Harvest Festivals, Halloween Parades, Pumpkin Patch Field Trips, Thanksgiving Feasts, Christmas Plays, Fall Break and Winter Break…if you’ve got school-aged children in school then the holiday season can be a time of both joy and stress!  Managing your child’s hectic schedule during the fall and winter months can be a huge challenge for working parents. Depending on your work situation, there are multiple strategies that you can take that will allow you to keep your job while sharing your little one’s precious moments:

The “Tag Team” Approach

If you live in a two-parent household, you and your partner can figure out a way to share the special-event appearances.  Perhaps you can alternate dates, or maybe one of you has flexibility during the day and becomes the “Field-Trip Parent” while the other commits to evening activities.  Spreading the love this way will ease the pressure of one parent or the other repeatedly needing to take time off of work.  The obvious bonus to this approach, of course, is that your children will get the benefit of both parents (or even Grandma) actively participating in their events.

The “Quality Not Quantity” Approach

You can’t possibly make every single event without losing brownie points at work or running yourself ragged. So, you can decide to choose a handful of events that you can commit to and make it to those. This works well in helping you maintain your sanity, keeping your boss (mostly) happy, but can also bring on the Mommy Guilt in heavy doses. Though your physical presence may be less, you can make sure that it counts by going the extra mile to volunteer during the events you attend, whether it be working the register at Turkey Bingo Night (been there) or taking the photos for the Costume Parade.

The “Make It Work” Approach

If you feel comfortable talking to your boss about alternative work arrangements, this method could provide a perfect solution to a difficult problem. On days when you’re on pie duty for the Holiday Party, plan to work from home; that way you can prepare your dish at home before heading out to the event (instead of the mad dash to the grocery store before zooming into the school parking lot). Also, chances are the commute to your child’s school will be easier if they attend school close to where you live, allowing you to miss less of the workday. You could also try a compressed work week and work extra hours Monday through Thursday so that you can take Friday off to help set-up for the Kwanzaa Play.

No matter what approach you choose (and it might be a combination!), the key is to be flexible, do what works best for you and your family, and most of all, experience as many of these special moments as you can.

How do you balance your children’s many school activities during the holiday season?

A long time ago there was a commercial for a pregnancy test on TV that showed a woman standing up and thinking, “I can’t concentrate. Could I be pregnant?” For years, my husband and I laughed at the commercial because we could not make the connection as to what one had to do with the other. Why would she think she was pregnant just because she couldn’t concentrate? The idea seemed absolutely ludicrous to us.

Now that I’m pregnant with our second child, I find that I am the woman from that commercial. And, I’m eating my words – or laughter, in this case. I totally get it now. I’m unable to concentrate and am having a somewhat hard time adjusting and maintaining my work-life balance.

More specifically, I’m finding it a bit difficult to deal with the pregnancy symptoms  – the various aches, and especially the lack of energy – plus entertain and play with my baby girl. I’m getting tired of saying, “Mommy’s not feeling good” and I know she must be tired of hearing it. I can only do so many couch-based activities with her before she requires more stimulation. I’ve tried reading together, watching movies, and playing board games, to name a few things. I get up and moving with her when I can, but it’s not long before, “Mommy has to sit down and take a break.”

I know she’s an understanding girl and for the most part moves on to do another activity. Often times my husband will take over and do something with her until I can keep playing. But, the mommy guilt is coming on full-force these days and I can feel she’s getting frustrated. I’m getting frustrated. It’s even causing tension between us and I find these days we are often snapping at each other; the hormones aren’t helping with my patience either.

Of course, other aspects of our home life are affected, such as keeping up with the household. Luckily, I have a great husband who is doing his part to keep up with things around the house. But, that is not as serious an issue in my mind as the connection with my daughter. That is something he cannot help with.

So, today I want to hear from all of you who already have two, three, and especially those of you who have four or more kids. I want to know how you managed your pregnancies while also working, managing a household, and caring for and entertaining your kids. Hopefully I’m not the only one out there who’s had this issue when pregnant the second time around and you’ll be able to provide some input.

How did you deal with the pregnancy symptoms and maintain a sense of work-life balance?