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Our first is due Dec 8th, and my office is also next to the baby's room, but I have a bank of servers behind me to take the edge off the noise! B^>
Rgds
Damon
PS. I also have WiFi and a baby sling (each sold separately, batteries not included, YMMV, etc) so that I can either get as far away as possible or as close as possible to overcome the baby comfort/noise equivalent of ad-blindness I hope!
What you will need most is a key. Lock the door behind you and pretend not to be there. Otherwise your productivity will rapidly decline.
(Your problem will be the mother, not the baby.)
Your production may drop a little, but everything you put into being a parent will more than offset that.
I think that you've got at least a year when your baby starts walking around until they make much of a difference (although my daughter Amy started walking a 9.5 months).
Good luck.
I didn't work from home when mine were little babies, but my husband stayed home with them. He would play video games for hours while the baby slept in the sling he was wearing.
It will help with the mom thing too as most new moms need some serious support at that time due to lack of sleep and lonliness. You can work and watch the baby while mom can sleep or get some me time. You look like a hero and mom/wife is a much happier woman.
* Get an old system set up for when s/he becomes two-ish and wants to "do along with you". Mine learned their alphabet via DOS - the magic invocations that brought up the ancient games kept them enthralled for hours. Best use for DOS I ever found. Both went to kindergarten knowing numbers, alphabet, spelling, typing, and more about computers than their teachers.
* A baby/child will also give you great "child break" excuses that will energise your work once you sit down again. I highly recommend a child to the "work from home" webmaster.
Congratulations and best wishes to all you youngsters with young ones. I truly miss those days.
My daughter started tapping away at a keyboard when she was two: at that stage she did not care if it was connected to a computer or not, so she got given an old one to play with.
Now she is a few days wasy from three. For the last few months she has been able to login (she has her own login to keep her away from my files), and can start the programs she uses (the Konqueror file manager in photo browsing mode, the Kolourpaint paint program and two games).
If she joins me when I am working, I have an old PC connected up as an X-terminal so she can login without disturbing me too much (except I have to keep doing Google image searches for her because she can not spell "Snow White" or "Cinderella" yet).
Be ready for a schedule that's not a schedule for at least a few weeks, could be much longer. Your little one won't have any sense of time, day/night or anything else you depend on to keep you on track... and you will be sleep deprived. We found that after 6 weeks or so, our kids kind of fell into a routine that resembled a schedule, which we then cultivated. It evolved into regular naps and meals which made a big difference.
A sling is a great thing, especially when they're tiny and snuggly. We also used a portable bassinet that could be easily moved around. A baby monitor is also good, so baby can stay in their room, and you can hear if they need you... Since this is your first, you might not be ready to do that for a while. :)
hannamyluv's advice is very good.
Bottom-line, you can do it, but don't expect things to be the same, they won't. Congrats!
off to fix lunch for mine - they're 8 and 3 now...
LisaB
