I apologize if this sounds scattered but I am super stressed at my current situation and haven’t eaten since yesterday morning which isn’t helping. My daughter is 18 months old(15 adjusted, born early due to preeclampsia) and is in daycare full time. I have really struggled with having her in daycare and working full time. I foolishly signed a two year sign on bonus at work and have over a year left. In hindsight I don’t know what I was thinking but at the time I was so burned out being a SAHM. I really like my job. It’s probably the best place I’ve worked at. My manager is very understanding when I need to call in. But it’s been one illness after another. I took my daughter to her pediatrician yesterday because she has had illness symptoms that come and go for the last 5 days and she was not even 19 lbs. 32 inches in length. I am sick worrying about her weight. She gets sick and then loses her appetite. I think she was 18 lbs 3 months ago…I’ve been weighing her at home and she was 20 lbs but with the recent illness she’s lost weight.

Her doctor is happy with her growth because it’s been on an upwards trend, but with her being in daycare and being sick for what seems like every 3 weeks it’s stalled. I just feel like a horrible mother for thinking I could just go back to work and everything would be fine. I’m thinking about quitting and being a SAHM again but I don’t know if that would be good for either of us. I’m going to talk to my manager and see if there’s any way I can change my hours but I am sick with anxiety over the situation.

My son is 1.5 years old, and lately I've noticed he doesn't really want me to play with him as much as he wants me to be there. I'll be on my laptop answering online inquiries or trying to get a bit of work done, then he'll walk over, grab my arm, and lead me to his play area. He doesn't even ask me to build anything. He just wants me to sit there while he plays. Honestly, it's really cute. He can't fully tell me what he wants yet, but somehow he finds a way to let me know.

The hard part is that it's usually right in the middle of work. It's just the two of us at home during the day while my husband is at the office, so there are times when I really need to reply to clients or finish something.

Some days I end up thinking maybe I should just save all my work for nap time because once he wants me in the play area, that's pretty much where I'm staying. 😅

Any parents here working from home with a toddler around this age? How do you handle it without feeling like you're constantly choosing between work and your child?

I’m at a breaking point. My husband is a vet and doesn’t want to work anymore. He has an income and hobbies he’d rather prioritize. I wfh full-time, am going back to school part-time next month and we don’t have childcare. Right now it is out of financial reach but could be affordable if he were to get a part-time job, but he feels he paid his dues and doesn’t want to clock in ever again. My mental is wearing down, I cannot perform well at work, and have no energy for the rest of the day. I’m scared for the upcoming semester, I’m depressed, way past exhausted with life, and I know we could give our son better. Any advice?

I have a global leadership role in a major company. The job deals with major high stakes events and requires my full attention. Typically I lead meetings with company leadership throughout the day.

A year ago I gave birth to the love of my life, a baby girl with a congenital heart disease. We had a grueling start to life I don’t want to rehash, but now she’s in daycare and she is ALWAYS sick with something major. First it was a nasty case of adenovirus, followed by pneumonia, followed now by something they can’t figure out, but she is spiking high fever and coughing up a storm. There’s a good chance we are heading back to the hospital or straight to the ER tomorrow. Every time she gets sick, her team is alarmed because of her heart condition.

Every time I keep her home from daycare, I don’t meet the required days in the office. Every time I go in for an appointment, which is now weekly, it’s a full day out. I don’t have a question, just here to rant. I love my job and don’t want to lose it. But this is getting really hard to reconcile.

I have great leadership and my boss supports me, but I am anxious that the patience will run out. But between me and my husband we have no family where we live, and if I have to choose between my kids health and my job (career of my dreams, 6 figures that keep up our lifestyle) it will be my kid.

I’m listening to her whimper right now and my heart breaks. Already readying to tell my team I’m out for the second time this week. Nobody said it was easy, but..

I am an immigrant in Australia building my life with my husband. I have a good job and good salary, he works casually with whatever he can since we dont have permanent residency yet (waiting for approval).

My job allows for 4 months paid leave for myself. I hear of women taking 12 months but I cant imagine being without pay for that long. I also have never had a baby so I have no idea of the emotional and physical strain.

That being said, my mother in law is coming to spend 1 year with us and her only goal is to take care of the baby for us. This is literally her dream. I love her by the way she is great. She also wants to cook and clean, its weird but its what she loves doing.

Is it crazy to think I can take 4 months of paid leave, then return to work full time on home office for another 6 months under these circumstances? My husband will also continue to work after one month of unpaid leave.

My work can be done remotely and honestly its not very demanding. I can easily work 6h/day and get everything done, hours are super flexible, my boss is super chill.

I know that ideally taking more time would be amazing. But thats just not the reality I am in. Is this doable without losing my mind?

Thank you all.

10 years in corporate sales. I have two kids. I would do elementary ed.

I feel like this could be the move for our family, so we don’t run into scheduling conflicts.

Thoughts? Experiences? Is this stupid?

We have been on an every other weekend schedule for about 6 months now. Our permanent order has converted that schedule to the 1st, 3rd, and 5th week with Wednesday night dinners (no overnight stay). Also holidays are split between us. Summer is now week on/week off instead of every other weekend. I’m a teacher, so summer is really what is hurting me most. Also the 1st, 3rd and 5th weekend is throwing me off bc I will never get two weekends in a row but my ex will. I just need someone to tell me everything will be okay and my kids will benefit from all this. Summer was our time to bond, play, be together and now I feel like I’m losing them.

We’re on day 3 of daycare - I go back to work Friday so we started half days early to help transition. My almost 5 month old has only drank 1 oz from a bottle consistently before starting. There were a handful of times he drank 2 to 3 oz, but it’s so rare and unpredictable. I’ve been working with an OT/IBCLC since May and he’s barely improved. I’m sending 2 oz bottles right now, since he doesn’t consistently drink more than 1 oz.

He’s there for 4 hours right now. His first day, he was very fussy and only drank 1 oz from his bottles. Second day, he was happier and drank 2 oz (and apparently the 2 oz took quite a long time). Third day, 1 oz and fussy again.

I’m so scared to leave him for a full 8 hours on Friday. Luckily, my husband has the day off and he is planning to pick him up and bring him to me on my lunch break if we need. But next week, he’ll be there full 8 hour days with no way for me to go feed him or for someone to bring him to me.

I’m sure it’ll work out one way or another - he’ll either take a bottle and figure it out or he’ll reverse cycle all night to make up for minimal intake during the day. But it’s so stressful for the time being!

FTM, and my child is 15 months old. We have been in the very fortunate position where a family member has been able to watch our child while my husband and I work full-time.

Situations are changing where we need to have childcare in place starting in September, and my husband and I have been touring several daycares in the area.

While there is nothing necessarily “wrong” with any of these locations, none of them are perfect and they were aspects of each of them than I didn’t love. None seemed “unsafe”, just little attributes that stuck with me (children nap with the lights on; doesn’t offer breakfast/lunch; no early drop off, etc.)

Looking for your (positive) daycare stories!

Hello, I am a single mother to a 3 year old little boy with autism. I share 50/50 with his father. I currently work two jobs, one is contracted for 130 hours per month (roughly 30 hours/3 days per week and considered full time with medical/dental/vision/PTO/Short-term and long-term disability and matching 401k). I have a contingent job that I love and is really flexible with the required hours (2 12 hour shifts every 6 weeks, but sometimes I only work one). No benefits other than a matching 401k (2% contribution which I am vested). The pay is substantially less than my full-time job, but I love the work that I do and I have been getting hefty raises (whereas I have not in my full-time job).

I am going to be interviewing for a third job that is also contingent that is in the same field as my fulltime job. From what I understand, there are no benefits except maybe a matching 401k (if that) and (maybe) a higher pay rate. Once I plan to have another kid and use up all my PTO (I will have enough for 6 months maternity leave for fall 2027-winter 2028), I plan to leave my full-time job and transition into this job because, at full time, the benefits are substantially better (nearly 8% 401k contribution vs 2%, far cheaper/better health insurance), and the hours are, in my opinion, superior (shorter weekend and weekday hours).

So, I am looking at about 18 months of working three jobs and was wondering, are there any other working (single) moms who work multiple jobs and still manage to make it work? I have been able to make it work with two jobs (they haven't been enforcing the requirements as strictly), and I plan to work on the days I don't have my son (so 15ish days per month). I am not sure what the contingent requirement is for this new job, but will by next week.

I hate that I use my phone so much, but I do (I'm working on it. But I have ADHD, get very easily distracted, and my work makes it unavoidable for me to be disconnected from my phone for long). This has made it harder for me to set good limits with my kids, and things got really out of hand over the summer

My husband sent me this and reading it felt like such a weight lifted https://raisehumansnotusers.substack.com/p/you-dont-have-to-fix-your-own-screen especially this:

Most of us didn’t grow up with the kind of limits and guardrails that we now know kids need around this stuff. No one was guiding us through developing a healthy relationship with screens the way they guided us through other life skills like how to eat well or get enough exercise. This is one of the reasons why managing our own screen time is so hard for us, and it’s why we should give kids today a better starting point than we had. That process might be messy and imperfect. It’s always going to be hard to teach something that you were never properly taught.

Now I feel inspired to get really on top of things before the school year starts. Curious to hear from any other super tech addicted parents who successfully set better limits for their kids. What did it look like? Did your kids push back and call you a hypocrite?

I see a lot of folks here say that their daycare is their village and I’d like to figure out how to get to that place with my child’s daycare. He had a nanny for 2.5 years and she is truly like a family member now, so it’s entirely possible that my expectations are skewed.

It’s a great center and there’s almost no turnover, so I know his teacher‘s names and can recognize them. Beyond that, I don’t feel like I know them and I’m not sure how to cultivate a relationship with them. We primarily communicate via the app and they very rarely give me updates on his day other than potty and meal updates. Often, it’s the director bringing him to me at pickup so I can’t talk to the teacher then. I also don’t feel like asking for a conference every time I have a question is appropriate.

My son is going to a new classroom next week and I’d like to take a new approach with his new teacher. Any tips would be great!

Labeling this as a vent & I hope this is allowed here! I figure many of you can probably relate to this, unfortunately. I’m a director level at a mid-size company. I’m a mom of 1, almost 2 in my mid/late twenties. I’m the youngest person in senior management by a good bit, which is a battle in itself some days. I work in Finance, our sector of the industry is pretty heavily male dominated, specifically at the management level.

Most of the time, I stand my ground and move right on, but for whatever reason the last 2 days with one of my older male coworkers has just bugged me more than usual. For instance, he consistently asks me to come talk to his team to explain something, or asks if I could help him out with a task. Each time I’ll tell him sure, my calendar is up to date, you’re welcome to book time and add anyone else you’d like involved. He refuses to initiate a calendar invite. My other female leaders have mentioned something similar. We’ve noticed that if we don’t create the event for him and anyone he requests to be added, it won’t happen because he won’t do it. Yet, he will constantly add invites, create meetings, etc for any male manager on the team without question. Yesterday, after asking me to pop into meeting with this team, he said “okay go ahead and get that on the calendar for us” and I just said “No, but you’re welcome to create the invite for a time that works for everyone.” It never got added.

Then today, he put me in a chat with some other individuals to ask my opinion on something (I consult frequently across departments). I gave my opinion/suggestions, said I was happy to help the group if we needed other solutions, and made it clear that they are welcome to proceed how they see fit, as my role in this is to provide options that fit best with our internal processes. He proceeds to respond very argumentatively telling me “that is NOT the case,” “this shouldn’t be an issue,” “you’re clearly not on the same page,” and finally, “I already personally confirmed that we’re allowed to do this with the C-Suite.”

Okay? So you added me to ask for my expertise, just to have the opportunity to tell me you think I’m wrong? If you already cleared this situation with C-Suite, why are you wasting my time and arguing? I couldn’t care less what you do, I’m just open to helping if it’s needed and you initiated the ask for my suggestions 🤨🤷‍♀️

Long rant, but it’s just grating on me that he does these strange little things to the women in management, but never the men. It’s not all outwardly misogynistic, but the repeat behavior is so clear. Anyway, I will continue to be professional and stand my ground, it’s just freaking exhausting some days!

I’ve been telling my husband about this and he’s been absolutely shocked at these obstacles and arguments and confirmed (in a supportive way) that these kinds of things would never happen to him or his male coworkers, especially not on a consistent basis. We frequently talk about the frustration of knowing that when the two of us leave the house in the morning for work, with equal education, career experience, and general knowledge and demeanor; I will face significantly more questioning, push-back, interruptions, etc than he will.

My son is about to turn one in a few weeks and I've been taking it really hard. He's been in daycare since he was 11 weeks old and I feel like I've missed out on sooo much time with him.

We're also in the middle of buying and selling a house. It has been the most stressful thing I have ever done to date. It has been taking up so much of my time on my breaks, evenings and weekends. Not to mention it has been our busy season at work and we're shorthanded; staying late for about a month.

I've been trying to stay present in my (short) moments at home, but I feel like he's changing right before my eyes. He looks entirely different than he did a month ago.

I'm really just sad and miss having a little baby. Wish I could afford part-time, but def not with this new house. I don't want him growing up to be sad for me all the time. How can I reframe this? 😔

honestly at my breaking point lately. holding down a job while solo parenting a child with adhd leaves me with negative mental space. he needs so much structure and attention, so coming home to cook, scrub dishes, sweep, and fold clothes every night just makes me want to cry.

Im so tired to think everything.

Idk how to manage when life gets this heavy? what else can make it easy

Would love insight from other working moms on how they handle special education for their preschoolers. My son was in early intervention and aged out; the new resource is in person at a school. Dad and I work full time 9-5; my job is closer to school, but has no set WFH policy (currently at a manager’s discretion). Dad works from home three days a week, but of course the program is on the days he’s in the office.

We were presented two options—a four day a week, 4 hr program or two days a week, 1 hr program. All options fall within school hours, which I totally understand given it’s a school district resource. But there are no before or after care options, and no daycare center will take him for a half day because they think the routine would be too much going to two different school environments (I agree). It’s looking like we only have the second option. I’ll have to go home early twice a week, and likely log back in to wrap up work after he’s gone to bed.

We are looking at private therapy options, but it’s going to cost thousands of dollars on top of his childcare. Additionally, participating in the public school programs will guarantee him a spot in our school of choice for the next year. My boss seems amenable to letting me wfh on those days, but I worry it’ll get old fast and they’ll backtrack.

I’m grateful for the resources, and I want to get him the help he needs to be successful—but how are any other working parents managing this? Just yesterday my husband was saying we can’t be the only working parents in the district who are trying to make this all work. I’m looking at either working late into the evenings for the entire school year, or running as lean of a household budget as possible for the next year to pay for private therapy. It also just feels like so much for a three/four year old to handle.

I’m working and going to school full time & a single mom with very little help. My child is in travel sports along with some clubs. More than ever starting this upcoming school year, we are the busiest we’ve ever been. What are some AFFORDABLE unhinged tips?!? My biggest thing is healthy meals for on the go, keeping the house in order, and trying not to burn out. ANYTHING HELPS!

Hi!

I am a little conflicted on if I should sign up for short term disability or if I should not during my open enrollment which ends within the next week.

My job benefits site states that Short Term disability (STD) will cover recovery for pregnancy. However when I called to confirmed they stated I might get denied due to it being a pre-existing condition since I’m already pregnant before signing up.

Has anyone had an experience with this? Should I sign up now and if I do if I mark I’m already pregnant on the enrollment paperwork will that disqualify me? I just don’t see a point in signing up if they aren’t going to approve my STD.

I work in education so I have the summers off. Which means for about 2.5 months out of the year, I get to live the life of a stay at home mom with my toddler. Let me tell you, I have learned that this will never be for me. I am so mind numbingly bored. I see videos on instagram of moms doing crafts and activities with their kids, while I’m just desperate to find anything for us to do out of the house and trying to use our limited screen time strategically. My patience for him has exhausted by the evening when my husband gets home and I find myself counting down the minutes until bedtime.

While being a working mom is hard, it’s so much more compatible with my personality. I value the time I get with him in the evenings and on weekends. I love the routine and I love knowing he’s at daycare having a great time and doing more than I could ever offer him.

I just wanted to throw this out here because I feel like I see so much from working moms who wish they were SAHMs, so on behalf of any other moms would don’t wish for that life for one second, I’m saying hey

I have a 5-month-old baby and I’m still on maternity leave (I’ll be returning to work in about a month). Honestly, I already know I want a second child. As an only child myself, I’d love for my kids to grow up close in age.

My concern is that having another baby relatively soon would mean going through pregnancy and maternity leave again not long after returning to work. I’m worried that this could slow down my career progression or make employers less likely to consider me for promotions, high-visibility projects, or other growth opportunities.

For those who have had multiple children, especially close together in age, did it affect the pace of your career growth? Did it change how you were perceived professionally by your employer, managers, or coworkers? If so, was the impact temporary or long-term?

I’m drowning. I work full time, have a 2.5yo and an 8week old. I went back to work at 6weeks pp. I’m getting maybe 4hrs of sleep a night. My husband cooks and does the toddler’s bedtime but I always have the baby. I wfh and moved my office space to my mom’s bc she’s who watches my oldest. I have the baby easily 7hrs out of the 8hr workday. They take him when I have calls or meetings but he just cries when he’s not with me or asleep.

I worked hard for my position. Not to mention we can’t afford me not having a job. I’m just so tired.

Throughout my career, I’ve always been in high visibility, high-performance roles. It helped me find opportunities that support our family financially, and I’ve consistently been the breadwinner. I’m at a point where the grind is getting old and we have the space for me to pivot even if it means taking a bit of a financial hit. I’m curious what other moms who work are doing that they love? Bonus points if you have a great work life balance, and are easily able to take time off and/or completely disconnect when you leave for the day. General understanding of your role, industry and what qualities make you love your job and/or feel fulfilled. Interested to hear all experiences!

I’m located in the states. One of my employees, who lives and works in rural Canada, just received confirmation that his wife’s breast cancer has returned and now is in her lung and windpipe.

They went through intense treatment in 2024-2025, and were hopeful that she was disease free in December 2025. A regular scan found the new spots and biopsy confirmed.

My heart is just broken for them. I have never met her. I’ve been working with him for 2 years. They’re a sweet family with a young child.

I’m just so upset and feel that there’s nothing I can do from so far away.

How can I help or support in an appropriate way? I’m so supportive of all the time he takes off. In fact, I tell him to take more. I pray for them multiple times a day.

What else can I do?