Working From Home With Toddlers: Here’s How To Easily Do It

Working from home with a toddler is absolutely possible, all you have to do is incorporate them into your routine. These easy and actionable tips show you how to get your work done while taking care of your children.

Some would say kids are tiny reminders that we’re getting older by the day.  But that doesn’t mean we don’t want them around.

In fact:

We go to great lengths to keep them close. We even want to work from home just so they’re near us.

And because of that, we’re faced with a challenge: working from home with toddlers and actually getting work done.

In this article I’ll give you tips on how to work from home with a toddler and survive.

Ready to get going?

How To Work From Home With Toddlers

Here are some actionable “work from home with a toddler” tips that’ll save your sanity.  In fact, you can take care of children of any age and still get some work done with these suggestions.

1. Keep toddlers safe while working
2. Make them a part of your day
3. How to keep toddlers busy while you work
4. Where to get work from home jobs that fit toddler’s schedule
5. Where and how to get outside help
6. Tips to be flexible

Now, let’s go through each of these tips in more detail.

Tip #1: Safety Before Anything Else

I want to begin by talking about safety. Little ones LOVE to explore. In things, on things, even up things. Anywhere a cat can go, the kiddies can go. And because you need to get some work done you can’t always have both eyes on them so being proactive in keeping them out of harm’s way will make working from home with a toddler so much easier.

Here are my safety tips:

#1  Kids love to explore.  To keep you sane while working, lock the doors so your little ones can’t sneak out. And I’m not saying that in a weird, hostage-taking kind of way.  I just know that kids have active fingers that want to turn door handles.

As an alternative, these door knob covers will keep the munchkins from escaping.

Cabinets, drawers, and outlets are attractive to toddlers, too, so it’s a good idea to keep them safe by using these sliding cabinet locks.

And and let’s not forget to protect them from the stove with these stove knob covers.

#2  Make sure furniture won’t topple on top of them because THEY WILL CLIMB.  TV and furniture anchors are a must !

#3  Snacks can be chokey. It’s easy to give your little one a snack and go about your work, thinking all’s good in snackey-land. Not so fast…

• Grapes can be choke hazards. Not only are they the size of a child’s windpipe, the skins can be sticky. Cut grapes length wise so they go down easily. Slicing them only makes shorter windpipe sized hazards.
• Hot dogs, like grapes, should be cut lengthwise. And in small pieces.
• Popcorn and Whole Nuts are no-no’s. How many times have you had a hunk of nut stuck in your throat or a popcorn kernel sitting on the back of your tongue? Yucky feeling, huh?
• Meat is a yummy source of protein but can be tough on little ones with only a few teeth. Cut it up into teeny-tiny pieces so it goes down easily
• Same with cheese.
• Lollipops and Marshmallows suck for toddlers. A stick sticking out of their mouth can quickly turn into a stick lodged in their wind pipe.  And a big wad of fluffy marshmallow goo expanding in their windpipe? No thanks!

By the way, do you know CPR ?

Tip #2: Make Them An Important Part Of Your Day

Some days will be tougher than others but you need to hold tight to the bigger vision of what comes with working from home with toddlers and kids. The benefits can’t be beat. Put down your phone and stop working for a little while, I promise you won’t regret it.

Let Kids Be Kids

Sometimes, I like to just let my little one be who he is – a kid. Mashing cookies to smithereens, pouring cups of sand on his head while exclaiming “it’s waining!”, and curling up in the dog bed with Spider the Schnauzer, are all harmless activities that gives me an easy 30 minutes of work time.

Take Time To Enjoy The Little Things

You have to work, I get that, but don’t let your work absorb so much of your time that you miss out on the important stuff.

– The priceless moments of hearing the baby talk to himself when he wakes up from his nap.

– Exploring in the back yard.

– Swimming lessons.

Take time to enjoy the little things because time will fly by before you know it.

Tip #3: Keep Toddlers Busy

To keep toddlers busy while working from home involves letting them be part of your work life.

Little minds are such wonderful things. Those sponges soak up all they can and still have enough room in there to garner a response to the occasional “why?”. So why not let them share your office space with you?

Here’s how to do it:

Toddlers Like To Work – Let Them Help

At least let them think they’re helping.  This is my favorite tip because it allows for some special bonding time. I like to set up a spot in my office – usually on the floor – where my son can practice his scribbles. We call it “helping mommy with work”. You’d be surprised how much you can get done when junior is exercising his brain and “helping” you work.

Here are a few ‘jobs’ that kids can help with:

1. Organizing your office supplies
2. Filing your papers
3. Taking ‘inventory’ of your pens and pencils
4. Sorting things by color

Here’s one that’s really fun for kids:  set them up with a fake data-entry spreadsheet and let them fill in the blanks.  For instance, after my son has taken inventory of my paper clips and pens, he loves to enter the numbers into a spreadsheet I started for him.

And to make your child really feel like they’re working, they need a desk of their own 🙂  This deluxe desk can keep them busy helping you or doing art projects:

Create Independent Activities

Little ones are their own individuals. They love their newly-found independence. And, as parents, we need to encourage that. Right?

Give them activities they can do on their own (keeping them within ears length, or course). Coloring is so much fun. Puzzles are too.  Even rotating toys is new and interesting.

In fact, this Leapfrog Animals book is a very popular mind simulator that’ll keep toddlers busy for a while.

But what if they’re a little older ?

You can still stimulate their mind with a little computer learning time.  Here are a few sites to check out:

Curious World

Starfall

Cool Math

How Stuff Works

Fun Brain

Now, because my kids are still really young, they haven’t been on any of these sites.  And, as a mom, I would check them out thoroughly before letting them on.  Very Well Family and Parenting.com are the two sites I went to to find these suggestions.

Tip #4: Have A Work From Home Job That Fits With Toddlers

It’s no secret that toddlers have short attention spans. Which kind of sucks when you’re on a roll trying to hit your goal.

So what do you do?

You can try to work on their schedule, like when they nap or before they get up. Yes, good ideas…kind of.

Because there is a little thing called life. And everything that comes with it. Like taking care of the house, aging parents, even your other school age children.

But there is a solution.

You can work a job that fits your schedule and theirs.

Like these:

“Background Noise Is OK” Job

Background noise is a major distraction when trying to work from home with a toddler, especially when you’re on the phone.

But you have a couple choices:

1) You can fake it and get a noise-canceling headphone. This is a pretty effective trick a lot of work from home moms use.

2) You can get a job where background noise is really is no problem because you’re not dealing with customers.

Believe it or not, there really are some remote jobs where background noise is okay.

Content writing, marketing, search engine evaluation, chat/email customer support, engineering, and transcription are some of the best job choices for a noisy home.

Take a look at these companies:

• The Search Guru often has opening for Content Creators, Digital Marketers, Sales Assistants, and SEO Specialists.
• Lionbridge is well known for hiring people to evaluate ads for search engines.
• Automattic frequently hires Customer Happiness Gurus to help their customers via email and chat.
• Invision App often hires Marketers and Engineers to work remotely.
• Rev and GMR always seem to be hiring transcriptionists, translators and captioners with little or no experience (here’s my free guide on how to become a transcriptionist).
• Clevertech frequently has a ton of Engineering and Development openings.
• Chili Piper currently has a variety of remote openings, including Back End Engineer, Content Marketer and Product Designer.
• Animalz always seems to have a need for Content Managers and Writers.

Work The Odd Shift

Ya, I know. Night is for sleeping, which is a little something that doesn’t come easily with toddlers. But, if you’re up to it, an evening or night shift job makes it possible to work from home with a toddler.

Check out these companies:

Rev is a fantastic company if you wan to do captioning or transcription without needing previous experience.  Their website tells us you can work from home or wherever you want.. everything is done online and the hours are flexible.  As a matter of fact, you can work as little as you want.

Amazon has a lot of virtual jobs in many states across the USA, but the one with the most flexibility is their remote Customer Service position with late-afternoon shifts.

Uhaul frequently has Customer Care ans Sales and Reservations job openings with very flexible schedules.  They hire in USA and Canada and have a 4-week, self-paced online training program.

American Express is a company that has been hiring home workers to help customers all hours of the day or night.  Their website tells us they value work/life balance and recognize the need for flexible work schedules (including part-time).  Their virtual positions are in the areas ofTtravel and Lifestyle, Sales, Human Resources, and Customer Service.

Have A Flex Job

Because kids tend to rule the daily schedule, being able to cram in an hour of work here-and-there might be the best you can do. Working work in bursts can be a life saver for your sanity and still let you make some money.

So having a job with a ton of flexibility is a must, and a lot of work-from-home parents go for part-time, work at home jobs.

But if you want something with more hours, but flexible hours, here are some great options:

• Freelance writing is a fantastic job for flexibility. You can write whenever the mood strikes. Here is a little write-up I did about writing for money.
• Community management jobs are (almost) always available with ModSquad.
• Teaching English as a second language is an in-demand job opportunity.
• Being a Virtual Assistant pays well, is flexible, and there’s more to it than just doing administrative things.

Tip #5: Use Outside Help

One of my favorite tips on how to work from home with toddlers is this one because there may be days when you realize you can’t do it all.  And that’s OK.  Mommy duties and excess work can be a real drain on you so having a break from either – even if for a few hours a week – can be a life saver.

Here are a few ideas:

Think About Child Care

This one blocks me up a little because I know child care is not in the financial cards for a lot of you but whatever you can do to have a few hours of unobstructed work time will be well worth it.

If you can swing it – even for a few hours a week – do it.

If you can’t afford it, here are a few ideas:

• Do you have a friend who can watch the kids for a bit ?
• I like the idea of a toddler swap – one day a week you and another parent arrange for one of you to have both (or all) of the kids for a day.
• Maybe you have a sweet niece who will help you out (hint, hint).

Outsource Your Work

Back when I started doing website management (circa 2007), one of my clients wanted a special element added to their website – something I didn’t know how to do nor have the time to learn how to do it. Through the magic of online outsourcing platforms, I was able to hire someone to do it for me at a very reasonable price. I used Elance (which is now Upwork) to find this freelancer, whose skills and talents I scrutinized.

And..having someone do your housekeeping or cooking every once in a while is a decadent life saver.

Tip #6: Be Flexible Because Schedules and Boundaries Don’t Always Work

Schedules suck. Not because they’re rigid timetables, because they don’t always work. We all know that kids rarely stick to a schedule. And boundaries? Ha ! Toddlers can’t tell time so how can we expect them to give us “just 5 minutes…”?

So what can you do ?  How can you get any work done ?

Carve Out Time Slots

Try to designate certain times of the day for work but build in a lot of flex time assuming everything will be turned upside down at any moment.

For instance:

• Can you work before the kids wake up in the morning ?
• Is nap time an opportunity to get some work done ?
• Is there ‘play time’ that offers a few hours of work ?

Make a list of the work related things you want to do today, working during those times slots and crossing off the items as you complete them. Tomorrow, look at that list and tackle what you didn’t get to yesterday and add new things to do later.

Communications And Kids: It Can Work

Do you do conference or video calls ?  Kind of hard to do with toddlers and kids running around in the background, right?

This is where the imaginary boundaries “rule” comes in handy.

Even though I like to plan these calls during nap time, I know that isn’t always possible.  So I like to play a little game – it goes like this:

When mommy is wearing her red glasses, let’s see how long you can be quiet.

Ready?

Go!

Make Working From Home With Toddlers Easier

I covered just about all I know on how to work effectively with kids under foot.

I’d really love to know what tips and personal experience you have so other work at homers can fell good about working remotely with the little ones.  Feel free to leave a message and share your tips.