"Raising a family while charting a successful career involves having a clear sense of what you want for both and making trade-offs along the way."
Alice Katwan, mother of three boys, a VP of sales at global customer engagement company Genesys, and one of the Silicon Valley Business Journal's "100 most influential women in Silicon Valley."

Successfully managing your children and your career depends on 3 things:

1. What you want for your family and for your career

Each mother has her own vision of what kind of mother she wants to be. Some mothers are absolutely fine with putting their baby in daycare at 6 months of age, whereas other mothers strongly feel they should be at home with the baby at least until age 1 or 1.5. Some mothers would not dream of having a helper do babycare because they find joy in doing all the daily routine things for their baby. Others are happy to have a full-time helper. Some mothers want to take a year or more break to fully concentrate on their baby. Other mothers do not want to slow down their careers too much and are ready to get back to full-time work sooner.

Naturally each of these mothers will have a different path. There is no right or wrong path. It all depends on what you want, and what you and your husband want as a family.

2. The support system available to you to carry out these plans

None of us can do what we do without support. As a working mother, arrange your support system in such a way that it allows you to fulfil your career goals. This means getting your husband's cooperation to share responsibilities as needed. It means hiring whatever help you need so as to preserve your time. It may mean depending on extended family to help with childcare. So the answer is yes, you can have it all. As long as you are clear about what you want and can arrange your support system to make it happen.

3. Allowing for trade-offs

That being said, no matter how well you plan things out, there will always be trade-offs. Motherhood and career are both full-time jobs. Doing both at the same time means that some compromises will have to be made along the way. Your path to the next promotion may not be as straightforward as you hoped it would be. Your ability to take on full-time work may be delayed. However, the more fixed you are about your career plan and ambitions, the more upset you will be at each delay. Make room for compromise and know that it's not a bad thing. You are still moving forward and that's the most important thing.

Trade-offs are also temporary. Once your children are in regular school, you would be much more available for your career requirements. There will come a point when you will be able to take on assignments involving travel, manage late nights or stretch your hours. Making an intentional choice to allow a trade-off is what will help you feel most settled in your dual role as mother and professional.