My husband hasn’t been happy at his job for a long time, and has been looking for a new one for awhile. Well, he found, interviewed, and accepted a very good position and he is excited about it. While I am truly glad for him, I have to admit that I was disappointed to find out that the new job will be second shift. 3-11:30 Tuesday through Saturday. (uugghhh) My first thought was Oh No! He’s going to ruin my schedule! HAHA! I love routine, and him being home during the day and not home in the evening, and having Monday off is just…annoying. 
(I also want to add that in no way, shape, or form, is my husband interested in joining in/helping with homeschooling.) So, I was wondering how you mom’s work around your husbands who work second shift, or have odd days off. Do you school on work days to give you all the same “weekend” off? Do you change your school hours at all? Any advice or tips would be helpful to consider! Thank you for your time!
Hi!
My husband is a paramedic and has worked odd shifts for 16 years. He has worked nights, 12 hour odd shifts and now he works 24 hours on and 48 hours off. We are so used to this type of schedule, I couldn’t imagine a “normal” 8-5 job. With that said, our homeschool schedule is pretty normal. On the days he is home, if he is a “distraction” to the kids, he will go outside and work while we are doing school. On occasion, if we really want to do something with him, we take the day off and make it up another time. That’s the beauty of a flexible schedule.
Since y’all won’t be used to him being home during the day, it might take some time to adjust but I think over time you will find it is great having him home during the day. If you feel y’all aren’t spending enough time together because of the odd hours, maybe you can adjust your homeschool times or maybe take monday’s off to be with him. The good thing is, summer is coming up and it will give you a few months to adjust to the new schedule.
I have no good ideas for you. We did the opposite - went from an odd shift for years to now, a normal 8-5. There are pros and cons to both. When he does have the occasional week day off, it is extremely distracting to both the kids and me… we all have a difficult time focusing… and he sometimes (not purposely) interrupts us. However, the pros to having him home during the day: lunch time was with daddy, he could run errands, saving me time later, appointments could be scheduled and I wouldn’t have to take both young children - heck, I could schedule an appointment for myself and have NO children! He was also able to jump in and work with or entertain one (even if it was just a walk around the yard) if I was working with the other for an extended time. No lie - pros and cons both ways. Try to focus on the pros coming your way (btw - to answer your question, we tried to stick to our normal routine - Monday - Friday)
My husband works odd days and very odd hours, which generally means that I get up at 300am with him 
That alone can disrupt our day. The best and only solution we have come up with is we have a “school room”. When dad is gone we start with morning time in the living room then move to our school room for together items then wherever the day takes us. When dad is home, if he has been up all night we still do morning time, but again move to our school room. If he is up we start our day in the school room, but occasionally he enjoys listening to our morning time stories.
I understand the not joining in with homeschooling my husband is ok with it, but he he does not participate in our homeschooling except on the days I’m at work when his main duty is “Did you do your homework that mom left for you?” Occasionally he will listen while our youngest reads aloud.
Wish I had more in the way of help, but a separate room has been the answer for us.
My husband has been out of work several times during the past couple years while we homeschooled. It hasn’t been to bad, though it was a little bit of an adjustment at first. Usually he hung out in the bedroom to send applications while we did our homeschool in the living room. The only real adjustment to homeschool was my son likes to practice oral math facts while jumping on the bed, which had to be re-adjusted for when dad wasn’t using the room.
The real adjustment was when I started substitute teaching to stretch out our finances a bit. My husband took over teaching homeschool on those days. It made it more difficult to plan things…but I think my son also benefited from time with his dad and a different teaching perspective.
My husband has worked third shift for years until recently. Having him sleeping during the day while we were trying to do school was a challenge as I tried to keep the kids quiet. Now he is on a 2 days on 2 off day shift schedule which provides a great distraction to our son when he is home. He wants to see what dad is doing and do everything with him. Sometimes we do school when he is off and on those days my husband is sure to reinforce with my son that we get the basics done (math, reading, language, writing) before he is allowed to go off and be with dad. Other times we don’t do school when he is off…and when it is his weekend to work we will do school those days instead. It is a crazy schedule but it works for us…much better too since I learned to let go the Mon to Fri school schedule. We still manage to get everything done in a school year and we all enjoy having a “weekend” in the middle of the week sometimes.