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Working Moms
work full time and have a 6month old
How did you/do you manage your time in the evenings? I don't get home until after 6pm. LO goes to bed around 9/9:30. I have to fit in extra tummy time (we really need to amp up her core muscles), make dinner, clean and get everything together for the next day. Even with H helping a lot there doesn't seem to be enough time.
How have you all done it?
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Re: work full time and have a 6month old
Ever since DS was born, weeknight dinners are things that can be thrown together quickly and don't require a lot of prep and cooking. And DH does the majority of the cooking.
Cleaning - especially at that age, I did what absolutely needed to be done plus maybe one extra thing.......so wash my breastpump parts/bottles, and maybe dust ONE room of the house or throw in ONE load of laundry. And I still stick to that today.......the house doesn't have to be spotless during the week, do what needs to be done.
What all needs to get done for the next day? I'd get DS's bottles and my pump ready to go, but other than that there wasn't much prepping to do. DS doesn't get a bath every night (unless he's truly dirty and needs one), and unless he has an accident at daycare I don't have to send a lot with him on a daily basis.
We do an hour of cleaning a night just to keep up on stuff and not have to waste our weekends. Dinners tend to be thrown together. I do get her things together after she goes to bed...
I guess it just feels like there is no time. Extended tummy time is hard because she's tired and hungry when I get home (and she's just gotten home with Daddy from daycare) and then to give her a bottle which takes about 30 minutes to finish, to wait another 30-45 minutes and give her solids, and then wait to get her on her tummy so she doesn't puke leaves like 10 minutes for Tummy Time. and we HAVE to do it because she's hypotonic.
Guess that's my real "no time" thing. The additional tummy time...
I feel your pain! I never feel like there is enough time in the day!!
I get home at 5:45pm - wash his bottles from the sitters house/unpack the diaper bag while DH takes a shower (he works with chemicals so it's necessary!). Then DH makes dinner while I give the baby a 4oz bottle and his medicine (he's on digoxin). Sometimes it's the other way around, DH can only make a select few things lol.
Then DH, DS and myself all eat dinner together (can't remember the last time I had a hot meal since I'm feeding DS while eating my dinner lol), then we play for a little or clean up, depends how the house is looking, the floor has to be swept every night or every other night since he's crawling everywhere and we have 4 animals!
DS goes upstairs at 7:30 to get his bath ready and get stuff for the diaper bag for the next day. If I'm lucky, DH will clean up from dinner while I'm bathing the baby. He's done by 8, DH makes his night bottle while I'm clothing and lotioning DS, then I give him his night bottle, and he's usually asleep by 8:15-8:30pm.
After he goes to bed I usually clean and get his diaper bag ready for the next day (what I can anyways), but couple days a week I let myself veg out on the couch and catch up on a show, or just go straight to bed when the baby does.
My son is almost 7 months - we're home between 5:45-6 and he's in his crib between 7-7:15 most nights. B gets both his solid meals at daycare during the week - one after his first daycare bottle and the other sometime between 3-5, depending on how his bottles and naps go.
Could you move the evening solid meal to daycare? That would free up time in her schedule quite a bit.
BFP #2 5/27/12. EDD 2/1/13. m/c and D&C 6/21/12.
I think in some ways, you just have to accept that while the baby is little, there's not a lot of time in the day. It doesn't last forever (although it seems like it at the time). Can you maybe do a little extra tummy time in the am?
Honestly, an hour of housework a night seems like a lot to me. I would let the standards drop a little bit. Or do things you can do with her--fold laundry on the floor while she's doing tummy time, put her in a frontpack and wipe up the counter, etc. Once I put the kids down, I will maybe do 15-20 minutes of housework, get the stuff together for daycare, and that's it.
Also, if there's things you can do to make it easier, do it. I have extra bottles, extra pump parts, etc. so that we don't have to wash stuff every night. I take enough snacks and lunch for the whole week on one day, take extra clothes and things to daycare on Monday so I don't have to bring things every day, etc.
If I'm reading your replies correctly, it sounds like extended tummy time is an extra 10-15 minutes in the evening? And it sounds like tummy time is big source of additional stress. Can you do tummy time immediately after you or DH gets home so you can knock it out and then focus on the rest of the evening?
I have to agree with the others - an hour of cleaning a night is a lot! That's 5 hours a week spent on cleaning - what can you do to condense or let things go a bit? Would you be willing to do an hour of work on the weekends? I've found that while I do try to make the majority of our weekends family time, spending an hour or so on the weekends (nap time?), I can make the work week a lot more manageable.
You'll get through it! Make some adjustments and you'll find that you can get it all done (whatever your definition of "all done" is
)
4:30pm - get home, nurse LO, take the dog for a walk and start playtime.
5:30pm - make dinner and eat, done by 6:30. I dont cook anything during the week that takes longer than 30 min. DH continues playtime with DS while I cook or vice versa.
6:30pm- bath and jammies for LO (DH does the dishes and cleans up while I do bath time or vice versa)
7:30pm - nurse LO then he goes to bed.
8pm - DH and I watch some TV
10pm - make bottles and pack lunches for next day
10:30pm - Good night!
We take 2 hours out of our morning every Saturday and clean the house. We do it first thing and it goes really quickly if we just knock it out and then we have the rest of the weekend to ourselves. We do shopping/laundry Sunday evenings while we are getting prepped for the week.
It takes a lot of team work between DH and I. I pick DD up from daycare and get home around 5:45 pm. She goes to bed around 7:30 (sometimes 8). The time in between is spent nursing (twice-- once immediately when we get home and then again before bed), cooking dinner, and playing/reading books/bath. DH and I take turns with juggling DD and cooking dinner.
Once DD is asleep, THEN we clean the kitchen, clean bottles and pump parts, and prepare bottles for the next day.
I agree with others, 1 hour of cleaning a night is overkill. Just chill with the weekday cleaning and do only the essentials (like in our case, the kitchen). Save the rest of it for the weekends!
We have a cleaning lady that comes every other week, which makes the cleaning part SO MUCH better. We constantly do laundry, but we really only put it away about once a week (usually on the weekends). The rest of the time, it sits in the basket clean.
I get home from work at about 5:15. Then, I nurse my son, play a bit, and then I give him a bath between 6:30 and 7. He's usually down for the night around 8 (it takes him a long time to nurse enough at night). After that, I go to the gym when I can (I have a personal trainer I see once a week), prep the bottles for the next day, pump, screw around, and go to bed around 10.
For dinner, sometimes my husband cooks something easy on the grill. Sometimes we eat something from the freezer. Sometimes we use the crockpot. Sometimes we get carry out. I really don't "cook" during the week in the sense of any meals that, say, require chopping of vegetables. We do super easy meals during the week, and I do a bit more cooking on the weekends.
Could you cook extra food on the weekends so you can just heat it up during the week? We do that sometimes, and it helps.
I agree with the others - let the cleaning slide.
As for tummy time - my son likes watching his LeapFrog Scout while on his tummy, so I can do other things during his tummy time. Do you need to be there with your LO, or could she play on her own for a bit to give you time to cook dinner or something?