Work At Home Mothers - Are You Going Through A Difficult Phase
Copyright 2006 Elaine Currie
Are you enjoying the experience of being a work at home mother,
or are you going through a difficult phase? When you have
children, you will nurture them through various phases, some
testing and some irresistibly cute, but there is one phase that
I reckon is the biggest reason for mothers to give up the idea
of being a work at home mother and go back to the wage slave
routine.
If you didn't start a work at home project before the birth, the
next best time to do it is when your baby is between 1-3 months
old. For the first month you will be too tired, too busy and too
involved in getting accustomed to your new role as a mother. It
gets easier from then on. During the first three months your
baby will settle into a routine and you will be able to plan
your day around that.
At 3-6 months your baby should still spend a good deal of the
day sleeping and this will leave you quite a bit of time to
streamline your work at home timetable.
At the 6-9 months stage, your baby will be awake more and more
but will be able to amuse itself for short periods in between
feeding and sleeping. This is a good time to introduce your baby
to your home workplace so he or she will feel part of your
working day. Don't exclude your child from your work area,
otherwise he or she will grow up resenting the time you spend
there and will compete for your attention.
By about the age of 18-24 months your baby becomes a small
person who will be perfectly happy playing quiet games or
looking at picture books while you carry on working, just having
you nearby is enough during this stage of growing independence.
Did you notice I missed something out? I decided to save the
9-18 month stage for last. Remember, I said it gets easier after
the first few weeks? Well, that's true - apart from this stage!
It's just a phase, it doesn't last forever but it will feel like
forever while you battle through it. I wouldn't want to put
anyone off parenthood or working at home; they are both great
but each of those situations becomes difficult verging on
impossible during the 9-18 month stage. Parents who said "We
won't let having a baby change our lives." start to look a bit
embarrassed and pretend they never made that ridiculous
statement in the first place.
If you think of your work at home mother career as a journey,
this is not the end of the road, it is a very steep hill you
need to conquer before you can cruise down into the peaceful
valley ahead. By the time this phase hits you, you need to have
your home job organised and running to a schedule. This is the
phase that will test the flexibility of that schedule to the
extreme. Be prepared, this phase does not creep up gradually, it
slams in unannounced overnight.
Remember that cute helpless little gurgling bundle with the
rosebud mouth? It now stays awake most of the day and you
suddenly find you have your very own weapon of domestic
destruction. As soon as that little bundle masters the art of
rolling over, it is time to move any fragile objects to higher
ground, rearrange cupboards according to child safety rather
than logic or convenience, install safety gates, special locks,
socket covers and take a million other precautions. (Tip: a lock
on the toilet lid is only unnecessary if you don't mind finding
your toothbrush or shoes in the toilet.)
Yes folks, mobility has arrived and baby's reach is extending
daily. Progress from rolling over to rolling across a room, to
crawling happens like a film shown in fast forward mode. Your
most precious fragile possession becomes a standing, climbing,
falling over, head bumping, dangerous object seeking,
inquisitive, noisy adventurer who has an aversion to the
playpen. This is a period of exploration and learning that
involves your child spending its waking hours in between you and
whatever you had hoped to be doing. If you can't do something
with a baby in one arm, on your lap or firmly clinging to your
legs and shouting, forget it until nap time. A surprising number
of things can be done one handed, so most days you will get to
eat a snack or drink a glass of juice even if you aren't able to
get showered and dressed until noon, but it's pointless to try
to give your attention to grownup concerns outside of nap time.
Don't try to fight nature, this is a battle you won't win, so
you might as well save your energy and make a compromise. Give
your tiny tornado all the attention it needs throughout this
phase and fit in your work at home project around it until the
blessed time arrives that proper walking is achieved, the
vicelike grip on your legs is released and you are no longer the
focus of attention. If you can weather this phase without giving
up the idea of working at home, you should succeed with the
ordinary challenges of running a home business.
This phase is demanding work but it is the time of first wobbly
steps, first coherent words and all the other "first" milestones
of your child growing up; all the things you couldn't bear to
miss, your reason for wanting to work at home in the first
place.