Well, I work for API! Talk about an employer who is understanding of my children's needs and our AP lifestyle!

I'm also a freelance writer. This allows me a very flexible schedule...I work around my kids' hours to get my writing done, and I love it!

I work for a family business, and my boss is my Mother-In-Law. I put in a LOT of work to be able to get things flowing well enough to work from home very very soon.

My schedule will be working from 6-8am and 6-8pm M-F (give or take) which will be perfect for the kiddos. 6-8am they are asleep, and 6-8 pm is "daddy time" since he's been gone all day. 8pm starts bedtime.

This will hopefully give me time to work on my API leader certification, the various sewing projects I have, as well as being the primary caregiver for my kiddos.

Of course, I'm adding a newborn to the mix in early June, so it'll all change!

WAH

I am currently home 2 days a week and in the office 3 days a week for a big computer project, but I began working primarily from home after my daughter was born. I am an IT Professional. I was running a Help Desk at the time of the switch and my employer was very supportive in my desire to work from home so that I could be the primary caregiver for my daughter. I am now a Business Analyst and helping to design our new computer system. I also programmed a bit while working from home. I've worn many hats for my employer - network and server administrator, software support, programmer, Manager, and Business Analyst in the last 10 years, so this has given me a bit of leverage to be able to ask to work from home. My biggest challenge has been fitting 8 hours of work into my busy day at home alone. This was easy until my daughter became more active - around 9 months old - then it was a serious juggling act that I still try to manage today that my daughter is 2.5. My motto has been family first and I try not to let the stress of my deadlines take away from my priorities. My house has been more of a mess than I like, but this really is at the bottom of my priority list.

My husband complained that I work more now than I did when I was in the office. I think this is natural as we don't want to feel like slackers not actually being there, but he didn't understand that out of the 12 hour day he was away, I was only able to focus on work for 5 - naps and phone conversations - so I need to work late evenings and weekends sometimes. When I went back in the office 3 days a week, it was actually much easier. I could actually be home when I was home and in the office staring at the wall with nothing going on and be on the clock. But I certainly wouldn't change things for the world. My husband gained perspective too, because he was on retirement leave for 4 months when I first went back "in" to work and saw how hard it is to get much else done with an active toddler.

I have a baby coming in October, so this will change things and present new challenges. I'm hoping to work part time then. We have 4 older children (my husband's that we've raised together for the last 11 years) - 2 we're putting through college, one in the army and one about to graduate high school, and a mother-in-law we're supporting so part time hasn't been an option, but we plan to downsize and hopefully live a little "cheaper" so that I will have that option in the near future.

Sorry for the long post, but thought I would add a little perspective. Working full time at home is much "harder" than in the office in the sense of time management, but it's much more rewarding than being away from my young child all day so it's definitely worth it! You just have to remember your priorities and try to keep some sort of a schedule to fit everything that needs to be done in. Working in the computer field certainly helps with my AP lifestyle because it is usually based on deadlines rather than hours of the day so the schedule is flexible. It wasn't a rare time for me to be programming at 9pm after my little one was asleep. When I am doing phone support, I can be supporting someone on the phone or participating in a meeting while stacking blocks with my little girl. Talk about multi-tasking!

Naomi

I am fortunate in that I work from home, and also I live in Tanzania where it is possible to employ two women to do housework and look after my baby while I am working, even though I get quite a low salary by western standards. I also work in the IT industry which is great as I can do quite a lot of work from home. Another good thing was that I worked for the same employer for 5 years before having my baby (at the office, not at home) - I think it would be more difficult if one was working for a new employer. If you have a long term relationship with your employer and they trust you to deliver from home then it works much better, I think it would be difficult to be in a relatively new job and working from home. I also think it is important to also have "office hours" and try to stick to them even when at home so at weekends and evenings you can relax properly and not be constantly thinking of work. As the previous person said, I could watch my baby and work at the same time up to the point when she started crawling and standing, at that point I think some form of child-minder in the home is necessary as you can't work at a computer and follow a crawling baby around at the same time! She can only stay in a playpen on her own for half an hour or so at a time. When she was smaller and I was breastfeeding more often, I could also go to meetings and bring my baby along together with a minder and they would walk around the area and I would come out of meetings to breastfeed, whereas now I leave her at home to go to meetings for a few hours as she doesn't need to breastfeed as often.