How We Structure Our Week Working Full-Time With Two Young Kids
As a mom with young children, I constantly wondered how other parents made their schedules work. Now that I'm a seasoned working mom I want to share how my husband and I work full-time hours with a 6-year-old and 3-year-old at home. It’s a combination of intentional sacrifices and a lot of teamwork.
Let me show you what this actually looks like in practice.
The Real Numbers
I work between 30 and 40 hours a week on a contract basis with four different companies:
Client A (BELAY): 11.25 hours
Client B (BELAY): 11.25 hours
Client C (Direct): 6 hours
Client D (My business): 5 hours
Total average: 33.5 hours per week
What This Doesn’t Include
Let me be honest about what’s missing from this picture:
Homeschooling: If I were homeschooling, this schedule wouldn’t work. Full credit to homeschool moms, you’re doing something I couldn’t pull off with this workload.
Baby/Toddler Chaos: My 3-year-old is past the constant-supervision phase. This gets much harder with babies or very active toddlers.
Solo Parenting: This relies heavily on having a partner who can share logistics. Single parents would need different strategies.
Traditional School Holidays: Summer and breaks require major schedule adjustments and often reduced work hours. I usually cut my hours in half and rely on family and friends to help with child care.
My Actual Daily Schedule
Here’s what a typical week looks like:
My 3-year-old goes to a playschool on Mon-Thurs from 9 AM-12 PM. This gives me a 2.5-hour window of focused work when both kids are out of the house.
What Makes This Actually Work
1. We Both Work From Home (This Is Key)
My husband and I tag-team everything, and both of us had to make career pivots to make this possible. School dropoff? Whoever has the lighter morning takes it. Sick kid? We adjust our schedules accordingly. Client call during pickup time? The other parent covers.
This only works because we both prioritized location flexibility in our career choices. One remote parent trying to manage this solo would be much more challenging.
Everything on the calendar in pink/red are jobs we pass off as necessary. That’s 18.5 hours of flexibility that is only possible because of our remote work. (This is also where the ~7 extra hours come from to make my week 40 full-time hours as needed).
2. Industry Choice
I work in logistics and consumer goods , industries that don’t typically have true “emergencies.” This means I can set boundaries around communication and stick to them. If you’re in healthcare, law, or crisis-driven fields, this approach will be tougher. Being able to shut off the computer at the end of the day means true family time without distraction.
3. Contract Work Over Traditional Employment
This is the sacrifice part. I chose contract positions over W2 employment specifically for schedule control. My husband took a pay cut to secure a W2 remote position. Between us, we prioritized flexibility over maximum earning potential.
That means:
No traditional benefits for me
Income variability
Constant client acquisition
No paid vacation or sick days
Lower household income than we could earn with rigid schedules
But it also means I can block my calendar around family needs and say no to calls during pickup times. This will likely change and adapt as our kids get older.
4. Strategic Client Selection
I work with clients who understand boundaries and are often parents themselves. I also work with companies that have boundries in place already:
BELAY contracts come with built-in respect for work-life balance and expected rules around hours and monthly contracts.
My direct client knows my availability windows upfront and only works 4-day workweeks herself.
I keep the same clients for long periods , they trust that I get work done fast and effectively because they we have a solid history together.
I set clear communication hours (no notifications after 4 PM).
No email on my phone , I check each client’s communications only during their designated work blocks.
5. Budget-Conscious Childcare
Full-time childcare for our 3-year-old isn’t in the budget, so we’ve gotten creative:
Our local church offers a morning program for a fraction of a typical daycare.
We set up engaging activities in our office when he’s home, this requires some prep on the weekends but is well worth the time.
Family helps with pickup/dropoff during true emergencies, we live close to my parents, sisters and in-laws so that our emergency contacts are close by.
We adjusted my contract load when the kids were younger (sometimes just 1–2 clients instead of 4).
Our budget is tight by choice because we prioritize being home over maximizing income.
6. Morning Non-Negotiable
Yes, 5:30 is early. But those 90 minutes of uninterrupted work before the kids wake up means I often accomplish more than 3 hours later in the day. It’s my secret weapon to getting my tough client work knocked out early.
Another trick I am able to use is that I have clients in various timezones. My east coast client gets me in the mornings, mountain time in the mid-morning and west coast is the afternoon. This way I can be online when my clients are, without overlap.
7. Systems That Save Time
I’ve developed specific skills and systems to maximize my work hours:
An easy and clear task system — I talk about Sunsama all the time, but having one system where I can see all my tasks, events and goals for the day makes it so much easier to dive into work without worry about missing important things. I can connect all my client’s tasks and projects to my one software so that I’m not context switching every 30-minutes.
Fast typing speed and Voice-to-text for long-form content— getting thoughts down fast matters, even if it’s an email, shaving those minutes down means I can work faster overall.
Industry expertise — I stick to logistics and consumer goods where my experience saves time. I regularly listen to podcasts, attend trainings and learn as much as I can about my clients, their systems and the industry so that when projects come my way, I can confidently say yes knowing I have the tools to do it right and not waste time.
Client retention — long-term relationships mean less onboarding and explanation. This can be out of your control at times, but I am always developing relationships, staying connected with past clients and working hard to have other options lined up if one contract ends.
8. Buffer Time Is Built In
Notice the gaps in my schedule in the afternoons? That’s intentional. Kids get sick. Calls run long. Activities and sports change. I never pack my calendar to 100% capacity. This leaves room for family time, busy seasons and downtime when we’re feeling wiped.
How This Schedule Evolved
This didn’t happen overnight. When our kids were younger:
I worked only 1–2 contracts instead of 4
Our budget was even tighter
We relied more heavily on family support
The schedule was less predictable
We were much more tired
As the kids got older and more independent, I gradually increased my client load. The 3-year-old going to play school 3 hours a day was alife saver that allowed me to take on the current workload.
The truth some of you won’t like…
This schedule works because we designed our entire careers around family priorities. Instead of finding time to parent around work — we both made career choices that prioritized our family rhythms.
This required both of us to make significant career pivots and accept a tighter budget. Most traditional jobs wouldn’t accommodate this level of flexibility. Building this required:
Both of us saying no to higher-paying opportunities that demanded rigid schedules
My husband taking a pay cut for remote work flexibility
Developing skills that translate to remote/contract work
Accepting financial constraints to prioritize family time, we choose lunch and dinners together over big vacations.
Scaling work up and down based on the season
Creative childcare solutions through community and family and prioritizing our tribe even when it’s not easy.
If you and your partner are willing to make strategic career changes together, it’s possible to build work that serves your family instead of competing with it.
Your Turn
What career trade-offs would you consider for better family integration? Have you explored contract work in your field? What’s holding you back from designing a family-first work schedule?
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop trying to fit family life around a rigid career and start building a career that honors your family priorities. It’s not easy but as someone who has done it, it’s so so worth it.
