It is hard to work from home without childcare. To successfully work from home without childcare, try to rotate your toys, have a realistic childcare budget, create a safe play space, encourage independent play, and have fun educational toys!
Work from Home without Childcare
Rotate your Toys the Easy Way
Decide your Childcare and Toy Budget
Encourage Children To Play Independently
Provide A Safe Play Space
Must-Have Toys to Help You Work from Home Without Childcare
Have fun!
Work from Home without Childcare
Learning how to work from home without childcare is hard. You need some tricks up your sleeve to make it fun for your kids.
I have worked at home with kids for over 5 years. Often my days are full of juggling toddler tantrums, grocery lists, hours in front of my laptop, trying to be a “clever Pinterest mom with all the mom tricks”, stale coffee, bath time, re-watching episodes of White Collar at night – and if I’m lucky – actually having time to myself each day.
The key is to constantly find toys, distractions, and activities for your kids. Here are my tips for working from home with kids, and my favorite must-have toys for you while you work from home without childcare.
Rotate your Toys the Easy Way
If you search “toy rotation” on the internet, you will find hundreds of websites talking about cubbies, cabinets, charts, and rotation schedules.
That COMPLETELY overwhelms me.
If you are looking for an easy way to accomplish this same thing without changing your home organization, try this easy toy rotation solution.
Categorize your toys in your head, and every week choose 3-5 toys your kids will play with.
Your categories might be:
● Building toys (blocks, stacking toys)
● Cars and trains (train sets, cars & trucks, pull toys)
● Animals/ People (baby animals, role play sets)
● Craft activities (coloring, stickers, paint)
● Other (puzzles, books, card games, etc.)
Every week pick one idea from each category, and rotate those toys with your kids!
Decide your Childcare and Toy Budget
When I talk about your childcare budget, I’m not just talking about your full-time care budget. I mean anything you can put aside per month to help with your children.
Even if you can swing only $50 per month, set that aside and use it for new toys or activities! I constantly find myself finding new learning toys per age, and telling myself that a new toy "is cheaper than a babysitter!", which is always true.
Encourage Children To Play Independently
I am a huge fan of teaching your kids to play independently.
Around six months old (yes, even before they can sit up!), I put my babies in their rooms with some toys and leave them to “play” for maybe 10 minutes. By the time my babies are around one years old, they are able to play by themselves for 30-40 minutes. By the time my daughter was two years old, she was able to play by herself for an hour.
I am always right next to my kids during this whole independent-play process. I check on them, watch them on the baby monitor, and encourage them with new toys. This is the best way to introduce new toys to them, and teach them how to play by themselves.
Provide A Safe Play Space
When my kids are mobile (think the wandering two-year-old!) I create a gated-in baby play area where they can walk around and play with all their toys. It’s right by my desk, and my toddlers honestly love this area and look forward to playing in it. Again – they have everything they need and it’s completely baby-proof.
Now that my daughter is 5, she often will move her "work desk" beside my desk to work with me. She colors, draws, does her activities, but enjoys the quiet time near me.
Must-Have Toys to Help You Work from Home Without Childcare
As a mom, I have always loved VTech® toys for my kids. I love that their toys are educational, and give countless hours of fun to multiple ages. My daughter learned her colors using the VTech® Sit-to-Stand Learning Walker™! These are my favorite VTech® toys for working from home without childcare.
1. VTech® Drop and Go Dump Truck™ (6-36 months)
This dump truck is the perfect "first truck" for your little one! It is brightly colored, and has 3 buttons that play melodies, phrases, and colors. But it also develops your child's motor skills by lifting the dump truck bucket and feeding the rocks into the truck.
My son is 2, and loves this toy! I can only imagine how much fun it would bring to a little one-year-old who is learning to walk.
2. VTech® Pop-a-Balls Push & Pop Bulldozer™ (12-36 months)
This bulldozer is so fun! When you push the toy, the balls pop out of the chimney and into the bucket. The buttons teach colors, numbers, phrases and music. And pushing the truck develops motor skills and coordination.
If you are trying to work from home without childcare, I would recommend using this toy in their rooms (or playroom) for independent play. It is remarkably engaging, and will give your child a lot of ways to be creative.
3. VTech® Smart Shots Sports Center™ (12-36 months old)
If you are working at home in a small house or apartment, this is the ideal toy. It is extremely compact (as a mom, I appreciate that!), but it also is engaging enough for my 2- and 5-year-old. They play with this alone, together, and with their babysitter!
Toddlers and preschoolers can shoot free throws into the basketball net or kick goals into the soccer net. The LED scoreboard counts baskets and goals up to 10, and is perfect for friendly (competitive!) play. I love that they can get their energy out, while playing right near my desk.
4. VTech® Explore & Write Activity Desk™ (2-5 years)
I don't know about you, but my kids love crafts and learning activities. This desk is perfect and gives them their own “activity station”, and they sit at this desk for HOURS. My kids pull this up to my desk and say "I'm doing my learning, mom. I'll talk to you later!"
The VTech® Explore & Write Activity Desk™ is an interactive desk and includes activity pages to learn colors, the alphabet, animals, parts of the body, and so much more. As a mom, I'm especially thankful for the writing pad that teaches the correct direction to write each letter. My kids have learned so much with this!
Have fun!
Finding new ways to bring toys into your home can be the perfect solution for working from home without childcare. Make sure you create a safe play space, rotate your toys, encourage independent play, and find new fun ways to play with your kids. These VTech® toys can help while you work from home, and will give your kids new and fun ways to play, learn, and be creative. Have fun working from home with your kids!
Ginny Hurst is a work-at-home mom to a 5-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son. She works full time 8-5 for a remote company, and also juggles watching little ones, spending time with her husband of twelve years, and writing the blog Modern Work at Home Mom at modernwahm.com. She started blogging seven years ago, and now uses Modern WAHM to connect with other work-at-home moms. She loves to be outdoors, read a good mystery, and binge Gilmore Girls. But, really, she just loves an empty dishwasher, an inbox with no unread emails, and walking around the cul-de-sac a hundred times.