Entertaining Toddlers: A WAHM’s Guide

When you work from home, keeping your toddlers entertained when business matters arise can be a challenge. One of the reasons you chose to work from home was to be with your children, but there are times that you need a few moments to concentrate on work. While we do have a wide array of educational programming available to us today, TV isn’t always the answer to keeping young ones occupied. This list of suggestions might help and if it doesn’t fit your situation exactly, they will spark your creativity into tweaking it to suit your needs.

1. Set up a child-sized desk next to your own. By equipping it with some paper, crayons and perhaps a toy telephone, this set-up will allow your daughter to work right by your side.
2. Bring your laptop to one end of the dining room table while creating a Play-doh station at the other end. Your son will enjoy creating works to rival Michelangelo while you are able to catch up on email.
3. Set up your shipping area in the kitchen. Serving up a healthy mid-morning snack to your child will allow your hands to be free to package up your orders and get them ready for the post office.
4. Grab your legal pad and head on out to the back yard. You can enjoy the outdoors, feel your children’s joy as they explore nature and jot down your list of things to do for after they have gone to bed for the evening.
5. When they are very young, you can read anything to your child. It doesn’t matter if it is the phone book, because it is the tone of your voice that is important. So, print out that marketing eBook you have been waiting to review and read it out loud while they snuggle on your lap.

Multi-tasking is a key component to work from home success. You want your business to succeed and that takes a lot of work. You also want to be there with your children, enjoying their laughter and spending quality time with them. You can combine work with parenting when you take a moment to apply creative solutions to your day to day challenges.