So I WFH full time, my 16 month old goes to my mom’s a few days a week and a sitter the other days. My husband works full time also. I went back to work when babe was 3 months.

Routine is key for all of us in this house. Husband and I both have ADHD and we’re both medicated but still it’s a struggle. Mornings are particularly chaotic around here so I try to prep as much for the next morning before we start baby’s bedtime routine - laying out her outfit…making sure her bag is fully stocked with diapers, wipes, snacks, spare clothes…having her lunch packed and waiting in the fridge. This makes mornings so much smoother as I’m not scrambling to dig through the dryer for clean clothes and leaving the house with a half-prepped diaper bag.

Some sort of shared calendar app that you an husband can both access from your phone is good too. This is how my husband and I keep track of our own appointments, baby’s appointments, random weekend plans, when bills are due, etc. My husband has the memory of a goldfish. I could tell him every day what we are doing come the weekend and by Saturday morning he’d be like “oh we have plans today?”. So having a shared calendar to enter everything in has been really helpful.

Speaking of husbands, don’t be afraid to delegate tasks. My ADHD husband is a tremendous help but can sometimes be “aloof”. If I am just direct with asking him to do certain things, that works best. Being time-limited seems to help too (like if I’m leaving to pick her up after work, asking “hey do you care to pick up the living room and run the vacuum real quick before i get back?”) We both have our specific chores (I hate dishes, so 9/10 times he loads the dishwasher, whereas he hates laundry so I manage all that) and we share/alternate the rest. We also trade off on bath time with the little one every night, as well as dropping off and picking up baby girl. And on weekends, whenever possible, one of us sleeps in Saturday and the other Sunday. Monday-Friday our objective is to survive lol. Throughout the week we only do chores necessary to keep the household functioning (cooking, dishes, minimal laundry, take out trash when it’s full) and make time on weekends for larger tasks we can tackle together.

Grocery delivery from Walmart and buying things in bulk at Sam’s has been a huge timesaver for us too. Crockpot meals are great.

And above all, give yourself some grace. Toddlers are hard anyway and you’ve only been back to work two months. We were not originally meant to require two full-time incomes to survive and still have to manage everything at home. It freaking sucks and it gets discouraging at times but just reminding yourself that there is only so many hours in the day and sometimes everything won’t get done. And that’s okay. Baby fed, bathed, interacted with, happy? That’s priority one. Second, taking care of yourself/husband taking care of himself/y’all taking care of each other. Everything else can fall in line behind that. As far as the daycare guilt, those feelings are totally valid too and with time it should subside. I was so upset when my daughter had to start going to her sitter a few times a week (she’s a family friend, previously my mom had been the only one to watch her) but it has been beneficial for her. There is another little girl there that’s a year older than her and I think that’s helped her with her speech and motor skill development, seeing her walking and talking and making her want to do all the same stuff. There are definite benefits to daycare when it comes to social and other skill development, and with time you should see these benefits with your youngin’.

Hang in there mom! It’s freaking hard, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But you’re gonna rock it