My name is Sam, i’m 32 and I live with my husband, our six year old son and almost two year old daughter. My husband and I are very lucky to be working from home. As we have an absolute hurricane of a toddler, as well as our 6 year old, it’s not possible for us both to work simultaneously while they are awake. We created a rota so that one of us is working while the other is parenting. Luckily I work part time, so I was able to spread my hours out over the week to make this a little easier.
I work Monday-Friday, 7am – 11am. He works 11am – 7pm.
This means I have to be up, showered, dressed and at my desk for 7am. As I’m only working for four hours per day I don’t take a break. I clock straight off at 11am and fly straight into parenting/homeschooling mode.
Usually I’ll make an early lunch, then when my toddler goes down for her afternoon nap I’ll do some learning with my 6 year old. I’ve found picking a ‘theme of the day’ works great for him, as we can base all of our activities around it and he barely realises he’s learning. We had a dinosaur themed day last week that went down really well.
I’ll be honest, it’s exhausting, especially as I have the added challenges of chronic pain and fatigue due to endometriosis, plus anxiety to contend with. Some days are really rough.
The one thing that is really keeping our spirits up is those little nuggets of quality family time. My husband takes his ‘lunch break’ at tea time, so we always eat our evening meal together. At the weekend we make sure to go out for our daily walk together and have lots of relaxed, unscheduled time. We’ve taken to getting a takeaway every Saturday evening, which is something we wouldn’t usually do as a family, but the kids love the special treat.
Another thing that we have realised the importance of this past few weeks is alone time. For us parents, but also for my 6 year old. His little sister is intense, and likes to be in his face all day long. We encourage him to go upstairs to play independently in the afternoon when she hits the witching hour, which has really helped. At the weekends, my husband and I take turns having an hour or two to ourselves to do whatever we please. I admit, I usually take a nap!
It’s not perfect, but it’s working OK. We know we’re very lucky to be able to be working from home, and would like to thank all of the key workers that are going out to work to enable us to do that. You’re our heroes <3.