If you can afford help, get help. It doesn’t necessarily have to be child care. If you’re like me, you don’t really want anybody else taking care of your children. But you can hire a maid service a couple of times a month for not too much money, or you could hire someone to keep your yard looking nice. You’ve got enough on your plate, so don’t feel guilty doling some of the more mundane jobs out.
When your spouse or partner is home, take advantage of the time. Take care of yourself, spend time together as a family, get some work done, but don’t waste it.
Hand some jobs over to your partner/spouse. Give your kids jobs to do too! Just because you stay home with the kids all day does NOT mean you have to do it all alone. Cooking, baths for the children, story time, walking the dog, whatever! In a family, everyone pitches in.
Save Your Sanity
Try to leave the house at least once a day. Staying in your own house all day will drive you up the wall. Get up and get dressed. Just because you’re home all day doesn’t mean you have to become a slob. Set a good example for the kids!
Get involved in the outside world, whether through a play group for your kids, church, book club, whatever, just don’t lose touch with actual people. (No, emailing people doesn’t count!)
Don’t be fooled by pyramid schemes or scams offering big money to work from home. If you don’t have a real job offer from a real person, it’s not a real job.
If you’re working from a computer, be sure to get up and walk around every half hour or so in order to stretch and change position. Even though you're in your own home all day, you still need to exercise and eat right. No snacking on M&M's round the clock.
Set up your own work space. If you’re planning on working at this job long-term, the kitchen table probably isn’t going to cut it. Get a real desk, a comfortable office chair, and some sort of filing system to get you started. As you get more comfortable working from home, you can add more items that you may need. Make sure the little ones don't have access to your work space. Their sticky fingers can misplace or ruin your hard work!
You can be successful as a stay-at-home parent with a stay-at-home job. Just remember, you’ll be focusing on taking care of everyone and everything else, but you have to leave time for yourself as well. Having a well-balanced life and family includes YOU!