I mentioned in my post yesterday that being a work at home mom is hard. You know what else is hard? Pregnancy. You are nauseous, tired, hungry, tired, cranky, tired, achey, and did I mention tired? There’s also the pregnancy brain that keeps you forgetting why you walked into the kitchen (hint: probably a snack). Pregnancy is a beautiful and wonderful thing, but to say it’s easy would just be flat out lying. Pregnancy makes almost every part of your life more difficult. I say almost because it makes waiting a bit easier because people always let you cut or offer you their seat. Pregnancy has a way of throwing our lives a bit off track, especially as a work at home mom. So how do we survive, and how do we keep our work at home jobs afloat?
Handling Pregnancy as a Work at Home Mom
Re-Evaluate Your Work at Home Tasks
This is a big one. I know that as work at home moms we write never ending to-do lists and then we decide we shouldn’t rest until we get every last thing done. That’s not going to cut it during pregnancy. You’ll be tired, sick, cranky, and hungry all the time, so you need to prepare to be unable to work at max capacity. Take this time to reevaluate all of the current tasks you do to see what’s really necessary. Do you need to write five blog posts a week, or could you cut back to three? How will it effect your income if you take on two clients next month instead of four? Or maybe you can host a Facebook party instead of a home party to enjoy the time in your jammies? Think about the tasks that really bring you money, and the tasks that can be put off until later or avoided altogether. When you’re a work at home mom and you’re pregnant, every second is precious so make sure every second of your time is spent directly bringing in an income.
Schedule a Nap Time
Yes, seriously. In fact, this should probably have been my first tip because you need to do this as soon as you find out you’re pregnant. I know, I know, we work at home moms use our kids’ nap times as our office hours and we hold onto those few hours of (relative) quiet like gold, but trust me on this one. If your kids nap for two hours, spend the first hour working and then force yourself to put it all away to take a nap for the last hour. You will have so much more energy and feel so much more refreshed if you work nap time into your schedule. This is something that I actually do most days, especially in my first and third trimesters. For some reason you can’t sleep at night time when you’re pregnant, despite the fact that you’ll be tired all the time. However, in the afternoons, you’ll fall into a deep sleep the second your head hits your pillow. Just give in and schedule a nap.
Don’t Feel Guilty
During pregnancy, your first priority is your health and the health of your baby. If that means that you need to take on a few less clients, so be it. If it means that you need to take a full on break when your morning sickness is so bad that you can’t get out of bed, take a break. Your work at home job will be there when you get back. If you need to continue working at the same pace, then you’ll need to let some other activities slide. Maybe you give up your weekly small group for a season or you stop watching TV to make some room in your evenings for catch up work. Don’t feel guilty in the slightest for taking a break and making yourself a priority. You need to take this time for you and your baby, so you should feel proud of this time.
This is part of a five day series here on my top work at home mom tips! You can see all of the posts in the series here. This series is part of the Summer Hopscotch with the iHomeschool Network, and you can see their lovely posts by clicking the image below.
How did your life as a work at home mom change when you were pregnant?
