The Ultimate Guide to Successful Remote Work with A Baby in Tow

If you’re working from home and you’ve just had a new baby, congratulations, you’ve just become the best multitasker in the world! This is not an easy thing to do, but with the world of remote work being what it is and the cost of living being so high, you have to be able to make ends meet where you can, and often that means continuing working with the baby at home with you. Not only can you save money on daycare fees, but you’ll be able to spend more time with your baby when you do this. The problem is that babies are a distraction.

They are cute, they are loud, and they are going to take your mind away from your work and onto themselves. If there’s a baby around, it used to be the case that you would drop a baby off with a relative or at a daycare center so that you could get some work done during the day. But sometimes it’s just not the case anymore.

As a parent, you go through a lot of planning stages. Through pregnancy, you plan for your birth when you’ve had your baby. You plan on moving them from your bedroom into their own bedroom with this rocking bassinet buying guide So that they can have the best sleep space. Planning is natural when you’ve had children because it’s something you will continue to do throughout their entire lives. 

6 Tips For Successful Remote Work With A Baby

But planning to continue remote work with a baby is the biggest plan you’ll ever make. Having to split yourself in half to be a working parent and an at home parent is hard enough, but when you blur the line with remote working it becomes all the more difficult. That does not mean it cannot be done. So with that in mind, here are our tips to help you to work from home around your baby.

Tip 1:

Create a dedicated working space. Yes, you may be in the living room with the baby around while you are working, but that does not mean you can’t have a dedicated working space. Setting up a desk with your computer and at an angle where you can still see the whole room that you and your baby is in is a great way to make sure that you’re getting started in working from home successfully with the baby around. You can still have a separate office for when you have another adult in the house with the baby but if you have a dedicated space in your living room you will be able to keep up with whatever your baby is doing while you are also keeping up with your work.

Tip 2:

Invest in the right equipment. Now, just because you have a baby with you does not mean you can’t enjoy meetings. There are headphones out there that cancel out the noise around you rather than the noise in the headphone space. So if the baby is crying, then you have a meeting. You can still settle and soothe the baby in your arms while on a headset that blanks out the audio surrounding you. It’s usually used in shared office spaces or hot desking spaces where the noise levels can go up, but you can still use these when the baby is with you.

Tip 3:

Have a child care schedule in mind. You might not be able to drop the baby off at a daycare or with a childminder everyday, but you can potentially set something up so that you are part time having the baby at home with you while you work. When you do this you are able to give yourself some grace when it comes to meetings. So if you know that your baby gets picked up on a Thursday and a Friday, then scheduling your business meetings. On Thursdays and Fridays as much as possible is going to help you to remain distraction-free.

Tip 4:

Make your colleagues aware that you have a baby at home. What you’ll find in today’s era of remote working is that nobody cares if you have children at home. We all know the stresses and struggles of working through COVID with kids around having their schooling done or just chilling out. Everybody understands that children are part of the package, but when you work from home, you no longer have to duck out of the office when they’re sick, and you no longer have to skip work at all when they are having a noisy day. Just inform people at the start of meetings or conversations that you have the baby at home with you and they will understand if there’s any interruptions or distractions for noise.

Tip 5:

Use a baby carrier where possible. It’s a great idea to have a rocking bassinet next to where you sit so that you can rock the baby down for their naps, but it can also be helpful to have a baby carrier strapped to you while you work. If you have a standing desk, you can rock side to side with the baby and the carrier so they’ll go to sleep, which gets you the peace you need. Sitting down for long periods of time allows you to look after the baby effectively. A baby carrier at a standing desk is really going to help you to balance the baby and your work. You also get to be hands free.

Tip 6:

Have a playpen set up. If your baby is mobile then you need a way to stop them from getting into everything, so a playpen or a containment area for the baby is really going to help. Having something on the floor to stop your baby from crawling towards hot items or to the television or any of your working technology is going to help you to stay focused on what you’re doing. 

It is entirely possible to work from home effectively with the baby around. You just have to work around both things together.