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The Working Mom Juggling Act

Making It Work for You and Your Baby

By Amy Dingmann

While you're on break at work, there are some household tasks you can accomplish to free up your time at home. Balancing your checkbook, returning phone calls or e-mails, organizing grocery lists or coupons, as well as many other tasks can all be done during break time at work and will cut down on what you have to do while at home.

"I would get home at 6:30 and my baby went to sleep at 7:45 – it was really hard to have so little time with him at the end of the day and so much that I had to accomplish in that short period of time," Keroes says. "For me, organizing everything in the spare minutes I could find did help. It made me feel more in control. I labeled toy bins and laminated day care class lists. After all, how can you have it all if you can't even find it?"

Colleen Brown, mom of three from Canton, Mass., says if you can get everything for the next day ready the night before, you will be less stressed in the morning to get up and out of the house. "Something always happens when you are stressed and rushing," she says. She suggests getting two or three outfits ready for the baby and care provider, and all bottles set up and ready to go. She also suggests getting your clothes ready, as well as an emergency outfit – just in case. "If you don't use the emergency outfit, you have your clothes all ready for the next day!" she says.

Want to see more?

• Little Employee of the Month: Working with Your Toddler So You Can Work at Home
• Have Baby, Still Travel: What Working Moms Do When Traveling
• Helpful Hints: From One Nursing, Working Mother to Another
• Check out our Article Library.
• Talk about it!