Does your husband work at home???

My husband works from home.  I love it!  It is such a blessing to be together so much. 

Here are some thoughts:

*Recognize it will be a training period for your children to learn to be quieter while he is working.  If possible, test to see how much noise his customers will hear.  Have the children make noise while you call him.  Step outside so you can’t hear the kids.  Can the kids play piano (if you have one)? Can they talk/scream/yell/cry outside his door?  We can actually make more noise than you would imagine because of sound buffering technology in his headset.

*Work your husband’s breaks into your day.  Be prepared for them and don’t view them as an interuption. 

*Teach your children to serve your husband and be an example of it.  This may sound easy/obvious but in the day to day it can be a challange.  You’re busy, but he is working.  Yesterday, my husband came upstairs quickly and asked me to make some Tang.  He needed to get back to his desk to be available for calls.  I was rushing around getting ready for school so I asked my daughter to do it.  She responded, “I’m doing my chores.”  Ouch, wrong attitude, but she got it from me.  We were all more concerned with what we were doing to serve.

*Encourage your husband to consider a stand up desk.  It  is the best thing my husband ever did.  He used to have terrible neck pain from sitting even after the ergonomic specialist from his company set up  his desk.  No neck or back pain from standing.  Sore feet, maybe.     If he is interested my husband can dialolgue with him on how to set it up.

*Protect his work time from others.  It took a while for people (family, church friends) to understand that being home did not mean he was available.  His time is tracked and monitored down to the minutes.  So, if his mom stops by she has to wait until his break to see him.

That’s all I can think of.  Let me know if you have any other questions.

@Jenny Excellent tips!

@Doug I’m off to find more coloring books for DH! ;0)

Guarding time for DH and for school has been a struggle through the years. (Especially for school!). It looks to me that you’ll need to guard his sleep time for the most part. Studying quietly while he’s asleep will certainly develop attention skills. What a blessing!

My husband didn’t work from home, but for a number of years he worked evenings/nights.  So he was sleeping during the day….

So for that – basically it was making the bedroom good for him.  He uses a sleep apnea BiPap Machine, with an oxygen condenser – so that added white noise – and he would also have the fan on (the condenser is almost like a little heater – so even in winter we need the fan on).    That covered up a lot of our noise.  (I think he sometimes put a pillow on top of his head as well – which isn’t a big deal when breathing through a mask anyway…)

So I guess my advice for sleeping is to make sure he has white noise (or music) to help cover up your family noise.   

If he isn’t used to working nights – you may want to make sure you have really dark coverings for his windows while sleeping…   We haven’t done this, but probably a full-spectrum light for the room that he is working in will help too.

Husbands working from home is great on so many levels. We love the extra time since there is no travel involved. Also getting to have all three meals together is wonderful. I have to say, I agree with Doug. We had to basically train my husband that we really do do school and can’t stop everything when he decides to take a break. it just broke up our flow too much.

It can be fun to have him join in on a conversation about what we are studing. Many times my dh would say how much he wished his school was like what we do. Also when dd got to Algebra and Geometry it was nice to have a quick answer available if we got stuck. We try to be respectful not to interrupt him too much either! It goes both ways.