Working Parents & Childcare

Offered a team move with US-overlap evenings. Our son isn't one yet

velvet_chai_5186

Work has offered me a move to a team that overlaps with US hours. Better project, and it would take me off the on-call rotation, which I would love. The catch is meetings from roughly 7 to 10 pm, three or four days a week. Right now evenings are when I do bath and bedtime so my partner gets a break. We have family living with us who help through the day, but evenings have always been ours. Has anyone gone evening-heavy with a baby at home? Did you get that time back somewhere else, or did it just eat the only family hours you had?

5 comments

  • umber_river_8989

    not the same job but my partner did a year of evening clinics when our daughter was small. what we noticed was that mornings became the thing. breakfast and the walk to the gate turned into their time, bedtime stayed mine. it worked better than i expected. the first two months were rough though.

    • velvet_chai_5186

      That's the version I'm hoping for. Mornings I can do. Did the bedtime handover cause trouble early on, with her expecting both of you there?

  • peach_thread_947

    When my son was a baby my husband had almost a year of late lab work. I won't lie, I felt alone in the evenings. What helped was that he took the early mornings fully so I could sleep. If your partner is fine with evenings alone and gets something back in return, it can work. Ask your partner honestly, not only yourself.

  • maple_chai_5354

    Getting off on-call is worth more than it sounds. Unpredictable night calls are harder on a household than fixed late meetings, because fixed meetings can at least be planned around. The real question is whether 7 to 10 stays 7 to 10. Ask someone already on that team. Those windows tend to creep once a project gets busy.

  • fig_fern_2814

    did this for 8 months when ours was 2. moved bedtime to 6.45 so i could do it before calls. kid adjusted in a week, we took longer 😄

    • rose_diary_1020

      Didn't a 6.45 bedtime mean a 5.30 wake-up the next morning?

  • juniper_balcony_7265

    replying from the labour ward so read it with that in mind. predictable late work is a gift compared to on call. my daughter knows if i'm not home by 8 i'll be there for breakfast. kids cope with a pattern, it's the random disappearing they don't like. 3 fixed evenings sounds manageable if the other evenings are fully yours

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