OK, so you’ve decided to work from home and you’re thinking, “Hmmm, can I get by without childcare?” And the answer is an emphatic no. Don’t even try it. There are many, many reasons that you’re going to need to hire some form of childcare if you’re going to be working from home.

Number one, it’s not fair to your children to leave them unsupervised or even to give them an activity and expect them to sit down for 20 or 30 minutes and do that activity while you work. Number two, it’s not fair to your clients. You wouldn’t want to think that somebody that was performing a service for you would be trying to take on 60 other different things but that’s pretty much what you’re doing when you’re trying to watch children. If you’re telecommuting, you really need to be careful as well because your boss may say yes, it’s OK for you to work at home but they do expect you to have childcare.

How can you do this? Well, there are several alternatives to finding childcare when you’re working from home. You can hire a babysitter, you can babysit-swap with another mother or you may be looking at a daycare or a preschool if you have children that are all within that age range. Whatever it is, make sure that you have some type of childcare with whom you’ll be working from home. Because it will save not only your job but it will save your sanity as well.