old's nap and I don't get nearly as much done.

If you plan to add the 20 hours on top of your 18-23 you will be dying and need childcare plus a cleaning service!

Good luck!

I believe that as long as your kids are in the same room where you are working, it will be extremely challenging to work. I don't know how disciplined your kids are and how motivated you are, but this will eventually shape the result of your work. Anyway, good luck with your career!

Mommy C T. I see your situation a couple of ways....you could talk to your employer about the situation and would appreciate the opportunity to add hours when your child starts school so you could fully focus on your training during the day or look at how many weeks and how many hours a day you need daycare when your training would start. If it starts after the 4th/3rd week of July, etc. it makes a huge difference. How many hours would you be online-8 hours a day? Recruit friends/neighbors/teens/husband so you can get your training done. Good luck. In my opinion, if it's the training that's getting in the way of adding hours-make it work, especially if you feel this opportunity may not be an option in the future.