Studying for ITIL 4 with a full-time job and a 2-year-old

Let me set the scene. My daughter wakes up at 5:48 every morning, give or take seven minutes. By 6:30 I'm making oatmeal. By 8:15 I'm at my desk for work. The day ends at 19:00. Bath time, books, bed. By 21:30 I might have an hour. Maybe.

I passed ITIL 4 Foundation on May 30th, 2025. I want to write down what worked because I almost didn't do it, and I think a lot of parents put this stuff off forever for the wrong reasons.

The first thing that worked was lowering the bar. Hard. I gave up on the idea of "real study sessions." There was no two-hour block I could find. Instead I did 25-minute pockets. One before work, one at lunch when she was at daycare, one after she went down. Some days only one of those happened. Some days zero. That was OK.

I stopped tracking total hours and started tracking streaks. "Did I touch the material today, even once?" If yes, win. The streak thing sounds gimmicky, but it kept me going through three weeks where I felt like I wasn't progressing.

What didn't work: trying to do practice exams while she was awake. Don't even attempt this. You'll get interrupted on question 4, lose your place, get frustrated, snap at her, feel terrible. Save mocks for evenings or weekend mornings when someone else is on duty.

Audio was the cheat code. I had two ITIL podcasts and a 35-minute commute. That's almost six hours a week of passive review. Not deep work, but it kept the vocabulary warm so when I sat down for active study, I wasn't starting from cold.

A few honest things:

• I gave up coffee with friends for about six weeks.
• I watched zero TV between mid-April and the exam.
• My partner picked up extra bedtime duty. I owe her one.

Total prep, about 38 hours over nine weeks. Score: 30/40, which is 75%. Pass mark is 65%. I'll take it.

You can do this with a small kid. You just have to redefine what "studying" looks like, and stop comparing yourself to people on Reddit who are doing 4-hour sessions.