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A) an equal partnership. For example, I do daycare drop off and DH does pick up.
B) a flexible or different schedule. I work 4 days per week so one day I run errands and get extra time with LO
C) game plan for food (we have a meal planning system that simplifies things), hire a housekeeper, other time saving strategies like that
D) we did move to an area with family close so we have back up care and a babysitter for date night
E) I'll likely cut my hours to part time in the future

It definitely hard but neither of us want to stay home so we make it work.

We couldn't - sorry I have a billable hours requirement and my husband travels frequently for work so something had to give. I ended up reduced my hours and have a flexible schedule - I mostly work 4 days a week and have the ability to work from home as needed. That said, my reduced schedule is more than full time for most people and some of my work obligations are totally inflexible, so we hire out what we can. I have a nanny, a cleaning person, and a guy that cuts the grass. We have no family nearby that is able to help out, so my entire village so to speak is on our payroll

We are joint partners. I have a demanding job yet flexible schedule. When I travel for work, hubby is in charge. When I'm home I do daycare drop offs and pickups. It helps that while my job is demanding, it's family friendly

We don't. But when I was a nanny they made it work by having me and a cleaning lady. A nanny meant they had help with school pick ups, groceries, laundry, meal prep, extra curriculars, having someone home for the plumber, etc.

I agree that an equal partnership is vital. We really help each other and try not to hold onto the bickering and snapping that inevitably happens. Meal planning makes a huge difference for us. The weeks we don't meal plan are a mess.

We do have a lot of family support and I don't take that for granted. We're thinking about another child but I feel like getting myself out the door at 7 am with one is quite an undertaking. Our son is 2 and we're mid thirties so it's probably time but we're not quite there yet.

It's tough, I hear you. We're TTC #2 and I'm nervous. However, we are doing pretty well right now. I think these are some of the things that have helped us:
- Both of us generally work standard hours but have flexibility to shift things around when needed. We can both work from home if need be. We both really like our jobs and neither of us has a terrible commute.
- Equal partnership at home.
- We let some chores slide or don't do them as often and we're both ok with that.
- Meal planning. Plus we tend to cook super easy things and make enough for 2 nights at a time.
- We finally found a babysitter and started doing regular date nights. That has really helped our mental states.

Both our families live away from us and while my mother has flown in a lot to help (its only an hour flight) she'll be stopping that at the end of this year. So we're in a similar position. DH works as a college professor 75 miles away a few times a week, plus he runs a law firm from home, and is finishing is Executive MBA. So he is BUSY. I am an attorney, but went with a governmet job that offered a lot more flexibility and benefits, so no hourly billing requirement for me. Nevertheless, we have 2 sets of law school loans, a 14 month old, and a house to maintain. And I'm currently pregnant with LO2.

DH and I have just decided whatever preserves our spiritual and marital relationships (and thus our sanity/stress levels) is what's most important. If our bond with God and each other is strong, we can co-parent better, provide a more stable home for our son, and think more rationally when its stressful. So EVERYTHING is subservient to that in our decision matrix.

Functionally, in addition to taking a lower paying government job, it means I've sorta hit the slo-mo button on my career. I took a full year off work for maternity leave with DS and found out I was pregnant again a month after I went back to work (super surprise)! I was sure I was going to get a lot of side eye so I just came out and told everyone early to them as much time to prepare staffing as possible, said it was totally unexpected (because it was), but then cheerfully said "at least I'm getting it all out of the way at once!" I don't expect to take the full year again with LO2, but I will take 6-7 months, so that's at least 18 months I've set myself back in terms of promotions and credits towards retirement. I'm also currently only working 3 days a week and will probably stay at this schedule until my kids are in school or we just feel comfortable with me going into the office 5 days a week, so that's another snag to building my pension credits. BUT it gives me the ability to see my husband on the days he works from home, we get to spend time together as a family, I can run errands and do some chores for the house - so its worth the paycut for us.

DH for his part chose to structure his career in a way that would give us a combination of security (employment as a college professor) and flexibility (professor's schedule and running his own law firm). DH's commute sucks, but he's successfully argued to transition his classes to a hybrid format so he can teach one of his days fully online. So next semester he will only go in 2 days a week and this semester he's gone in 1 day a week. And while he works crazy hours for his own law firm, he sets his hours and works from home, so he's physically around a lot and can move appointments around as he needs. Oftentimes he works at night after DS goes to bed and helps me out in the mornings. His MBA is a time suck right now, but he did it because it would open up his teaching opportunities at other schools, and perhaps even one closer to one of our families in the future. Its an investment in future options and he'll be done right as LO2 is born!

We also have our son on a schedule. He sorta dictated the need for a strict schedule as an infant, but its stuck and he does better with a very predictable schedule. But it also helps us because we all get up at the same time every day, we know how to structure our days (especially now that he's on 1 nap!), and we don't usually have scheduling hiccups because we know how our day is going to go. Sure he has MOTN wake ups occasionally or he gets sick, but really we all keep our sanity and are pretty well rested because we ALL stay on schedule.

We have set parental tasks and chores. DH does park time, bath, and bedtime routine with DS. And if there's errands to run during the work day that he can take DS off my hands for, like the bank or the post office, he takes him to give me a break. DH also does bills, dishes, laundry, car maintenance, dealing with household repairs, and garbage. I do cooking, cleaning, shopping, meal planning, family gifts/holiday stuff, and travel planning. I also do most of the kid care and MOTN wake ups.

I imagine with my mom not being around next year, we'll have to contract more stuff out. We'll probably look at hiring a cleaning service and we'll be putting DS in an in-home daycare for a few days a week as my pregnancy progresses. I'll also be hiring a mommy's helper to come in a few hours here and there when I'm solo parenting on business school days. DH also wants me to hire a post-partum doula or night nurse for LO2. All of this stuff is expensive, but we've agreed until the kids are at least preschool age, its more about surviving and paying whatever we need to in order to keep our sanity.

So long story short, we've just decided financial and career goals are a lesser priority while we get through the weeds of the baby/toddler years. Once everyone is potty trained, able to feed and express themselves, and just generally become more functional human beings, we're just going to do what needs to be done to keep our marriage sane. As DH always says "let's just keep the pain train going and accept the next 5 years are just going to suck." Or our more recent mantra is "Let's just get everyone to 3. Just get to 3."

I switched from a billable hours required job and management position to a regular 9-5 with no direct reports.

We've struggled a lot and ultimately decided to put LO2 on pause indefinitely. We both work full time and LO1 has some health stuff going on, so it's been a challenging year. I think admitting I couldn't do it all and pausing TTC was the right choice, even though it was a tough choice.

@Pumpkin Pie: It's so hard!! Honestly, I dropped down to a 75% schedule and salary to make our lives work more smoothly. I'm sure we would be surviving just fine if I was still full-time, but going part-time has taken the edge off.

My husband switched his schedule to 6:30-4:00 which also helped. I work 7:30 to 5 or later. He's able to pick LO up from daycare and be home to start dinner and hang out with her before I get home on my full days.

We also have a cleaning lady twice a week and bought a chest freezer so I could bulk cook when we have a free weekend. Then during busy periods, we have a bunch of soup, spaghetti sauce, and crock pot meals ready to go.

@pumpkin pie: if it makes you feel any better, i don't necessarily think that having #2 will make it more difficult. at least in our case, the big life change was having #1, and #2 just meant more $$ (daycare or sitters or whatever) and a little less alone time (divide & conquer instead of taking turns).

that being said, i think an "equal partnership" isn't always achievable or ideal. most couples i know where both work have one person's career take priority at any given moment. sometimes it can flip between after a set period of time (e.g., you work hard until you get promoted, then SO gets priority to advance, etc). in our case that wasn't really do-able (DH is a physician), so my job always had to be the flexible one -- all drop-offs and pick-ups for daycare, PTO for sick days, etc etc.
since we have no family nearby, i would've had to hire out a LOT of help to keep my same job & career trajectory. i ended up switching to something more flexible & with no travel, which was then less fulfilling, and now i stay home because it's less stressful for our family.

ETA: i meant that equal partnership isn't always ideal because it might mean that both of you are taking a step away from excelling at your jobs -- leading to less fulfillment and/or less advancement. sometimes that's fine, but sometimes it's not

It is definitely a constant struggle; you are not alone! I think I have to have a very realistic mentality; knowing that LO can suddenly not STTN, become cranky, throw tantrums, get sick, etc... And not take routinely good days for granted haha! I think this is why we are not going to have 2 under 2.

It's a struggle for us too! We can't afford a cleaning service. We do not have family help locally. A good chunk of my PTO has gone to staying home when LO is sick or staying home when I am sick thanks to LO. We thought we'd be able to work out 3 times a week but we can't fit that in. We'll probably have to dig into our savings to pay for daycare for LO2 for at least the first year. But we're having so much fun with our LO and we cherish our time with him - he's had a few rough times but overall he's happy. Even though there are a lot of things we don't get done, we really have gotten to do a lot with LO so far in his first 14 months.