Parenting Tips for Single Moms: How to Balance a Hybrid Work Schedule

During the pandemic, single moms had to leave work or cut back on their hours to focus on caring for their children. Several began to work from home, and while it allowed them to spend more time with their families, it also added more to their daily responsibilities. This made things difficult for single moms because they had to balance their work and mom duties. In a new paper, the Hamilton Project shared their new policy proposals that will support single mothers’ full participation in the economic recovery from Covid-19, and this will be especially helpful because they are now preferring their current hybrid work setup.

A spotlight on going back to work from LHH found that 80% of the surveyed respondents across all organizational levels wanted to maintain some of the flexibility they had during the pandemic. Greater flexibility will allow mothers to split their time between traditional and home office spaces, so they can pick and choose where they want to work on specific days. For single moms, this could still be seen as a challenge, but they are willing to brave it to spend more time with their children.

As this setup can be hard on some moms, here are some of our parenting tips for single moms for how to balance your hybrid work schedule. These tips can help reduce stress and create a work life that compliments your responsibilities at home.

1. Stay Consistent

Verywell Family notes that consistency is an essential strategy for productive parenting. This means that you have rules and routines that help you set your boundaries. Being consistent will allow your children to know what to expect – and this strengthens their sense of stability, trust, and understanding. Staying consistent will let your children know what they must do and where they need to be when you are working. Moreover, your children can anticipate and be ready for the days when you need to go to the office by simply staying consistent with their routines. Not to mention, consistency is key to ensuring that you maintain productivity.

2. Define Your Schedule

A part of the hybrid work setup is often working from home. This can quickly disrupt your consistent routines when long meetings happen or if you suddenly get swamped with work. To remedy this, you can schedule breaks where you dedicate time to play with your children. You can also schedule your work time for the times when your children will rarely ask for you – their nap time or playtime. You might even consider going out during your breaks so that you and your kids can go out and have fun. As we previously mentioned in our blog post on ‘Great Ways to Encourage Your Children by Single Mom Spot’, you can encourage them to try something new like going to the park or trying out a new hobby.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

Being a single mom in a hybrid work setup can quickly get tough. You have to balance your work but also stay present for your children – often having to respond to them even if you are in the middle of something. But we get it. Sometimes, we just want to be like super moms for them. But when the going gets tough, it is alright to ask for help from your loved ones. It will be much more difficult if you overwork yourself to the point where you can’t even take care of your kids properly. As Family Doctor points out, accepting help can get you time for yourself so that you can recharge and be an even better mother for your children.

Being a single mother is challenging, and it becomes even more so when you add work in the mix. It’s important to stick to a routine and know when to reach out for help to keep your household running happily and healthily.

We hope this article helped you with ideas for how to balance your own hybrid work schedule. If you have suggestions that worked for you, our single mom community would love to here them! Comment below. And don’t forget to subscribe and be entered into our free giveaways!

Single Mom Spot™ is an online connection point for single moms. Whether you are a single mom struggling with financial or legal issues or you are just looking for community and support, you’ve come to the right place. Please join our single mom collective TODAY to get inspired, encouraged and equipped to live your best life as a woman and mother right now.