A young kid – How to manage when both parents are working?

Life is like a journey and the early years of it lay a foundation for a child’s character and mindset. It is essential to make sure this foundation is a strong and powerful one. Parents play the most crucial role in a person’s life. Their absence or divided attention can drastically affect a child’s psychology. However, nowadays, having your own identity, too, is extremely important. Many working parents manage their work-family balance even more beautifully than non-working ones. Thus, there is a lot you can do to tackle these difficulties that come along the way.

• Adjust your shift timings:

When you both are working full-time, one of you can opt for a night shift and the other for a day one. Lots of working parents find this way useful, as one of them always stays with the child. In this way, they don’t have to hire any ‘new’ person to look after their baby. Parents from nuclear families, who surely don’t have their parents or relatives around prefer to do this, as it’s more reliable. 

At times, you may feel that you are not getting to spend time with your partner, then one of you can also try to do it part-time. 

• Try to have your office nearby:

I know, I know you can not just lift your office and put it anywhere you want. But one of you can try to relocate your job nearby, it’s not easy either though many parents try to have their jobs within walking distance of 3-4kms for their ease. You can apply to the sister branches of the same company or maybe apply to another one according to your convenience and priorities.

• Ask for work-from-home:

After a pandemic, this is the favorite solution for so many parents. In many scenarios, the company permits new parents to resume their work from home for the next some months or even a year. This doesn’t only solve your problem but saves you from a lot of hectic and financial issues.

• Compensate through the weekends:

Try to give your undivided attention to your child on the weekend. Play with them, talk to them, know their needs, what’s upsetting them, what they’re happy about, what they want to do today, etc. You can also sit with them on a Friday night or the day before a week off and ask how they want to spend these holidays with you. If your kid is an infant, then you can just go on a picnic together, or go sit in a peaceful place together or just sit beside them on the bed or couch and feed them. Spending quality time doesn’t necessarily mean having fancy outings but for a change, you definitely can try a lot of things.

• Reserve the night talking ritual:

You can always talk to your kids before going to bed. If they’re old enough to study, then read them a story, talk about characters, morals, what they think about it, what according to them is right and wrong, and so on. If they’re young, you can just speak and make them talk to you as much as you can or play with them, make them laugh, etc.

• Ask for help from a relative or your parents:

You can ask your parents or relatives to help you to manage things for some time. This can be your temporary solution but won’t work for a long time. If you’re looking for a person to look after your kid until you find a better way, then you can choose this. 

• Look for a babysitter or a childcare home:

If you’re in dire need of help may be a temporary one or even for a long time, then you can go for this one. There are many decent and well-maintained childcare houses with caring staff who takes good care of the children. You just have to match your off timing with the pickup timing. This is the least considered way, as people don’t want to leave their young kids with anyone they don’t know, however, if you’re in dire need then this can work for you.