Working Moms
WM that travel a lot for work
Can you please tell me about your experience, especially if you have a toddler and you travel outside of your city.
1. How often per month do you travel? What does your schedule look like?
2. Do you travel cross-country, in town, in state, etc? Do you travel by car or plane?
3. How difficult would you say it is to be a WM that travels?
4. What is the best thing about it?
5. What is the worst thing about it?
TIA
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Re: WM that travel a lot for work
I am so glad you asked because I wil love to see the responses. Although I am not currently, I will be soon enough. My heavy travel is from September through December. Sparatic from Late Janurary to March.
1. How often per month do you travel? What does your schedule look like? This past year I was gone every other week from September through December. I obviously can't pull that this year so all my travel will , hopefully, be short trips between September and October.
2. Do you travel cross-country, in town, in state, etc? Do you travel by car or plane? A little bit of it all. I go from 45 mins away from the office to 6 hours. Most of my travel last year was by car. I might get to fly once or twice this year.
3. How difficult would you say it is to be a WM that travels? IDK yet. I know it was tough enough being a wife traveling so much.
4. What is the best thing about it? I really enjoy some of the personal time I get when I am on the road. And DH always loves it when I get back ::wink, wink::
5. What is the worst thing about it? After a while, I just want to be home.
Looking forward to the other responses. Have a great day ladies!
1. Travel schedule: Before DD came, I was gone at least 3-4 days, at least 3 weeks a month. For DD's first year, I didn't travel at all. From 12-15 months, I traveled about one week out of every four weeks. Then the economy went sour and our travel budgets get cut, so since then, I've traveled roughly 1-2 times a quarter.
I've learned how to work my flights to minimize my time away from home. I usually try to fly out late morning on Monday, so I get up and get DD ready for school, drop her off and go right to the airport. Then I try to fly back on the Thursday night red-eye, so I get home before DD wakes up, get her up, drop her off at school, and then come home and take a nap if I need it. I like that because I figure she doesn't know until Monday night that I'm actually gone. And if I flew home on Fri morning, she'd think I was gone all day Friday -- by taking the red-eye, she knows I'm home on Friday.
2. What kind of travel: All of my travel is from home in Texas to Washington state. I go by plane.
3. How difficult is it? I don't like being away from DD, and it's hard when DH tells me that she's acting sad or misses me. But he really tries to do a lot of fun stuff with her to distract her, and it's good bonding time for the two of them. She also seems to be getting better with it now that she's a little older -- maybe now she knows I'm not gone for good.
4. Best thing about it? I work from home when I'm not traveling, and I love having that flexibility. It's well worth traveling even one out of every four weeks in order to have all that flexibility for the other 3 weeks.
5. Worst thing about it? I had to travel last week and I wasn't home on DD's birthday. And it was for a stupid, stupid meeting too, which I totally could have attended remotely. That sucked. I'm also not sure how it'll work out with the new baby and breastfeeding... I did nurse DD until about two months ago, so I dealt with pumping and bringing milk home, but I was just nursing twice a day so I only had to pump twice a day. Pumping for a full-time milk supply will be a totally different story.
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
1. About once a month. I've been able to keep it to just 1-2 nights away most of the time. I've had a couple of trips that were a little longer.
2. Cross-country. I live in Colorado and usually go either to DC or California, although I've been a couple of other places as well.
3. I think it depends in great deal on your husband and your job.
4. Best? Hmm. I guess I like to have a night to myself in a hotel, I tend to get to read more and watch tv/movies that I want to see, and it's fun to see new places, but I don't really enjoy traveling very much. Most places I go to, I've already been and I end up not having time to explore any how.
In general, though, my job has other perks in that it pays very well and I enjoy my work. I usually get comp time if I have to travel outside of work hours (only the actual transportation counts, though), and I will sometimes be able to take the day off when I get back to spend more time with ds.
5. Worst thing is feeling like I'm dumping everything on DH. So I end up spending a lot of time ahead of time trying to get as much ready for them while I'm gone. And I try to make trips as quick as possible, so a lot of rushing around and early morning and late night flights. I end up pretty tired when I get back (and then there's the work that piles up when you're on travel).
Plus, I tend to work with men who are older and don't have to worry about their kids anymore. So they want to take longer, more frequent trips and I am the one trying to convince them that it'd be fine if I just did a telecon instead.
edited to add: I forgot! Pumping is the worst! I hate pumping on travel, but I won't be doing it much longer since DS only nurses at night and in the morning now.
I'm new to the mom thing, but have been traveling for work for almost 4 years. I really like the travel aspect of my job...and can't see myself taking a job that doesn't involve travel...but it definitely isn't for everyone, and I might change my mind as time goes on...
1. How often per month do you travel? What does your schedule look like? Before PG I traveled up to 3 weeks a month or some portion of all 4 weeks. Sometimes it was 2-day trips, sometime 2 weeks not necessarily getting to come home on the weekends. I'm an engineer at a manufacturing co. and if I'm at a plant starting up a process we don't always stop just because its the weekend. While PG I traveled a little less. I went back to work mid-April and have been on 2 trips, both in June. First for 2 days (driving), second for 3 days (flying). Like PP, I took a later flight so that I could be home at night (after DS went to bed) and be with him in the AM, pre-baby I would have stayed overnight and traveled during the next work-day rather than travel after business hours. A perk of traveling was that with my first trip, a driving trip, I got back into town at 2:30 on a Friday and rather than go into the office I picked up DS at daycare and spent the afternoon with him (full disclosure: he napped all afternoon - but it still made me happy that I was with him)
2. Do you travel cross-country, in town, in state, etc? Do you travel by car or plane?
I travel all over the country, and outside of the country. By car and plane, or both. I recently should have gone overseas, but a co-worker went in my place so that I wouldn't have to go that far/for that long so soon.
3. How difficult would you say it is to be a WM that travels?
It presents challenges but I think it has benefits too. I think my previous, non-travel, job would be more difficult to have as a mom because I had a really rigid manager and it would have been difficult to get time off during the day for little stuff like taking DS to his well visits or the fact that after almost 3 months I still seem to allways roll in at 8:05...things that would have been problems at my non-travel job but aren't problems at my current job/company.
Having a night all to yourself in the hotel is really nice. I sometimes have to have dinner with other people, but even so, I like it. I am usually traveling to agricultural areas, so there isn't much site-seeing, but I enjoy the time to read magazines, newspapers, watch TV that I want to watch...
I think it helps if you are an organized person. And most importantly, like PP said, having a supportive DH makes all the difference in the world. I know my DH gets a little overwhelmed, but I also know it makes him really proud that he takes care of DS all on his own. We're still working out routines to make it easier - like I started hanging matching outfits in DS's closet rather than separating the pieces in his drawers - this makes it easier for DH to get him dressed and doesn't really take me too much time. I haven't yet convinced DH that he should give DS a bath when I'm out of town...but we don't give daily baths anyway so it hasn't been a big deal.
4. What is the best thing about it?
See #3. Also, one of the best things is the flexibilty that I can take a few hours here and there, when I'm not traveling, to do personal things, and occasionally full days. My company doesn't have a set comp-time policy, its dependant on your arrangement with your manager - luckily I have a good one.
5. What is the worst thing about it?
When I was on my recent 3-day trip I did miss DS. I saw him on Skype (web camera) and just wanted to give him a hug. I also feel a little guilty leaving DH with all the work, but I take it upon myself to try to get stuff ready for him before I leave (groceries, clean DS's laundry). This makes my life a little more stressful, but I feel better when I know that I tried to help prepare DH and that he's basically a single parent while I'm gone - which isn't easy for him. Also I hate pumping. I only BF 2x day and I use a Medela hand-pump when I'm away (tried electric pump and hated that too) - I like that the hand pump is so much more compact and easily fits in my bag and since I'm only using it 2x day its not too bad. I don't know why I hate pumping, I just do.
This turned out to be really long...hopefully its helpful to someone!
Here are some of my answers to your questions. Before I had DD I traveled 5 days a week, every week and with the longest trips, away from home for 10 days. I traveled interstate (all over the US) and overseas (Canada and Europe) After I had DD I traveled at the same amount for 4 months (she was 3-7 months ago) then I accepted a new job.
These answers below are related to my current job
1. How often per month do you travel? What does your schedule look like? I travel every 2-3 months and am gone for approximately 6 days at a time. I have been on 3 trips in the last 6 months.
2. Do you travel cross-country, in town, in state, etc? Do you travel by car or plane? So far only across the country this year but next year I will start traveling overseas once a year and have 2 to 3 national trips. All trips involve planes.
3. How difficult would you say it is to be a WM that travels? Originally it was very difficult being a new mom and with such a hectic travel schedule. I was BF at the time and really wanted to keep doing this to maintain my bond with DD. Now its not nearly as difficult as I've been lucky enough to have DH and DD come along for the ride. They are on vacation while I work; however, I do get to spend a large amount of time with them before and after conferences. There have been times where i've had dinner meetings but i try to not go to those if its not absolutely required.
4. What is the best thing about it? We use this as an opportunity to have a vacation! I always take a few days extra either before or after the work components.
5. What is the worst thing about it? I am exhausted by the time I get back to the hotel and DH and I need me to have fun with them
When I was nursing I tried really hard to keep my supply up so I would be pumping whenever I had any free time.