Baby & Toddler

Moving our dispatch packing into the flat for a few weeks so I can be home with our 2 month old. Mad idea?

linen_trail_432

My partner is a doctor and back on full shifts, so most days it's me with the baby. I co-own a small food business and we have a run of big orders over the next few weeks. The cooking has to stay at the unit, and my business partner is covering that. But packing, labelling and handing over to the delivery vans is four or five hours on dispatch days, and two of our staff could do it with me in our spare room and part of the living room. That way I'm home, she's in her own cot, and I'm not driving across town twice a day. Anyone run work out of the house like this with a newborn? What caught you out?

7 comments

  • dusk_paper_4429

    I worked from home with my daughter at about three months, with colleagues coming over twice. The first time went well because she slept. The second time she screamed through a meeting and I spent an hour in the stairwell. Which room she sleeps in matters more than where the packing happens. Is it far enough from the noise, and is there another adult who could hold her for twenty minutes while you deal with something urgent?

  • linen_pool_4025

    my mother ran a small tailoring unit out of our front room and apparently i spent my first year in a cloth basket under the cutting table. i don't remember any of it, obviously, but she always said it was her easiest year

  • coral_sparrow_9924

    Packing noise won't bother her as much as you think, babies sleep through a pressure cooker. What got me was feeding. Where will you feed her or give the bottle, and where do you wash things? Plan that part properly. And my amma's rule: keep a spare shirt for yourself within reach, not just the baby's things 🙂

  • ivory_sandal_2449

    We've had work spill into the house with our son around, my partner's clinic files all over the dining table for a month, don't ask 😄 My only real worry would be what ends up at floor level: cartons, tape, cutters, and staff walking in with outdoor shoes. If her room stays properly separate, it sounds fine. Try one dispatch day first and see how she takes it.

    • lagoon_hammock_2192

      the floor stuff is the main one. also the delivery guys ringing the bell every ten minutes, that's what will wake her

  • maple_hammock_5795

    Not a food business, but I ran research sessions with my daughter in a sling when she was small. Two things. People will want to hold her, so decide beforehand whether you're okay with that. And whatever you think will take four hours will take six.

  • apricot_violin_7891

    Who handles the dispatch if she needs you at the exact moment the van arrives? That is the part I would plan for. The baby part tends to work out. It is two urgent things at once that goes wrong.

    • linen_trail_432

      My business partner has offered, and two of our staff have kids of their own. I hadn't thought of it as an overlap problem, but that's exactly what it is.

  • cedar_pebble_3508

    my partner ran her shop's orders from our living room when our son was 3 months. worked fine till about 5 months, then he noticed everything and wouldn't sleep anywhere interesting 🤷

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