Getting Things Done With a Baby on Board

Before my son was born, I suffered from delusions of grandeur though I did not know it at the time.

As a self-employed human, I’ve always worked from home. My wife works out of the house. I had envisioned ours to be a perfect situation — one in which I would be home to care for our baby during the day, yes — but one in which I would also still get tons of work done with my little guy by my side every productive step of the way.

I’ll wait until you’re done laughing before I continue…

Yeah. So, turns out…the land of reality couldn’t possibly be further from this land of foolish fantasy I lived in when envisioning such an idyllic scenario.

Cut to almost a year later and I can say with confidence that, in terms of work, the past 12 months have been the least productive months of my life. I know there are countless other parents out there who feel this same pain.

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Caring for any child is a difficult and demanding mission that puts innumerable constraints on your time and energy levels. Babies? Even more so. Even as I write this, I’m thinking about a thousand other things. Do we need more diapers? Formula? Should I start investing now for his future? How much longer until he wakes up from his nap?

Should I make more coffee? (The answer is always yes, by the way.)

During the average day, in my experience, the only real opportunity you have to get things done is when your child is asleep. I cannot stress enough how the act of establishing some sort of pattern when it comes to naps is of monumental importance if you hope to achieve anything ever again.

If your child doesn’t nap or doesn’t nap well, you should put all of your time and energy into figuring out why and fix whatever isn’t working right now.

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What works for me will likely be slightly different from what works for you and yours, but here’s the pattern we’ve settled into that seems to work best for us:

• Wake up, have bottle
• 2 hours later, have breakfast (usually oatmeal and fruit)
• 2 hours later, bottle and 1st nap
• PRODUCTIVITY TIME!
• 90–120 minutes later wake up, next bottle
• 2 hours later, more protein, fruit and veggies
• 2 hours later another bottle, then 2nd nap
• MORE PRODUCTIVITY TIME!
• 90–120 minutes later wake up, next bottle
• Rinse, wash, repeat until bedtime

At first, establishing a pattern like this will be harder but as your babe reaches 8–9 months of age this should become possible.

Two words: blackout curtains.

Two more words: sound machine.

Make the room where your baby will nap as dark as possible and play white noise either on a dedicated sound machine (like the Hatch) or on a Bluetooth speaker. A fan can work too, but I’ve found most fans aren’t quite loud enough.

In my experience, the combination of darkness and gentle sound signals to the baby that now is the time we nap (and daddy gets some work done.)

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It’s possible to get things done late at night while kiddo catches zzz’s in their crib but what about sleep for yourself? We may be parents, but we are still human and we need rest in order to just survive, much less thrive. Don’t neglect to take care of yourself. You have to be strong and healthy so you have the energy to take care of your little one.

Sure, you could write when you’ve put the child to bed. You could get some coding done. You could respond to that growing mountain of work email. You could even (god forbid) clean your house or (gasp) take a shower like some sort of freaky overachiever. But you could also check your eyelids for cracks.

There’s no better time for parents to get uninterrupted sleep than at night while baby slumbers.

Conversely, you could always wake up really early before your kid does and get things done during that quiet time but this is reality and you’re exhausted. When you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to fathom getting up any earlier than necessary. You are an exhausted parent, remember?

Take heart. Don’t worry. It gets better.

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Being a parent is wonderful and it’s the most important job we could ever have. We do, however, still have to maintain our health (and sanity), make a living, and provide for our kids.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach that works for everyone, getting into a groove with your baby and your schedule can be accomplished through a few weeks of fatigued trial and effort.

And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Hopefully, my experience can help inform yours. Leave a response and share your tips for getting things done with a baby on board!

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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