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Am I an unsupportive wife? Work-at-home parents

Topics relating to managing people and relationships

Dinho7

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Hi fastlaners!

I am a mom to a 10 month old baby, a student and a business owner.

I find it so hard to manage my time with all my responsibilities at home, especially putting hours and work towards my business.

My husband and I basically have an online store. We have been working for 4 months and put $20K which we have in debt.

We've had 5 sales so far with very little marketing, and we are adapting to our market and adjusting as quickly as possible.

I just feel like we don't put enough hours, because one of us has to take care of the baby while the other one works. We can't really afford daycare, and I study online so I can take care of the baby.

My husband wants 8 hour workdays, which I would love to "give" him by taking care of the baby. However, I need to work too because I am a graphic designer and I do most of the photography/ design work. He asks me to do a bunch of tasks and doesn't give me the time for it. He has thrown a bunch of money to crappy fivver designers only to have me edit it later. His former website won an award with my help and tips.

I guess what I am asking is... Am I being an unsupportive wife by asking h to take over baby care so I can work too?

It's got so bad that I stay up at night just to get the minimal work done (photography+ post-processing)

I just want to learn from other parents... How do you do it?

Do you use daycare?

Do you budget it as a business expense?

How is time allocated between your family time and business hours?

Also, how do you keep hope up when you are on the start-up phase?

Thank you so much for your responses:)
 
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El Guapo

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Just my two cents but in my opinion i'm not entirely sure how you expect to grow the business to the level you wish when by the sounds of it you are barely putting 8 hours of work each day towards the business between you. I know its extremely tough working whilst raising young children. However with you both there to pitch in I find it difficult to believe that each of you can't manage close to an 8 hour day given that you're at home and can likely take turns with your child.
 

Dinho7

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Just my two cents but in my opinion i'm not entirely sure how you expect to grow the business to the level you wish when by the sounds of it you are barely putting 8 hours of work each day towards the business between you. I know its extremely tough working whilst raising young children. However with you both there to pitch in I find it difficult to believe that each of you can't manage close to an 8 hour day given that you're at home and can likely take turns with your child.

I needed to hear that.

I suggested that we alternate... He gets Monday through Wednesday of 8 hour workday, and I get Thursday through Saturday 8-hour workdays.

We have tried him going to the library/outside the home office so he gets more work done. I cannot do this because design work and photography requires a fast computer, a large screen and a studio set-up.

"Reality" hits and we end up all over the place... He needs me to finish certain tasks before he can progress such as waiting for design work or photography. We end up pushing and pulling to get our work done.

I just wish there was a better way. Is there anyone who has additional time management skills?
 

Mouse

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maybe you guys could have one of you work mornings and the other afternoons. Plan outings with the baby, swimming, walks, get a family pass to the zoo, so the other can stay home and work. Also, work when the baby naps.
 
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miked_d

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In summary:

You=Mom+Student+Business Owner
Him=Dad+Business Owner

Assuming you each sleep 8 hours and have 2 hours for other stuff (coffee in morning, personal hygiene, decompressing at end of day), you should each have about 14 hours of productive time in a day.

Who does the housework, cooking, shopping, laundry, etc? Those things take time.

Also, why does your profile say you are male?
 

Dinho7

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In summary:

You=Mom+Student+Business Owner
Him=Dad+Business Owner

Assuming you each sleep 8 hours and have 2 hours for other stuff (coffee in morning, personal hygiene, decompressing at end of day), you should each have about 14 hours of productive time in a day.

Who does the housework, cooking, shopping, laundry, etc? Those things take time.

Also, why does your profile say you are male?

Him= dad+business owner+ student

Me= laundry, cleaning, cooking
Him= cooking, shopping once a week

14 hours of productive time go out the drain when our baby needs:
Feeding every 2 hours, plus 3 meals a day (+cleanup), diaper changes every 2 hours, naps (+struggling to put him down for a nap), baths, watching baby not eat everything in his path (+ fishing stuff like hair balls, gross stuff, screws, bottles out of his mouth).

Moral of the story: have kids AFTER you start a business.

Ps: I hijacked my husband's account, which is why it says male. I'll create my own account eventually.

We still get work done, I just wish it had more method and organization rather than running to get things done.
 

BlakeIC

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adding on to what has been said i feel you guys should have your time organized more efficiently, who does what at this time who works on this on this day

i hope someone can put it in better words than I
 
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Dinho7

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maybe you guys could have one of you work mornings and the other afternoons. Plan outings with the baby, swimming, walks, get a family pass to the zoo, so the other can stay home and work. Also, work when the baby naps.

Thank you for the awesome tips:)

I guess I'll sign up for a mommy and me class, or something else I can do so we can get more work done.
 

Dinho7

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there is your answer, sit down and figure out a time schedule

Yes, this helps too. We have a color coded schedule that has times when he takes care of the baby, when I take care of the baby, when we work/study/take time for ourselves or have family outings. This helps keep the disaster contained to a minimum.

However, I need to figure out a way to make our time more focused, like mouse said, one of us could go out while the other one works. It would just need to be for several hours a day.
 
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miked_d

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14 hours of productive time go out the drain when our baby needs:
Feeding every 2 hours, plus 3 meals a day (+cleanup), diaper changes every 2 hours, naps (+struggling to put him down for a nap), baths, watching baby not eat everything in his path (+ fishing stuff like hair balls, gross stuff, screws, bottles out of his mouth).

When I said productive, I was including childcare. I know children can consume huge amounts of time.

Sounds like you have a toddler. When my son was that age, I would take him to all kinds of places that were free. Walks with a stroller, the mall (nice bathrooms), the park, museums, carnivals, farmers markets, etc. Anything with lots of activity.
 

RMarques

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Don't use lack of time as an excuse.
Don't use your child as an excuse.
Everyone on this earth is given 24 hours in a day.
You can't control time. You can maximize it.
Analyze your life and DELETE the DISTRACTIONS.
You need to get your shit together so that you as parents can create an amazing life for your family.
No one's gonna be able to do that but YOU.


I can relate to you.
We have a 3 month old and an 18 month old.
I own two full time businesses.
Everything changed when I stopped being a victim.
 

lnBetween

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I'm not in eCommerce so I might be wrong but how did you spend 20k on your online business if you did the design yourself and didn't spent much on marketing? Also, 5 sales over a four month period seems very low! Seems like you might be spending your time AND money inneficiently? Or maybe you're not selling the right product?
 
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biophase

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My first thought was also $20k? And all you mention is photography and 5 sales? Are you guys working smart? I get the feeling you are not working on the right things.
 

Dinho7

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Hi InBetween and biophase,

I actually made a progress thread about it:
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/making-5k-a-month-by-august-2015.57235/

The business has only been open ONE week, hence the 5 sales only, without advertising.

We've been working for 4 months on the set-up.

Most of the money is held up on inventory.

Our one-time fees are around 7K. We needed something a little better than shopify and more customizable. We both did our homework and we've got at least 3 other people review the site. I mean people with more expertise in graphic design and business than we do.

We could have probably spent less on the website, but it's done now.
 
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tafy

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You need to get someone to look after the baby or use a service/babysitter something.

I have a 10 month old and I cannot get anything done at home, the wife cant cope with the baby 24 hours a day so when I am home I have to play and look after him. Luckily I dont need much time for the business yet, but soon I will. So I will be in same boat as you.

Put him in creche for atleast 4 hours a day and get to work, grandparents or local babysitter would be better though.
 
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Dinho7

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You need to get someone to look after the baby or use a service/babysitter something.

I have a 10 month old and I cannot get anything done at home, the wife cant cope with the baby 24 hours a day so when I am home I have to play and look after him. Luckily I dont need much time for the business yet, but soon I will. So I will be in same boat as you.

Put him in creche for atleast 4 hours a day and get to work, grandparents or local babysitter would be better though.

Adding additional expenses is just going to put more strain on us.

I think there are two points of struggling as an entrepreneur. The first one is good: it's the point where you are not comfortable enough that you want to change things. The second point is just pure inability to keep going... Where you fight with your spouse, end up being unproductive and have severe lack of hope that the business will make it.

I refuse to be on the second option, so I do everything to keep us afloat... I've come up with sales on the side through eBay/craigslist and Amazon worth over $1K. Still, we need the business to work, and we are doing it for our little one.

We don't have family around us that can care for our baby for free, unfortunately. Our parents live in different countries.
 

Dinho7

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You need to get someone to look after the baby or use a service/babysitter something.

I have a 10 month old and I cannot get anything done at home, the wife cant cope with the baby 24 hours a day so when I am home I have to play and look after him. Luckily I dont need much time for the business yet, but soon I will. So I will be in same boat as you.

Put him in creche for atleast 4 hours a day and get to work, grandparents or local babysitter would be better though.

I forgot to add... we did consider that I become a stay-at-home mom for a while, which would mean that I would take care 100% of the baby.

However, my husband wanted to spend time with our baby too and needs my help with the business, so I decided against this path.

I also want a stake in the company, which means putting sweat equity, not only capital.
 
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tafy

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Get someone to look after the baby for 4 hours a day, then you both work hard in the 4 hours
 
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Durete

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At the start of every week, sit down. Hold a business(and life) meeting.

Write down all the things that need to be done, and how much time it will take you.

Then take a calender and schedule it in.


And yes, it is really as simple as that. all the rest are excuses.
(I'm allowed to say, I study, work a 14 hour work day, spend an hour a day in the gym, hosting a poker tournament and I am building a business at the same time)
 

~Phil

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To do this you have to be a team. You MUST be consistent and organized. When you have three kids like we do, well now your out numbered. You go from man to man coverage to zone defense. Here's how my wife and I managed when our three boys were little...
I worked day shift Monday through Friday. Watched the kids after work on weekdays and all day on the weekends. I was finishing my IT degree at the time so I studied for my classes after the kids went to bed. They were little then so we had consistent bed times for the kids. I think it was 8 pm.
My wife was home with our boys during the week days. She made some extra money by watching some other kids but not all day baby sitting, just before school and after school care. On the weekends she worked at the local hospital. Double shift on Saturday and double shift on Sunday for total of 32 hours a week.

Was it easy? Hell no!!! But we worked together and survived. Also, we felt it was important to teach our kids how to have some time by themselves so we didn't have to constantly entertain them. Started from a young age and as they got older it made it a bit easier to manage our time and their time.

Hope this helps
 

biophase

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Hi InBetween and biophase,

I actually made a progress thread about it:
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/making-5k-a-month-by-august-2015.57235/

The business has only been open ONE week, hence the 5 sales only, without advertising.

We've been working for 4 months on the set-up.

Most of the money is held up on inventory.

Our one-time fees are around 7K. We needed something a little better than shopify and more customizable. We both did our homework and we've got at least 3 other people review the site. I mean people with more expertise in graphic design and business than we do.

We could have probably spent less on the website, but it's done now.

Are you selling on Amazon?
 
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Dinho7

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Back to the husband here. I've been telling my wife to create her own account, so hopefully she can make that 60 second investment soon to avoid confusion ;) Anyways, I am just happy she has been reading around in this amazing forum. During our Christmas dinner, I got a 20 minute "speech" of things she had picked up from this discussion board. Love it!

Thanks a lot for all advice in this thread. Its really valuable to hear input from outsiders. We both agree with most of it and we are certainly going to make some changes to make this work.

My ideal solution is exactly what tafy says, to put our baby in child care part-time for four hours only. This gives my wife time to get some quality hours on the business and maybe get an hour for herself (much needed after almost a year tied to the baby). Also, this would certainly help me by 1) having a more relaxed wife and get help with the business in a more structured manner. On top of that, since our baby would only be away for 4 hours, we still get a lot of time with him during the day, which is great!

The only problem is that we are already $20k in debt (+ college loans payments starting from graduation in May/August), and most child care centers around here seem to change $500-$600 a month for part-time care. Would you take the chance and see this as an investment? I mean, with more quality time on the business we will severely increase our chances of success. It is more risky since our business is not generating many sales right now, but I am pretty sure its a +EV play. What do you guys think?

Biophase, we are selling on our own website. We have some special needs for our business model that needed a "robust" web shop solution (hence the $5k investment). $10k is tied up in inventory, since I had the vision of having a decent amount of products to offer upon starting, so we didn't look too unprofessional. But we have certainly made some mistakes here and there. I took too long in launching the store (victim of perfectionism), we should have started pre-selling and so on. Fortunately, you learn from your mistakes, and we are determined to keep making adjustments, do the most out of our marketing dollars, and to make this work.

Thanks again for all the comments so far. Very encouraging!
 

jon.a

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Don't you two dare forget how lucky you are to have each other. There are few of us that are fortunate enough to be able to work with our spouses.

You seem smart, you'll figure the scheduling thing out.

Back to the husband here. I've been telling my wife to create her own account, so hopefully she can make that 60 second investment soon to avoid confusion ;) Anyways, I am just happy she has been reading around in this amazing forum. During our Christmas dinner, I got a 20 minute "speech" of things she had picked up from this discussion board. Love it!

Thanks a lot for all advice in this thread. Its really valuable to hear input from outsiders. We both agree with most of it and we are certainly going to make some changes to make this work.

My ideal solution is exactly what tafy says, to put our baby in child care part-time for four hours only. This gives my wife time to get some quality hours on the business and maybe get an hour for herself (much needed after almost a year tied to the baby). Also, this would certainly help me by 1) having a more relaxed wife and get help with the business in a more structured manner. On top of that, since our baby would only be away for 4 hours, we still get a lot of time with him during the day, which is great!

The only problem is that we are already $20k in debt (+ college loans payments starting from graduation in May/August), and most child care centers around here seem to change $500-$600 a month for part-time care. Would you take the chance and see this as an investment? I mean, with more quality time on the business we will severely increase our chances of success. It is more risky since our business is not generating many sales right now, but I am pretty sure its a +EV play. What do you guys think?

Biophase, we are selling on our own website. We have some special needs for our business model that needed a "robust" web shop solution (hence the $5k investment). $10k is tied up in inventory, since I had the vision of having a decent amount of products to offer upon starting, so we didn't look too unprofessional. But we have certainly made some mistakes here and there. I took too long in launching the store (victim of perfectionism), we should have started pre-selling and so on. Fortunately, you learn from your mistakes, and we are determined to keep making adjustments, do the most out of our marketing dollars, and to make this work.

Thanks again for all the comments so far. Very encouraging!
 

Birdie

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Are you selling on Amazon?

I finally created an account, since dinho7 wanted his own. I'm the wife.

Yes, I began selling on Amazon/eBay and Craigslist as a side project. We have seen small trickles of income from there because our main focus is always our own website.
 
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Birdie

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To do this you have to be a team. You MUST be consistent and organized. When you have three kids like we do, well now your out numbered. You go from man to man coverage to zone defense. Here's how my wife and I managed when our three boys were little...
I worked day shift Monday through Friday. Watched the kids after work on weekdays and all day on the weekends. I was finishing my IT degree at the time so I studied for my classes after the kids went to bed. They were little then so we had consistent bed times for the kids. I think it was 8 pm.
My wife was home with our boys during the week days. She made some extra money by watching some other kids but not all day baby sitting, just before school and after school care. On the weekends she worked at the local hospital. Double shift on Saturday and double shift on Sunday for total of 32 hours a week.

Was it easy? Hell no!!! But we worked together and survived. Also, we felt it was important to teach our kids how to have some time by themselves so we didn't have to constantly entertain them. Started from a young age and as they got older it made it a bit easier to manage our time and their time.

Hope this helps

I really appreciate your story. I can't imagine it was easy.

I think most of your responses gave me the inspiration to stop making excuses for the lack of commitment. I think it's a matter of sacrificing the present to reap the rewards in the future and to build this business for our family.

It's been hard to keep morale up when it's our first time going all in, betting all our money, time and effort on this one venture.

I agree that we need to consistently keep scheduling things and keep meetings. I want to stop making excuses and just get working... Even through the holidays.
 

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I don't know that it is so much about scheduling as it is about priorities. With a young baby, your schedule has to be fluid and while I agree that part time care would be helpful, more debt isn't...

I'm a single dad with three kids who I look after full time. While they aren't babies anymore, I remember all to well what it's like. I used to use my kids as an excuse for not making progress on my business, but the truth was I was afraid of success and not fully committed to realizing my dreams. It wasn't until I got my head around what was really important to me that I was able to commit to growing my business and creating the life I want for my family. I still have the same 24 hours in a day, but now rather than wasting time doing bullshit busy work - I focus on the very next step that will take me closer to my goal.

While it has been (and is) hard, it is so worth it. I'm here for them. No more being stuck at the office for 10 hours a day while my kids grow up without me there by their side. Seriously, what's more important than that? What are you wasting time on right now? What's holding you back?

You have to make this work as the alternatives are unacceptable.

You can move a lot quicker than you have been. You don't need a fully tricked out system, with all the custom bells and whistles, you need to make sales.

Get back to the basics. Forget everything else and just focus on what will help you get the next sale for a while. There will be time to grow and expand everything later, but if you don't start bringing money in you'll be out of business before you even start.

You are parents now. You'll be tired for at least the decade, probably a lot longer. You may as well be successful and exhausted. Commit to spending at least 4 hours each working on the business every day. No excuses. Even if it means working until 3am with a teething baby in your arms. Even if it means writing copy on your phone while you're waiting in the line at the supermarket. Your favorite TV show? It just got cancelled, ain't nobody got time for that.

Productivity = Profitability.

Remember why you want this. Be nice to each other, be supportive and understanding, but also remind each other why you need to do this. Love your baby, but don't let it become an excuse to not do what needs to be done.

I know it's hard. If it was easy, it wouldn't be worth doing. You've got this.
 
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Dinho7

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Don't you two dare forget how lucky you are to have each other. There are few of us that are fortunate enough to be able to work with our spouses.

Well said! We have had our issues, but we are now trying our best to function together as a team, respect the other person's needs & wants when it comes to personal time off or getting things done on the business. It is the only way we can make this work.

Mr.B: Excellent post. Your post should be printed out and framed on the wall until we reach our goals for the business!
 

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It sounds like you need to:

1. Maintain romance and whimsy by having a romantic shut-in without baby at least once a month. No business allowed.

2. Hire help. You can afford it - because you need it. Someone needs to help with the baby, and the business. Get college students who need credit for an internship. Guide them, and then use your acumen to perfect their work, using 20% of your time to polish the 80% they've done for 1,000% quality.

3. Make time for what's important. School is hectic. So is a business. So is marriage. So is family. At the end of the day you both need to go hard, and you both need to sacrifice... and sometimes one sacrifices more than the other. Regardless, keep the love strong.
 

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