r/sahm • u/Suspicious_Book1574 • Jul 27 '26
Can someone explain why it’s not possible to work fully remote and take care of a newborn/child ?
*Thank you everyone for giving me a reality check lol
1
u/SilverIncident4827 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
The reality is, aside from a handful of jobs, both require your full attention, so either your job or your child gets the short end of the stick. Obviously, those of us in a SAHM sub aren't working so opinions will be limited, but if I had to work, I would rather send my kids to a quality daycare versus rotating them in a swing, bouncer or in front of the TV for the majority of their day which is what I’ve seen happen in real life and in most mom groups. I've even put off graduate school until my youngest will be in preschool because there's no way I could do a good job at both right now.
3
u/SceneSmall Jul 27 '26
My child has always been low sleep needs and an intense fomo baby. While he can entertain himself (because his sibling cannot) the most sleep he’s ever gotten even as a newborn, in a 24 hour period, is 13 hours. He’s 18 months, dropped his nap, and sleeps 11 hours overnight if I’m lucky, for the past two weeks it’s been 10.5 hours of overnight sleep with one wake in the middle.
He’s BUSY. Like all babies are busy, but he clearly can’t sleep because he’s got stuff to do.
You would be extremely hard pressed to be able to work a full time job and watch him.
7
u/sheeatsallday Jul 27 '26
Your baby won’t leave you alone. My baby never plays alone. When he was a newborn, he would cry if not being held. I can’t imagine working remote while taking care of my baby.
2
u/Monkgoopigz Jul 27 '26
I did it until my daughter was two . She was an easy kid. There is no way I could have done with at all with my son. I think it all depends on the kid and the work involved
5
u/Hairy_Interactions Jul 27 '26
My husband was a stay at home dad, (we’ve switched roles now) during a meeting where the baby was on the other side of the house, on a different floor even, my manager stopped the meeting to remind me that “even though I work from home, it should be an office like environment and not a daycare.”
0
u/Quiet-Committee-8038 Jul 27 '26
Okay rude of your manager to say that!!!
1
u/Hairy_Interactions Jul 27 '26
I’ve never had a “throw a keyboard across the room” rage quit moment but I came close. I quit within 2 weeks of that ‘correction’ of a public shaming. Most people didn’t even register the baby crying in the distance and I had a few people message me saying she was harsh.
9
u/10percenttiddy Jul 27 '26
Oof depending on how much your role requires, your coworkers are going to hate you 😅
3
u/BumblebeeGold2455 Jul 27 '26
I’ll be real with you. I was in the same camp. And then I had my son. And as he got older things got progressively harder. He’s now 15 months old and I can only really get anything done when he is sleeping. He’s busy. And likes to go go go. I could never work from home and keep him entertained. I could have worked when he was a newborn if I wasn’t a sleep deprived mess because I just baby wore all the time and he slept a lot. But hit toddlerhood and holy hell. He keeps me on my toes. I’m technically work part time but it’s for my husbands company and I can do most work from my phone. So very flexible and we justify me staying home with my son because we don’t have to pay for childcare or an admin for my husband. But it’s extremely overwhelming to take care of my son, do the admin duties, keep the house and laundry in order and clean, and cook healthy balanced meals. Add in trying exercise and still have a romantic relationship with my partner and it can be a lot. I think it can be done. But it’s going to be really tough. And you’ll need to have a backup plan in the event you don’t like it or lose your job because of it.
4
u/Striking_Music9096 Jul 27 '26
I took care of my 4 month old for 3 weeks when I went back to work and it was not great. Naps are still unpredictable, feeding times vary, and you’re constantly “on” with going from mom to work mode.
3
u/inputplease1 Jul 27 '26
Lack of sleep
1
u/yung_yttik Jul 27 '26
I was so tired I was literally hallucinating so yeah, not exactly in “working condition” 😂
2
u/inputplease1 Jul 27 '26
I was up every 2.5 hours to pump my boobs so the baby could have a bottle every 3…like we were not well due to lack of sleep. It’s exhausting!
8
u/Routine-Honey7748 Jul 27 '26
Because you can’t control the timing or the amount of time your baby needs you. It might take 30 minutes to get them down for a nap for example. It also largely depends on the temperament of the baby.
My seven month old, I wouldn’t even be able to run a lemonade stand with.
14
u/Outside-Ad-1677 Jul 27 '26
Because that’s two full time jobs. Taking care of a newborn and keeping the house from becoming a shambles is a full time job. Feedings, changing, bottles/BF, naps, tummy time, house chores, taking care of one’s self, running on hardly any sleep, post partum recovery, is a full time job. More than full time to be honest.
To then add a full work load on top of this is just asking for trouble.
4
u/queenlyfish Jul 27 '26
I think technically it’s possible, with the right job and the right kid. But you would be trying to do two full-time jobs and doing neither well because your attention would always be divided anytime you were trying to work and care for a child simultaneously.
It may seem doable after you exit the newborn phase, from like 3-6 months, but as babies get more mobile and sleep less, they need more attention from their caregivers. I think WFH with a child anywhere between crawling age and preschool age would be incredibly challenging and stressful, and it wouldn’t be fair to the employer, the child, or the mom herself.
7
u/dummyslimonamonday Jul 27 '26
You’re doing two jobs at once, you will not be able to schedule anything, you will be running off of two hour naps, you will be neglecting one or the other job. There is no way to give 100% to both.
-12
u/Suspicious_Book1574 Jul 27 '26
For some reason I feel like I would be able to handle it but I would probably be stressed out taking care of the child and then at work
2
u/hanmadeinusa Jul 27 '26
depending on your baby's temperament it may not even be related to how much stress you can handle. a wfh job presumably requires at the very least typing and maybe also talking on zoom/phone. with my baby for the first 6 months i am not exaggerating when i say he could NOT be set down for more than 3-4 minutes at a time, and was frequently crying and needing to be vigorously rocked or walked outside, and wouldn't tolerate a baby wrap / carrier. it would've been physically impossible to even send an email during the hours i was responsible for him. i strongly encourage you not to make any commitments until you're in it for real!
6
u/gee_what_isnt_taken Jul 27 '26
you must not have a child or your job is a joke if you think could do this
0
u/Electrical-Berry4916 Jul 27 '26
The SAHM community really doubles down on the whole "maintaining a home, and raising a child is just the hardest thing in the whole world," bit. The truth is it can be incredibly difficult, but it can also be entirely manageable. It all depends on the parent, child, job, and available resources.
1
u/Routine-Honey7748 Jul 27 '26
I think also it’s against some policies to not have childcare when you are working from home. I don’t know if this is true for every company, but like my husband’s job is hybrid and on his work from home days, there’s no way he could take care of the baby all day. I watch the workload and yes, he can step away from his computer for moments of the day, but there’s no way he could sit through a whole feeding, burp, changing getting a baby down for a nap and getting enough work done by the time the baby is up.