Working full time and a toddler

My personal feeling is that is that it is the quality of the time spent together is more important than the quantity of the time. 

We all do the best we can, and sometimes that means that we don't get to spend as much time together with our families as we would like. At the same time though, there are skills that children need to learn, one of which is (at least in my opinion) learning to entertain themselves-learning to play on their own with out someone (or something like tv) telling them how to do so. 

It is a fine balance for sure, but-for example, having a child playing alone while someone is cooking dinner, in my opinion is not only an okay thing, but developmentally appropriate.

my kids were in daycare because I work full time. we had some quality time at nights, but mostly on the weekends. i work 2 jobs, and tho the second is a design business i do from home, I'm still not able to be fully present while I'm working, KWIM? there was only about 3 hours from when we picked kids up to when they went to bed, and you had to squeeze a lot of non-fun stuff in there like dinner, homework. there's church and after school activities too on many nights. i try to wait til they are in bed to do my work, but it's not always possible. and somewhere in there, you just need time for yourself to preserve your own sanity. actually, we still follow that same routine now (4 hours of time with them a night) from when they get home from school to bed. not a lot of time!

i hope you're not asking because you're passing judgement on how much time they spend, and if you deem it quality time, etc.

I worked outside of the home when my oldest was a toddler. I now stay at home (and youngest DD is a toddler). I would say that yes, when our oldest was 2.5 years old one of us was often entertaining her while the other did some household task. She was a kid that needed a lot of attention. Plus we only had about 3 hours with her each night (less than that if you take out time for a run to the store, etc.). Even if she wasn't being played with she was right by my side "helping" me do laundry, etc. She wasn't very good about playing alone at that age.

Our youngest is almost 2. She has always been better able to entertain herself. On the flip side, she is VERY good at knowing when mama's attention is elsewhere and making a mess in no time flat. LOL Between her more laid back personality and the fact that I'm home with her all the time I don't feel as much pressure (or need) to spend all evening entertaining her. It gets spread out throughout the day. Plus having an older sibling to play with eases the demands on mom & dad.

My DH and I both worked 8-5 with DD in daycare 10 hrs a day until she was around 4 years old. At that point, she began having serious behavior issues, because she simply needed more time and attention from us. I looked around at all of our parent/friends and no one had our schedule! In every case, at least one of the working parents had a job with hours that differed from 8-5 and thus, their child was not in daycare 10 hrs a day. We decided that I would cut back to a part-time schedule and, WOW, what a difference it made for our DD. She was so much happier to have more time with me and her mood and behavior improved immediately. It really changed our family overal

I know that option isn't available for every family - especially single-parent families, but I'm sure glad we were able to make the change.

I have four kids but the youngest is 3. While I am making dinner, the kids either do their own thing or help me. Usually DH is not home yet at that time.

My stepbrother and his wife have a 2 yo (almost three) and they seem to be unable to leave her some for even a moment. That is not an exaggeration. Other people in the family have commented on it. Preferably, they would have both parents doing everything with her but for sure one. When they have been with us for holidays they literally both went to change her diaper, feed her baby food, change her clothes, put her down for a nap, etc. my mom asked all of us to help plan and prepare one meal during Christmas to allow her to spend more time enjoying family. The wide said that she didn't have time to plan the meal and wouldn't be able to help at my moms either because she would need to be with her Dd.

Honestly, I often thought that I spent more time with my DD than some of my friends who are home with their children all day. When I came home, I was happy to be with her. She would "help" me fix dinner and we would often take walks or just play. Like other stated, weekends were specially important to us.

I was a single parent until daughter was 3 years old. I worked full time and had a 2 hour bus ride from work to baby sitter to home every morning and every night. In the mornings it was too early when I had to get up and most of the time it was wake her up change her and walk out of the house. she slept most of the way to the baby sitters house. When she woke up I would have a snack for her and something to drink. She actually ate breakfast at the baby sitters house. I dropped her off at 6:30 am. then off to work to get there before 9 am I actually had to take a 7 am bus because the later bus got me to work after 9. 

On the way home It was the same story except daughter was awake. So we got to hang out just the 2 of us. I would read to her or just sit and hold her. Baby sitter usually fed her dinner because I didn't get off work until after 5 pm and it was after 7 when we got home. most of the nights it was get as much time playing with her as I could. I didn't care about house work or anything else. I just wanted time with my baby. 

When I met my now husband it was hard at first to adjust to a schedule and find a close baby sitter so we made the decision to put her in a day care center close to my husbands work because he had a car I was still not driving at the time. Husband would drop me off at work drive to his work town (we worked in to different cities and we lived 8 miles from where I worked) dropped off daughter then after he got off work he would pick up daughter then depending on what time I got off he would come get me before going home or go home for a while before picking me up. But no matter what we did and what time it happened when I got home it was all about spending time with daughter. we did that for almost a year.  then we moved to a small town and I got to take daughter to work with me. 

I made her a space in the back room for her. She had a nap away, a play area, a tv area, and a little table to eat on or do her little crafts on. I was there for a couple years at that job. She started head start there when she was 4 and went for 2 years. When I ended up losing that job because the salon owner closed the doors. We decided I would stay home until I wanted to go back to work. 

I always felt it was most important to spend every minute I could with my daughter. I did find that she loved to help mommy. She wanted to do everything I did. So if I was cooking she wanted to help. If I was cleaning she wanted to help. If I was reading, playing video games or anything else she wanted to help so I let her help. I gave her tasks that at what ever age she was she could learn how to do easily and safely. 
But at the same time I got to spend every minute I could with her. 

We are still really close to day 22 years. I am very lucky that my daughter likes me and wants to spend time together. 

Life is short you never know what will happen and every body needs to take the time to spend as much time with their babies as they can. Forget the house work and what ever else stands in the way. You only get one chance to spend a life time with your kids. 

Edited to add. I remember many nights waking up with a pile of books on my bed the light on and a little one sound asleep in my arms. She loved reading and I would read to her but she had to have a pile of books.  She didn't care about the stuffed animals but she loved them books.  I loved those nights. 

My husband and I help raise our 4 granddaughter along with our son. I work 12 1/2 hours day with a 2 hour commute, he takes her to daycare at 7 am and picks her up at 5 every Monday, Tue and every other Wednesday. I stay home with her ever other Wednesday, every Thurs.

Fridays and Saturdays are spent with her dad. Pops picks her up Sunday and we start our week over. We do the best we can, it's a balancing act for sure. She gets to go to Daycare Mon, Tues and every other Wednesday.

We're each other's islands, we do the best we can and try to do whatever we can to help each other. Is it perfect? No, but we do need to work for retirement pay and a modest home. You do what you have too. Kids are resillant, and honestly, I think it's good for them to know that although we we love, provide for and have a safe and nurturing home.... the world does not revolve around them.

Thank you

My almost 5 year old still prefers to be with me almost ALLLL of the time. If given a choice, she will choose me 98% of the time even though her dad tries to be loving and fun. It does get old being her go-to for bedtime every.single.day. and he doesn't press the issue because TBH he would much rather sit in his chair in front of the TV than put her to bed.  He does work a lot so she is automatically with me more anyway and I think that might be part of it. He's good about picking up my slack when I want to get away for a weekend or whatever so I can't complain too much.

I think at 2.5 years old she's probably not going to totally play by herself for too long or let mom and dad decompress right away in the evening, especially if they are all getting home around the same time. The kid has been waiting all day to see them, and my guess is that if they were to give her 15-20 minutes of face time right when they get home it would help a lot. My DD would always bug the crap out of DH the minute he walked in the door from work, and it would drive him nuts. I finally had to tell him to let his home office work slide for 15 minutes and to sit down and talk to her right when he comes in. I've noticed if he does that she will give him some space after that to do his paperwork without distractions.

I agree with whoever said one parent should make dinner while the other supervises. Since the kid is wanting mom anyway, maybe let mom be available to play or read with her while dad takes care of dinner and then dad can take over and get her ready for bed while mom cleans up the kitchen after dinner. It won't be too much longer before she is willing to play independently for a bit so they can do what they need to do when they get home. The years between 2-5 have been tough for us too, but it doesn't last forever and now we're at the point where DD will color, play with her princesses or Legos for a while or watch a show on Netflix without constantly bugging us or making a huge mess. She just didn't have the kind of attention span she has now when she was 2 or 3, nor did we expect her to at that age.

This is true, but, between homework and sports (which is almost every night) it doesn't leave a lot of down-time for the boys, their schedules are full too. 

I think that different kids have different needs... different parents also have different needs. I would tread carefully they need to figure out what works for them!  Perhaps you can get the child some things that they can do on their own and suggest they be " after school" toys. Something that only comes out when the parents need to get stuff done.

I am a single parent and I know how hard it can be. Sometimes my kid just needs me. I need to be able to stop what I am doing and focus on her.  I work from home which is tougher in some ways because I am there.. but not there.  My daughter is 12 and she gets it but still it is hard.