Ask HN: What work can be done quarantined with a toddler?

Ideally if I could do both, I could me more involved in my child's life and not sacrifice income. Maybe a part time remote job is doable?

Many are looking for jobs now. It could be good for both sides.

Putting the kids on a schedule has helped us tremendously but will have limited efficacy for a toddler. If all else fails, balance screen time for the kid against your use of time off. It's really hard.

One way to try and mitigate it is by giving them a GBA or DS (preferably the former, because they're harder to break, and certainly not a 3DS for a variety of reasons). This also has the really neat benefit of helping them bootstrap reading skills.

Movies usually don't work, because anything that doesn't require you to move (even just your hands, like with a handheld console) will cause restlessness.

You can probably take a few hours at first to teach her how to pronounce letters and put them together if you haven't already, after they figure out how to read, they require significantly less immediate attention.

I think the team members themselves should be fine. In normal conditions, they should mostly be able to function and keep moving forward without strict and constant guidance. And we're all feeling some degree of pressure right now. So at least team mates should get that leeway will be needed.

A few points:

* Be sure to be clear with the team. It's reasonable to need some leeway, but just state it clearly. You may even get volunteers to handle some of your typical technical responsibilities. Good for them, good for you!

* Give other team mates leeway too. Odds are they are in similar situations. So if somebody seems behind or there are just more issues than normal, don't assume bad intent. It's probably similar to your situation.

I think the most promising thing to try is to go to bed together with them and work in the morning until they are awake.

You may still be able to retain your leadership position (assuming you want to keep it) and make this a win-win. Having someone else take over as lead can be a hit to your own career progress, and I think it's likely they would still struggle just stepping into all your new duties while everyone is distributed.

Don't abdicate entirely, and instead delegate certain responsibilities to team members if you know they're in a position to step up a little right now. You continue to lead through the crisis. Your team members can grow in a way that doesn't overwhelm them either.

I don't know a lot about your situation, but I suspect this would be smoother for everyone involved. Don't feel bad about this. Yes, we in Hacker News-related industries are especially privileged right now. But your kids need you, and everyone is making adjustments right now.

Have you shared these thoughts with your boss, or with your team? They might be able to help you come up with a way to share the burden until life returns to normalcy. Definitely delegate as much as you can - you're right, you'll burn out if you have to be a full time parent as well as a full time team lead.

2. Have you tried occasionally putting the first grader in charge of the toddler for a few spans of time? Obviously a first grader can't babysit, but younger kids are usually happy to do what slightly-older kids tell them, and slightly-older kids usually enjoy the devoted followers.

Regarding what you owe your employer, coworkers and team, ultimately you need to talk to them about it. You may discover that even though you feel less productive, everyone else is in roughly the same boat. Even those without toddlers will be suffering from the normal WFH distractions and "disaster fatigue" from checking the news every 20 minutes. Also give it some time, to see what happens both in your work habits / stress and the outside world over the next few weeks.

I've got three young kids, and I'm in the same situation you're in. I'll spare you the long backstory of how I came to this conclusion, but over time I've learned that there's a big gap between the amount of attention young children want and will ask for (which is effectively infinite) versus what they actually need to be happy.

The real problem is they're humans, they don't like being bored, they don't know how to deal with it on their own, but they learn really fast that you are a great source of entertainment. Once I came to see the problem this way, I realized I needed to help teach and train them to self-entertain when they are bored. That turned out to be easier than I thought, and it helped _a lot_ with the problem of being able to get work done with kids around.

The best way I found to train them is essentially to create a suitable play environment (in our little apartment this is just the kids room, with anything I don't want them getting into placed on high shelves in the closet), set out a small sample of toys or activity (like paper and crayons, or stuffed animals), and then just sit there. If you are more boring than the stuffed animals, they'll start playing with the stuffed animals :)

Repeat this over time and they get much better at playing happily on their own for long stretches of time.

Note that the younger they are, the more you need to be physically around for this to work. If you just plop a toddler in a play pen and leave, they're not likely to make it very long, because they also have separation anxiety and don't like being alone. They need the reassurance of an adult (or older child may also work) nearby to feel safe. But once they feel safe, their only problem is boredom. So by being around but extremely boring, you help them learn to solve this problem on their own.

Being boring doesn't mean cold-smoldering the kids, just kind of politely humor them without really engaging. I've found that "taking a nap" is extremely effective - just sit and rest, they know what a nap is, they don't take it personally. Sometimes you even get an actual power nap in haha.

To some degree you also have to put up with whining and fussing during the adjustment period. They're likely to feel frustration that their entertainment source has failed. Also, doing this training will probably be boring for you too. But the silver lining is once they start to play autonomously it actually becomes very entertaining to watch!

One last thought: as far as work goes, I think you (and your employer) will also need to accept that a strictly focused 9-5 schedule isn't realistic. Young kids need help with basic needs (food, bladder, hygiene), and there's nothing you can do that will get them to chill out autonomously for 9 hours straight. But if you teach them to self-entertain, even a toddler can go for 60-90 minutes, which is enough to get a lot of things done (and bigger kids can go longer).

The way I see it, I can either get up really early and knock out a ~3 hour focus block before they're up, or stay up late and do it after they're asleep. I generally prefer late. That's my key productivity time, for things that require more than one full hour of dedicated focus to make good progress.

I know it's hard. Good luck!

My neighbors and I have created a small isolation group. We all are sheltering in place as if we were one family. It's been working out on sharing the load. We had a discussion about the severity and likelihood of an infection in our group and that if that happened we'd all be on quarantine because of the shared exposure.

This has meant not sending my child to daycare even though it's open. It's also meant getting up 2 hours earlier to get started earlier. I also sent a schedule to my entire team so they knew exactly when I was teaching our kids and when I'm available. We as a group are trying to balance our civic duty with a rational understanding of this disease.

If I didn't have that I'd have emailed my team that I was reducing my hours from 8-> 4-6 and I'd have been very clear. I cannot make up enough time to get everything done. I'd have used vacation or sick leave where possible and weathered this storm. If we stop doing the shared community I will do that. And as a Lead, I'd be ok with anyone on my team doing that.

This disease does not affect everyone equally. We have to take on additional burden for others where possible and be accommodating for those who can't.

I agree with the comment saying to focus on working during your toddler's sleep hours. Get done what you can and don't worry excessively about how this isn't enough.

Employers need to dial down expectations during this crisis - it's the price to pay for living in a society. If it's any consolation, the economy - including your employer - is being affected in many ways and your reduced productivity during this time is only one effect of many that none of us have any control over.

It depends on your situation, but it doesn't mean you should give up your position as team lead, necessarily. It could be hard for someone else to get up to speed on how to handle your responsibilities; everyone's at least remote and other people probably have distractions too. See if you can delegate half of your work to other people, or push back on schedules, and keep the highest-impact leadership work on your plate.

My assumption is corona lockdowns -- whether formal everyone stays at home nationally, devolving to the responsible states, or devolving even further to responsible employers -- is going to last at least 6 months. We'll see some data when China attempts to relax restrictions. I'd also assume that all the stuff folks normally do to for their kids for the summer period while they aren't in school -- ie all the camps -- are basically not going to happen, so you're going to be doing this until at least labor day.

As a cxx, we can / are definitely expecting some choppiness over the next couple weeks while everyone figures out how things work with us all working from home with the entire family home.

Given the economic guesses above, an inability to put in a reasonable workday is likely going to be a problem for you given the length of time I'm guessing we're going to be doing this. It also depends on how well capitalized your employer is.

Second, we (not saying my company, but definitely the US) are going to see layoffs. My company has already frozen hiring, to the obvious intent of not having layoffs and making cash last as long as possible. The US already has skyrocketing unemployment claims and an easily visible ongoing devastation of small business. The Republicans in the senate appear to have no interest in directly and immediately replacing the wages of everyone the government and/or corona are not allowing to work. This adds up to, most likely, a whopping recession. You're a family man, so you need to figure out how to keep yourself out of the line of fire, and my advice would be if that means working tired... you should work tired. NB: I'm not saying this is right or fair, just probably the best plan unless you have large cash savings.

At my company, we're figuring out how to support parents and, to be honest, we don't have a solid plan right now. A lot hinges on how deep the recession is going to be. We're already pricing in large sales falls. Again -- as mentioned above -- short term choppiness / reduction of work is fine, but if it is long term, and corona requires we work at home for an extended period of time, we're not in a financial position to weather a recession, pay full wages, and have a large falloff in work output.

As a manger, I totally expect that peoples' productivity will suffer. This is an unprecedented situation in our modern history, and the temporary decrease in productivity should not make or break the success of your employer. Do what you can, and don't drive yourself into the ground in the process. If your manager is an empathetic human being, they will understand the situation.

Between us I think we're doing okay. We're not going hardcore on structure. We're being relaxed on TV/videogame time (we usually only watch TV on weekends for an hour at most and video games are usually played together). We swap responsibility around. I take breaks to horse around with the kids in the yard or go for a walk around the neighborhood. We share meal preparation, chores, etc. While I need longer stretches of focused time I also dedicate a part of the day for household distractions.

We're also keeping the neighbors in the loop. Some of the parents, such as myself, have offered to take the kids out for a regular "recess" during the afternoon. We keep our distance as usual but go for walks, kick a ball in the field, count birds, have races, etc.

And at work I keep the team up to date on our situation. Everyone is in the same boat more or less. Some have high-risk dependents. Some have kids. Some are simply not comfortable working from home full time.

What I've learned about working from home for a period of about 5 years was: don't worry about the structure of your day. Wake up at a regular time, work out if you can, and realize that nobody can see you -- only your results. You can find a routine that works for you and yours. I hope most employers are smart enough to know that for some people this may mean less output but it can also mean more. Flexibility and responsibility are key. As long as you're communicating with your team I don't see the problem of fitting work around life. I find that without the stress and expectations of being "on the clock" enables me to have more opportunities for my mind to wander which often leads to insights that solve my problems that I'm working on.

Waiting on the child hand and foot to feed them and control their diet seems to be a large part of the burden. I never did that.

Kid snacks go on the lowest shelves of the pantry and the lowest shelves of the fridge door.

Let them have some limited amounts of junkie snacks. Otherwise, keep healthy stuff around that's easy for them to get themselves and don't stringently police what they eat. Let them get it themselves.

Explain that if they spill something, they should come get you so you can clean it up and they will not be in trouble. Do not be cross with them when they come get you. Thank them for getting you and clean it up.

I kept ten percent real fruit juice Capri Sun in the house. My toddlers learned to stick the straw in themselves. If it fell over, it dribbled a bit. It wasn't a big spill.

For a time, I kept hot dogs in the lowest shelf of the fridge door. Toddlers need more fats than adults and I could remember eating cold Vienna sausage out of the can as a toddler and liking it.

I would split the hotdog pack in half and put one half in an upper shelf out of reach. I would pre open the other so it was possible for a toddler to open it and put it in the bottom shelf of the fridge door.

I sometimes kept cold leftover noodles in the fridge and parmesan or Romano cheese. Cold noodles and cheese is a decent snack and my kid liked it.

Make long homemade tapes or play lists or whatever. I was working with tape recordings off the TV.

I had purchased videos that played for as little as 30 minutes. I got constantly interrupted if I let them watch those. A six hour tape of curated content meant I was comfortable letting them be only lightly supervised and they actually left me alone for more than fifteen minutes.

I would put a tape in and set a fresh snack and drink on the coffee table so they had easy access.

When the youngest got old enough to fight with the older child, I spent a week sitting on the floor with them actively teaching them how to play together so they would stop fighting over toys and the like.

If the kids get along, they have unfettered access to reasonably healthy snacks and they are kept safely entertained in a physically safe home, it's possible to sometimes be left alone by them.

This was often the only way I got any sleep.

I wouldn't quit. It's a global pandemic. Other people are not likely to be more productive than you. Kids or no kids, everyone is finding this challenging.

thank you for leading with this.

1) Nintendo Switch with Yoshi's Crafted World (easiest game for kids), buy an extra controller because I think it only comes with 1... earliest age for this would be about 3, 3.5, and would need some in-game assistance from their older sibling (which the game provides mechanisms for)

2) iPads with games, including coloring games ... even a 2 year old can enjoy iPad games

3) Netflix cartoons

4) Amazon Prime cartoons

5) Kinetic sand (https://www.amazon.com/Only-Kinetic-Sand-Folding-2lbs/dp/B01... plus an extra http://amazon.com/Kinetic-Sand-Pounds-Beach-Packaging/dp/B01..., possibly doubling both for 2 kids)

6) MegaBlocks (https://www.amazon.com/Mega-Bloks-80-Piece-Building-Classic/...) I would buy 2x per kid to ensure they have plenty to build with

7) small dry erase boards and colored dry erase markers

8) YouTube Premium (remove the ads so they don't interrupt their cartoons)... for example, they might like Blippi https://www.youtube.com/user/BlippiVideos

I'm not saying little kids should play video games all the time, but it does give them something entertaining to focus their attention on.