Working From Home With Toddlers

There’s so much focus on homeschooling while working from home, but many daycares are still closed—so you may have toddlers at home while you’re trying to work. Here are a few tips for working from home with toddlers.

Plan To Be Interrupted

Toddlers need more of your attention and won’t understand that you are working from home, so schedules the interruptions in. It might look something like this:

• Get up an hour before the kids to check emails and start on a priority project.
• Save projects that require your full attention for naptime. 
• Create a ‘must complete” to-do list for each day to ensure it gets done.
• If your partner is home too, work in shifts, especially around Zoom calls—but also during non-traditional work hours. Maybe you alternate 2 hours shifts.
• Break projects into small parts that you can complete in 10 or 20-minute chunks.

Keep The Kids Busy

If it’s in the budget and keeps them busy, invest in new toys, stream or buy new movies and cartoons, and find a few age-appropriate crafts. This will result in background noise, check-ins every 15 minutes, or hearing the same cartoon on repeat—but you will learn to block it out.

Get Help

Consider dropping the kids off with family, inviting family over to keep them busy, alternating playdates with neighbors and friends, and hiring a babysitter. Even if it is just for a few hours a day or a few days a week it can help you focus and get work done.

Yes, some days will be more challenging than others but these tips will help.