My husband works shifts and I am a freelance remote worker. How we manage our work-life balance while raising children

My husband works shifts and has weekdays off, while I am a freelance remote worker.

At first glance, it seems like a flexible way to work, but since we started raising children, I have been constantly lost, wondering how to manage our daily lives.

Every day is spent moving according to the daycare schedule while also dealing with the children's illnesses.
My husband is often away from home, so I am frequently left to handle everything on my own.

Through trial and error, we have gradually settled into our current routine.

In this article, I will write about the adjustments I have made to balance childcare and work as a freelance remote worker.

The premise: My husband works shifts and I am a freelance remote worker

My husband works shifts in the real estate industry.
His days off are often on weekdays, and he frequently works on weekends.

He often returns home after the children are asleep, and sometimes he is called into work suddenly even on his scheduled days off.
To be honest, this makes it difficult to maintain a consistent family rhythm.

I work as a freelance remote worker.
While I have flexibility in terms of time and location, it is entirely up to me to decide how much work to take on.

We do not live in either of our hometowns, and we have no relatives nearby to rely on.
Because of this, I have naturally become more careful about how I manage my workload and schedule.

Both of us work in ways that are a bit different from the standard dual-income household.
If we act without thinking, something is bound to break.
When the children get sick or plans change, the strain becomes immediately apparent.

I have gradually adjusted my way of working so that I can prioritize the children without burning myself out.

Changing my days off to one weekday plus Sunday to match my husband

At first, I took weekends and holidays off to match the daycare schedule.
I thought this was the most straightforward approach, following the same rhythm as a typical dual-income family.

However, once we actually started, I realized that I had to take more days off during the week for the children's illnesses than I had imagined.

If I take two weekdays off, I only have three days left to work.
Since weekends are spent with the children, my available working hours were being cut down more than I had anticipated.

I felt more and more that I couldn't keep up with my work at this pace.

Initially, I had hoped that my husband might be able to help watch the children on his weekday off.
But he is often exhausted from his limited time off and frequently sleeps until noon.

Furthermore, he often schedules his side business in real estate on his days off, so he is almost never home.
As a result, there is almost no time when he can watch the children.

Feeling that I didn't have enough working hours, I decided to take the plunge and change my days off.

By taking 'one weekday + Sunday' off to match my husband's schedule, I make the days he is home my own days off.
It was a desperate measure to secure even a little time to focus on work.

The reason I eventually settled on 'weekends and holidays off'

I tried continuing the 'one weekday + Sunday off' schedule that matched my husband's for a while.
But in reality, it often didn't work out well.

In my husband's case, even if he is off according to his shift, he sometimes has to go in for sudden work.
There were also times when he would sleep until the afternoon on his day off and then head out for a side job meeting.

In the end, since I would be the one looking after the children alone, I started to feel that 'there was no point in changing my days off.'

Furthermore, perhaps because our daily rhythm wasn't consistent, I started to notice that the children looked somewhat tired.
I also began to feel that a life where the days off change every week might be unsettling for small children.

So, when I gave birth to our second child, I decided to go back to having weekends and holidays off.

Since our oldest child started preschool, school events and extracurricular activities have gradually increased, so I also felt it was better not to keep them home on weekdays.

As a result, I feel that this rhythm suits us best right now.

Things I do to manage while raising children

I have summarized the things I, as a work-from-home freelancer, am conscious of in order to manage both work and home life while raising children.

Have my husband handle morning drop-offs

Since my husband works shifts and often has late start times, I ask him to handle the morning drop-off at daycare.

Thanks to that, I can start working right from the morning.
It may seem like a small thing, but being able to 'get moving right away in the morning' greatly influences the flow of the day.

Aim for a workload of '4 days a week, 6 hours a day'

Since my husband is rarely home, I am the one who handles everything when the children are sick or when there are sudden schedule changes.

Therefore, I set my workload at 70% of my capacity.
I decided to accept work based on a standard of '4 days a week, 6 hours a day' for working time.

In reality, there are times when I exceed that, but having a standard makes it easier to decide whether to 'accept or decline' work.

Try to consolidate deadlines at the end of the month

I try to set deadlines for the end of the month so that I can handle sudden troubles that might occur during the month.
By leaving some buffer in advance, I can handle irregular events without panicking.

State from the beginning that you are unavailable on weekends and holidays

I inform my clients at the initial stage that I am unavailable on weekends and holidays.
It is more reassuring for both parties to confirm this at the start rather than trying to adjust later.

Schedule meetings in the morning, preferably via chat

I try to schedule meetings for the morning whenever possible.
Calls from daycare often come in the afternoon, so I feel more secure scheduling appointments in the morning.

I also request that communication be handled via email or chat as much as possible.
We usually have an initial online meeting to introduce ourselves, and after that, we proceed almost entirely through text-based communication.

How to create breathing room to keep going without overextending

Keep your workload at 70% of your capacity. Consolidate deadlines at the end of the month.
Looking at the numbers, it might seem like I am managing things very strictly.

But in reality, it is something I arrived at after repeated experiences of realizing that if I don't limit it to this much, I will inevitably get stuck somewhere.

Breathing room is not for slacking off, but for preparing for the unexpected.
Ever since I started thinking this way, I have felt a little more at ease.

When raising children, you have to assume that things will not go according to plan.
That is why I feel that creating a system from the start that allows for things to go off-trackis also a way of protecting myself.

Of course, not every day goes perfectly.
There are times when illnesses overlap and deadlines get tight, or weeks when work doesn't progress as much as I thought it would.

Even so, having a system allows me to draw a line and say, 'This is as far as I go this month.'
And then, I can start fresh the following month.
I feel that this repetition is what gives me the strength to keep going.

I don't think there is a single right way to work while raising children.
However, I believe that creating a system that doesn't force you to overextendis something that can support any family.

I hope this is helpful to those in a similar situation.

Thank you very much for reading until the end.

I will continue to update my note magazine 'Child-rearing records of a freelancer who moved to the countryside' with my experiences regarding working, living, and raising children as a freelancer in a rural area.

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