I was honored to be a Stonyfield Ambassador in 2015, sharing knowledge, love and good food. This is my last post with Stonyfield, so let’s talk about family.
Family. The most important thing in my eyes. For years, I’ve pushed the facts toward the back of my brain. Dwelling on the facts just made me sad. The fact is, when your spouse works 40+ hours per week, their coworkers spend more time with them than their family. It’s a hard pill to swallow.
Some weeks, my husband would see our children for an hour per day. What kind of family is that? But, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I’m just grateful that my husband has been able to provide for our family and allowed me to stay at home with the children.
Then, we took a leap of faith and my husband started a company with some great friends and is now working from home. We get to see him all day long and he gets to see our children’s beautiful faces and exciting moments. We are incredibly lucky. It’s really the dream in my eyes to be able to go give my husband a kiss at 10am and eat lunch with him every day…always includes a Stonyfield yogurt for dessert!
That all being said, it wasn’t a smooth transition and it’s a lifestyle change that we’re all still getting used to!
Everyday we’re still figuring out what works best for the whole family with our new lifestyle: dad working from home.
My husband works in our bedroom. It’s a room that the kids and I frequently visited before we made this transition: doing the laundry, going to the potty, taking baths after visits to the beach, etc. So, when he first started working from home, it was and still is quite hard to remove the thought of going into his ‘office’.
Moreover, I was really struggling taking care of the two boys by myself at the beginning of this transition. Hayden was easily distracted when feeding and putting to sleep and Liam decided that these times were great times to ‘help mommy’. I began to overuse my husband for ’emergency’ help with the kids. He wasn’t getting any work done and we were all feeling burnt out.
Now, came the fun part: a whole lot of trial and error. Every week it seemed like we would change something in hopes of creating a better flow with the transition to daddy working from home. I will tell you, we’re four months into the transition and we’re still tweaking it. This is how a typical day goes for us:
6:30am Wake up and we all get breakfast.
7:30am Daddy makes his coffee, kisses us all and says “Daddy is going to work now. Have a good day!” We’re hoping that this verbal and physical good bye will help the boys (and me) separate a work day from a play day.
8:00am The boys and I start our day. Since mornings are our best times, we’re either off to run errands, out for an adventure, getting our cleaning gear on or playing with toys to start our day. I’m finding that it’s best for all of us to get the boys out of the house for as long as possible in the mornings to allow daddy to get the maximum quiet work time in and for the boys to pack as much fun in before Hayden’s nap time.
12:00pm We eat lunch! Most of the time, Daddy eats his lunch and works at the same time, but sometimes he’ll join us for lunch, as a family.
1:00pm Nap time and quiet time.
4:00pm The boys start to get a little stir crazy and we all need a break. Daddy will typically stop working and we’ll play while making dinner together.
5:00pm Family Dinner
6:00pm Bath time!
7:30pm Bed time. Ahh…
Then, my husband will continue to work after the kids are in bed for a few hours. He’s a beast like that. I think it may be the power of those wicked sideburns.
Some more things that seem to help us manage the day:
- My husband wears noise canceling headphones to drown out our craziness.
- He shuts and locks the door when he’s on a conference call.
- We share our calendars with each other so I know when to keep the kids quiet.
- I take the kids on as many adventures as possible to maximize quiet time at home. I still find it quite hard to keep the boys out of the bedroom/office during the day, especially when I’m focusing on feeding the baby and I’m not quick enough to distract Liam from wandering back there.
- Adventure ideas:
- Park
- Beach
- Aquarium
- Museums
- Walk/run – mommy gets her exercise!
- Visit the grandparents and play with all of their toys
- Play in the backyard
- Go shopping –we live at the grocery store and Target.
We’re hoping to transition Hayden to share a room with Liam soon. This will allow my husband to use the nursery as his new office which will help alleviate a lot of these issues.
Anyone else have spouses that work from home? Do you have any suggestions or tips? We’d be so grateful to hear them!!!
Let’s just go full circle on this thing. I know I’ve said this before, but I only want to share products with you that I truly believe in and love. If I don’t like it, I don’t even want to speak a word about it because I love to keep things positive here. But, Stonyfield, among many other brands I’ve worked with in the past, is one that I love and has become part of my family.
I have enjoyed every moment working with them and will truly miss everyone. Even though I won’t be working with Stonyfield any more, I will be reminded of all the love they have shown me over the years every time I open my fridge. Thank you for making me a part of your family, Stonyfield!
This post was created in partnership with Stonyfield. All opinions are my own. Please read my disclosure policy for further information.
Wow! God bless you all in your new adventure! If anyone can do it, it’s your family. Knowing what I do about you guys, it will be just a matter of time before you start publishing more information to help others who are in your situation (starting a new business from a home office) or want to be. Take good notes, and share!
Let us know how we can help. You know how to get to me. We’ve had some experience over the past 36 years of raising five kids and working from home as well as an outside office, that you may be able to glean a few nuggets of wisdom from. Bless your heart, Caroline! (And I mean it in the good way. )
You’re doing what you were/are meant to do!
My husband started his own business and has worked from home for years, since before we had kids even. It definitely takes time to figure it out. Currently we are blessed to be in a house where we turned a four season porch into his office. It has an entrance from the outside and we closed up the entrance through the house so he needs to actually go outside to go to work. It helps him transition to and from work and keeps the kids from constantly sneaking up on him. It is so great having dad close by when home with the kids, I’m so excited for you guys! And I want to know what kind of company he started!
Good for you guys! That is amazing! I wish that my husband didn’t have such an awful commute! Sounds like you guys are adapting and really making it work over time. Best of luck!!
We made this transition right before we had our second, and it was a real challenge at first. As the kids got older, we moved and our room was upstairs, so we spent most of our time downstairs and we got into a more comfortable routine. In fact, my husband heard my son and I squealing with joy when he was on the phone with a client and he was able to excuse himself for a minute telling them “I will be right back, I think my daughter is taking her first steps” We also have the ‘stopping point’ for dinner, bath, and bed’ and then my husband would go back at it for hours. By the time we were pregnant with out third, he was absolutely tired of our bedroom and was feeling closed in, burnt out, and all around uncomfortable. We ended up moving again to accommodate our growing family, and luckily for us we were able to move into a home where we could convert part of our garage to an office/hobby room. It has rejuvenated him and really solved our problem. He still works nearly a 24/7 schedule (hard to avoid when your clients know you are working ‘at home’ so they can always get ahold of you), but having him come inside to get a coffee refill or just see how we are doing is priceless. You can’t beat that!!
My Hubby works from home too and I absolutely LOVE it! It is hard at first to figure it all out, especially since the kids are home all the time too but eventually you get the hang of things. The best part – we get to experience everything together and share every meal.