Balancing Business and Baby
Disclaimer: Balancing business and baby is not easy. When it comes to parenting I’ve learned that there’s no one step approach. There’s the “what works for you” approach. Everyone is in different situations and has different work schedules. I thought I would share a few tips for how I balance mommy time with work time with you guys and hope I can help someone else out in the same situation. I also love when you guys leave tips for me as well. We can all learn from each other!
1. Everyone has “those days”. The ones where you can barely get anything done and you feel like a failure as a parent and a business person. I’ve learned that these come on about once every 2 weeks. They usually appear after a night of no sleep and an extra cup of coffee won’t even do the trick. On these days I realize what’s going on and try not to beat myself up about it. If you’re having one of these days and you constantly stress about how you aren’t getting enough done, it just makes it that much worse.
2. Realize that you may have to word odd hours. Especially if you own your own business or work from home. I usually end up working after Noah goes to bed for a couple of hours in the evenings because I know I’m going to have uninterrupted work time. This also helps me not feel as bad if I need to take an hour nap in the morning while Dylan gets up with Noah.
3. Get help if you can. For us this isn’t really much of an option right now. Child care is so expensive and I just don’t see the point in putting the little guy in childcare unless our income was to drastically increase. I also am of one of those control-freak parents that would be stressing about him all day and probably get less work done than if he were just at home. Maybe when he’s a little older we will think more about it. If you don’t want to do childcare get the help of family and friends for babysitting. If your parents live in town, consider yourself very lucky.
4. Get your little one on some sort of schedule. When you can tell yourself “Okay, I’m going to attempt to put baby down at 9:00 for a morning nap” you know that during that nap it’s power-work time. By power-work I mean get as much done as humanly possibly during that nap time. Imagine you are Bradley Cooper in the movie Limitless. I’ve noticed this helping a lot until my little guy started teething. During those peaks in developmental stages everything sort of goes out the window.
5. Have a sense of humor. Because sometimes stuff is going to go haywire. Have a laugh, pour a cup of coffee, snuggle your little one, and realize that in this moment you are happy, healthy, and fortunate.
Oh and I must mention Noah’s adorable outfit and my t-shirt in this post are from Little Beans Clothing. The shop has the cutest pieces for momma and baby!
THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON MY BLOG, LIFE IN ATX
