Stay At Home Moms - How You Can Actually Get Your Work Done With Kids Around

You will have no doubt heard lots of success stories about mompreneurs - these are women who work for themselves from home while also looking after their kids. And on the surface, it definitely sounds amazing - after all, you can drastically cut down on your childcare costs and work from the comfort of your own home! 

Unfortunately, though, trying to work from home while also looking after the kids isn’t quite as idyllic as some mompreneurs might like to make it sound. It can actually end up quite stressful, especially those times you are working on a deadline and the kids are screaming!

Wondering how stay at home moms actually get anything done during the day? Here are some of their tips!

source

Work While They Nap

If your kids are still relatively young and take daily naps, it is worth trying to do some of your hardest work during these naptimes. That way, you will be able to work in complete peace and quiet, so it’s a good idea to do some work that requires your complete concentration. Working in quick spurts like this can help you get your work done at other times when your kids don’t require your attention, such as when they are playing or doing their homework.

Automate Your Processes

One of the main things that take up a lot of a stay at home mom’s time is all the admin that comes with working for yourself. This includes admin things like arranging your tax payments and following up on unpaid invoices. Thankfully, there are ways you can speed up the time it takes to carry out these processes - you just need to use software and computer programs that can automate them for you. For instance, you can get accounting software and a check stub maker that speeds up taking care of all your finances. Once you’ve automated everything, your working time will be drastically cut!

Structure Your Day

Throughout your day, it’s important that you have blocks of time that you can dedicate to your work and some blocks that you can dedicate to your kids. The best way to think about how you should structure your work is to take a look at your calendar and add a couple of family activities through the day. This might be things like baking cookies together. That way, your kids won’t feel like they aren’t coming second to your work.

Always Ask For Help When You Need It

There will be times when working from home and looking after your kids gets too much for you. And it’s perfectly fine to reach out for help when all the stress gets too much. You might want to get in touch with a local nanny who can look after the kids for you for a couple of hours so that you can focus on all your work. If your parents or your partner’s parents are free, they might be able to take the kids out for the day so that you can get on with all your business things.

So, that’s how you do it!

What Do You Mean, "No Screen Time"?

We live in a world that is digitally led and this digital uprising has filtered down into the activities that we do on a day to day basis with our children. This has led to an increase in the number of children who now spend less time outside and more time indoors in front of a variety of technological gadgets.

Image Source

Wherever you look online, you’ll find article after scholarly article about screen time guidelines for our children that we should all be adhering to. There is a balancing act when it comes to screen time, and it has nothing to do with the internet options available in your area which often affect how much you can stream. Every parent across the world will have their own rules when it comes to the amount of exposure that their children get to television or tablets, but should we be looking at the official health guidelines instead?

Image Source

Our children are surrounded by digital media all the time. Even if we don’t leave the television running in the background all day, they’ll see billboards that used to be paper are now digital screens. They’ll see adverts for games consoles and tablets. They’ll see the marketing of tablets aimed at children that are packed full of educational apps and games. Screen time is as much a part of our everyday lives now, as coloring books and crayons used to be. Adults rely heavily on technology to get work done, and we rely on Netflix and tv show and film streaming entertainment. In 2011, only 35% of adults owned a smartphone with an interactive screen. This number has soared to 95% in 2017. The reliance we have on the internet and our screens as adults filter down to our children – so they are bound to pick it up!

Image Source

When you tell your children that it’s time to put the screens away, you could find yourself at a loss of what to do instead, and it’s so important that they know there is more to life than staring at an iPad. The screen time that our kids get tends to vary based on the activities of the day, or whether they are in school or not. There are plenty of other ways that your children can have fun without the crutch of an interactive screen to help. Check out the list below and try and implement some into each day you are with the kids:

• Get messy in the garden and plant and water flowers
• Visit a local beach and have a sandcastle building contest
• Work on writing your own comic and illustrating it
• Build a blanket fort
• Got a trampoline? Go for a jump!
• Fill water balloons and have a water fight
• Go on a nature hunt
• Cook together as a family for dinner

Filling the free time of your children without a screen to entertain doesn’t have to be hard. Simply think back to when you were a child – how did you entertain yourself?

Holy Fixture! Sorting Your Property Problems Out

Image

We all have our pet hates with our own house, and there are so many things that, if we had an infinite amount of money, we would completely redesign. After all, the amounts of interior design companies that cater towards the type of person with limited finances are minimal indeed! When we are looking to fix up our home, whether we are looking to sell or are looking to make our homestead a little bit more appealing, the one thing that takes priority over every little design flaw is the home repairs. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to invest a huge amount to make your home safe and habitable for your buyers, but instead, make a few simple changes…

Diffusing Dinnertime Disasters WIth Your Small Child

It’s far from a common problem but that doesn’t make it any less distressing. When your child goes on food strikes, it can create a very instinctual panic. Your child doesn’t quite grasp how worried their fussy eating makes you, of course, so it’s up to you to come up with the solution. Here are three problems that might be contributing to the disastrous dinner times before they become part of your everyday routine.

Picture linked by Pixabay

Set the mood

Sometimes, it’s all down to the fact that they don’t feel like they’re in the right mood for eating. Sugar can interfere with all the regular food cravings for instance, so it’s a good idea not only to limit it but to avoid it entirely before their last meal of the day, it not entirely. Children are much more likely to go along with what their parents are doing, too. By sitting down to focus on your own meal, you can make dinner a fun family experience rather than a daily struggle with them. Try and approach the situation with a calm assurance, rather than constantly fussing over them and trying to coax or even bribe them into eating. When they know that acting out pays off, they’re only more likely to repeat the problematic behavior.

Get them in position

Where they are and how they’re sitting can make a big difference in whether they’re going to eat, too. Though it might not seem like it, children like a little structure. If you’re feeding them just about anywhere, they might be more prone to get distracted and to focus elsewhere. It won’t feel like “dinnertime” if they’re having dinner where they also watch their favorite cartoons. Have them out at the table without toys and without distraction. Getting the right high chair is important, too. If they’re not being supported and they have an uncomfortable posture, then the whole experience can become stressful for them. Just make sure you get one that’s adjustable, as your kid’s going to be growing in that chair and you will have to get more replacements than you expect if you don’t.

Switch it up

As adults, we suffer meal fatigue the same time. You can only eat mac ‘n’ cheese for so long before even looking at it is enough to put you in a grim mood. Your child feels the same, even if they don’t express it. Children naturally veer towards a balanced diet with different tastes in it, so long as sugar isn’t taking over their appetite. Don’t just keep preparing the same meal for them every day and expect them to like. When they try new things, don’t make a fuss trying to get them to try it. Leave them to it, if you can, see what they eat and what they avoid. By relying on similar tastes and ingredients, you can build up a stock of favorites you keep going back to rather than just the same meal time and time again.

Of course, it’s important to be aware of other reasons your child might not be eating. If they’re feeling ill or they’re teething, they certainly won’t feel in a fit state to eat but they might not quite be able to communicate that. For most other causes the tips above should help you get their diet back on track.

Sources Of Interior Design Inspiration

We all know that feeling when, suddenly, you just want change. Your house has looked the same for years, and you’re suddenly itching to do something different. You want a new look, a new feel. You don’t have any specifics in mind; you just know that you want things to be different. 

At this point, you may find inspiration easy to come by. Powered by your desire for something different, you immediately know exactly what you want. You have color schemes already planned; you know exactly the look you want from new furniture; now all you have to do is find the time to put your ideas into action. 

Ideally, immediate ideas and inspiration are how it should go, but things don’t always work out quite like that. While you’ve reached a point of knowing you want something different, you’ve yet to quite ascertain what it is you want instead. If you’re keen on the idea of change but struggling for inspiration as to what you should change to, then these sources might be just what you need. 

Go Online

https://pixabay.com/en/icon-set-social-media-contact-1142000/