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How to Keep Working at Home as Your Baby Gets Older

Stephanie — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:46:15 +0000

Like many people, my big reason for starting to work at home in the first place was to be there for my kids. With three of them now, that reason only gets more important.

But I have to admit, dealing with a baby when I want to get work done is not easy. It’s been really tough lately to come up with enough hours to get even the minimum amount of work done I’d like to. Especially as she gets older, more mobile and more demanding.

Time was when I could sit her on my lap and still get a little bit done. That’s not quite so simple now. She’s bigger and much more interested in my keyboard and anything she can reach on my desk. Especially if it can go in her mouth.

Yeah. I pretty much need her naptimes to get anything done. And it’s still not easy many days then, as she’s not exactly a champion of sleeping through the night. Thank goodness I don’t have to drive to work that tired.

This is one of the times that it takes incredible dedication to keep going. Believe me, it would be much easier to just take off, but that’s not what I’m going to do, and if you’re in a similar situation, not what I’d recommend either.

When daytime naptimes don’t work for me, working at night after all the kids are in bed can. Other work at home parents prefer early, early mornings, a thought which gives me the chills. Really, really not for me!

But you do what works for you.

Work early in the morning. Late at night. During baby’s nap. When there’s another adult available to watch the kids.

You can even hire a “Mother’s (or Father’s) Helper” to just play with the baby as you work. I did this when I was a medical transcriptionist, and it was pretty helpful. You don’t even need your helper able to feed the baby or change diapers. Just play with the baby and let you know when something more is needed. Older siblings (where available) can also help.

I like to remind myself that this won’t last forever. That means enjoying this time with a baby and not letting it get me down too much just for being tired. And if the price for not losing a post to a baby pounding a keyboard is a little less sleep, so be it.

Trying to Get Fit Postpartum While Working at Home

Stephanie — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:45:12 +0000

I’m not exactly what one would call a fitness buff or utterly crazed about fitting into a particular size. If I don’t get back into my pre-third-pregnancy clothes, so be it. I never did make it back into my pre-first-pregnancy clothes. Something about a change in hip size, a rather common issue, I believe.

Well that, and an extra 10 pounds at that point. More than that after this baby.

I really don’t stress much about my weight, though. I don’t even own a scale. If you want to quit obsessing about weight, keeping scales out of the house really helps. It makes it hard to obsess over a number you can only rarely see.

Having low energy because I’m out of shape, on the other hand, drives me nuts.

I’ve started trying to remember to exercise a bit more every day. I’ve always walked daily to my daughter’s school to pick her up, but a half mile total really only does so much for fitness.

Fortunately, babies make really cute exercise equipment.

I’ve always thought that one of the best things about postpartum exercise is that you can use the baby as a steadily increasing weight. Selene’s at the point now where she laughs just a little as I work out with her, which is motivation not only to work out but to take a break while working at home. 3 months old is a really cute age.

I can’t hold her for every exercise, of course. But when it works, it works.

Besides, she did this to me. Surely she should help me get fit again, right?

The worst for me has to be stomach muscles. It’s not just the 3 pregnancies. It’s the dratted two C-sections that I think really pulled a number on them. Everyone I’ve ever talked to about it says C-sections just make it that much worse. I can believe it.

I know I’m not doing badly. At the Mother’s Day picnic I heard a relative commenting on how thin I am for having had a third baby. She also noted that I’d always been thin, which is certainly true enough. Not thin like models are supposed to be (yuck!), but thin for regular people.

That kind of thing is why I do my best to keep this about being in decent shape, rather than worrying about the numbers. It’s better for me and I don’t doubt a better example in the long run for my kids, especially my daughters.

I'm Going to Get Adjusted to Having 3 Kids! Really! I Am!

Stephanie — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:30:57 +0000

What can I say? It’s quite an adjustment having a baby around here again. It’s just so easy to forget just how much work a newborn is.

Good thing Selene is so darn cute. And sweet. And hungry.

Is she ever hungry! My biggest adjustment right now is probably just how much time I’m spending each day feeding her. It’s tiring but really in a good way. Although if you ask me that around 4 a.m. I might disagree. But that’s just the sleepy speaking.

Between her and my son, there’s very little time for working. Things can actually be better when my oldest daughter gets home if she and my son want to play. They might just ignore me for 1-2 hours! And if I’m really lucky the baby will sleep that whole time.

If I’m not careful, so will I.

Now that I’m more recovered, though, I’m not sleeping quite so much during the day and I’m actually occasionally getting some work done. But it can still be a struggle to get so much as a single blog post done, never mind the two I would like to get done, so I can post on more than one of my sites.

There’s all the extra laundry, of course. We’re cloth diapering this time around, so there’s a decided difference. Plus the older two have rediscovered the delights of digging in the dirt and adding in water to make it mud. Great pictures to laugh at later, but I have to be a bit picky now about the clothes they play outside in. I’m trying to limit the number of outfits stained.

Having 3 kids is getting to be fun again. I’m no longer so exhausted that I feel too worn out to appreciate what I have. Selene is getting awfully cute with those smiles.

Things I'm Remembering Now About Newborns

Stephanie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:08:21 +0000

It’s amazing how much I’ve forgotten about having a newborn baby from when I had my first two kids. I guess a nearly 4 year break between babies is a pretty long time.

And it’s not just the ever so delightful pains of childbirth, or in this case, C-section. Nope, there are many more things I’d forgotten.

Like how good even a 4 hour stretch of sleep feels. 5-6 hours is even better.

That tired can be a way of life.

That you should tuck those cute little floppy collars into baby’s clothes if you want her to sleep. Otherwise the collar tickles her cheek and causes a suckle reflex. Suddenly your peacefully sleeping baby wants to nurse.

How very fast babies grow out of clothes. Thank goodness for tons of handmedowns.

How much all of my kids have loved “Muttzart”. It’s really too bad they don’t make that toy anymore. Great music, and encourages babies to “talk” to it. Also very soothing when babies cry at night.

That it’s hard to get such little arms into the belts of a car seat. They feel so delicate.

That sometimes diaper changes feel like a waste of time. Selene’s a champion with this one. Change a diaper and… oops, there she goes again!

How hard it is to get work done when a baby needs you… or is just looking too cute to leave alone.

Am I Taking Enough Time Off After Having a Baby?

Stephanie — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:19:45 +0000

So here I am, blogging after having a baby. Shouldn’t I be taking a rest?

Not to worry folks, I am!

As I said before I had Selene, I took time before she was born to prewrite a lot of posts. Most of what you see is the result of that activity. It’s giving me the chance to take things much easier without completely abandoning my site. All I have to do is keep up with comments and the forum, and write if I feel like it.

I’m also taking this time to work on some site updates and such. A little behind the scenes work, if you will, while letting everything else run on a touch of autopilot. It takes the stress away. I have no idea if I’ll finish before I run out of prewritten posts, and I don’t particularly care. This kind of work can wait longer if necessary.

Keeping up with a little work feels good to me. I’m not so good at keeping my focus only on family and home. Working is an outlet for me.

And of course I’m taking time for my older two kids. They certainly need a little extra while their baby sister takes so much time.

Yes, I’m extra tired. And achy. You know the litany of postpartum complaints if you’ve had a child yourself. That’s why I planned things out so much.

Working this way is something of a treat. No goals. No self imposed deadlines. Just doing what I feel up to doing.

It’ll drive me nuts if I keep it up too long. I like having goals and self imposed deadlines. They ensure that I actually accomplish things. But until I have the energy for them I can call it a treat.

Here's Selene!

Stephanie — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:41:42 +0000

She’s now about a week and a half old, so I figured it was time to post about her birth. For some reason I’ve been too tired to do it before now.

Selene was born on January 30 by C-section. I had an OB appointment that morning, and my doctor did a dilation check on me. 3 cm dilated at that point, but she realized she was feeling something soft and round at my cervix, rather than hard and round.

Yes, breech.

Fortunately, unlike her big brother, she had plenty of fluid around her. That kept things from needing to be done in too much of a rush. On the other hand, 3 cm dilated meant I could go into full labor at any time.

My OB asked when I had last eaten, and scheduled me for a 7:30 p.m. C-section that evening. Got a warning to not eat or drink anything until then. Ugh! I’d only had a small breakfast.

She told me to go in one hour early, and to do some exercises to try to turn the baby. Only trouble is that most take days to work, and we had hours. But we tried our best in the hopes of having a VBAC rather than C-section. We sent the kids to my mother’s

No such luck. Another ultrasound was done at the hospital and she was still breech. But since I’d rather baby and I be safe than go with a particular birth plan, I went with the C-section. Aren’t many doctors willing to do a breech delivery these days and I would want someone experienced in that if I were to risk it.

Almost forgot. We got a call from the hospital at 5:30, asking where we were. Seems the OB got the schedule wrong. She delivers at 3 hospitals in the area, so I can see how that would happen. They wanted me in two hours early, not one. Good thing the kids had already been sent off to my mother’s house!

Still, everything went smoothly at the hospital and I was ready for surgery on time, much to the relief of the various employees. My husband and I did get a smile out of being told that our anesthesiologist would be Dr. Who (actually spelled Hu, but when you hear it and need a little humor, the other sounds better).

Now this next part may gross some people out, but I found it fascinating. Due to the positioning of one of the lights, I could see a reflection of everything that was going on. I didn’t watch the whole thing, and made sure to not tell the doctors so they wouldn’t move the light. That way I got to see Selene being born. The epidural allowed me to treat the rest of what I could see as more abstract, but getting that immediate glimpse of my daughter was worth it to me.

Didn’t pay much attention to the reflection the rest of the time. Blood doesn’t bother me that much, but I didn’t feel a need to see all that once I had seen my new daughter.

Selene was very small at birth for a full term baby. As my OB put it the next day, if she just would have flipped, she practically would have fallen out. My first daughter was 8 lb 10 oz, after all, while Selene was a mere 5 lb 9.7 oz. Just barely above what is considered to be a low birth weight baby. She was 18.5 inches long.

For all that she’s small, she is one alert baby! Took to nursing right off the bat and aware of the world around her.

She’s also my first good sleeper. Up just once a night most nights. With my other two I had to wait until they were 6 months or even a year old for that.

She’s very healthy too. Before her first week was up she had regained most of her birth weight despite losing nearly 10% at first. What can I say except she and I work well together?

Yes, I’m still tired. Still having some pain from the C-section despite wonderful help from family members. I’ve rarely been alone this entire time, and when I have been alone, it’s been because someone took the older kids off for an activity so I could just be with Selene and rest.

I’m starting to work a bit more now, but trying to take it easy yet these first few weeks. I’ll get back to normal as I heal, but since I’d like to get things right the first time and not have long term issues, I won’t be overdoing.

Can you believe Selene slept through this entire blog post? Me neither! I figured I would end up holding her at some point as I typed this!

Planning a Toddler's Birthday Right After Having a Baby

Stephanie — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:14:33 +0000

With a month or thereabouts to go, it’s really starting to hit me. This baby is coming soon. The only question is how soon, and how close to my son’s birthday near the end of next month.

By my calculations, if she goes two weeks over, they could be within a week of each other. Not so bad for future years, but for this year? Ugh! Double ugh if I get stuck with another C-section. That would absolutely delay things if it were close to my son’s birthday.

Thank goodness for 3, soon to be 4 year olds. He doesn’t know enough about calendars to really care when his birthday is celebrated. I just have to make sure his older sister doesn’t spoil it by doing a countdown, as she is all too fond of doing.

But there’s only so much we want to delay things, so we’re starting to think things through now. If baby comes soon enough, I’ll be kind of tired still, but no real need to delay things.

Thank goodness for retired, local grandparents! I don’t have to handle things completely alone!

We always keep things simple anyhow. Some friends for the kids, cake, and let them run around the back yard if weather permits. At that age it’s a great formula for a party.

Still, there are parents to warn, so we can figure out who is likely to be able to attend. I don’t like to invite kids at this age unless I know they can probably come. So disappointing to both my son and the other kids if someone can’t come.

This year’s key will definitely be simplicity. No matter how you count it, baby is likely to be no more than a month old when we do this. I’ll be tired; she’ll be little.

But it’s so important to my son to have his party. Having an older sister means he knows quite well about birthdays and parties. We can get away with some things, but not others. He’s already worried about what happens when baby comes, so this party will be in part a reassurance to him that he still gets the fun times.

And yes, Mommy will be resting during a lot of this. Daddy gets to worry about the details for once!