5 Ways To Balance Motherhood With Business
The journey to motherhood, despite what fairytales would often have us believe, is often never linear and balancing mum life with a career is often rarely acknowledged. In Australia, we have seen an increase in the amount of mothers returning to full time work with children younger than five, according to the Australian Bureau Statistics. Despite this increase, it can often still feel like a very lonely and challenging time for some women.
From ‘mum guilt’ and wishing you had more time in the day, to making decisions around who will care for your children and learning how to manage the ‘old’ full time workload with the ‘new’ family demands, the juggle is real. For our founder, Keira Rumble (an entrepreneur of three wellness brands), finding ways to juggle work and life and ensuring both get equal nurturing has been a constant learning curve, but something she has become well versed in with time and hopes to support other women with.
So whether you’re battling night feeds and emails at all hours, zoom calls with constant distractions in the background or navigating the daycare drop off and pick ups and the inevitable sick days that come with kids going to daycare, we’ve got you.
Read on for tips from our founder and team about the best ways to balance business with motherhood (and hopefully take care of yourself too)
1. Prioritise phone free time
It can often be tempting to quickly check emails at home in between family time, but research shows that children feel seen, safe, and act out less when they have their parent’s full focus. The study, which followed 50 mums with children aged between 7 to 23 months, found that the less time mothers spent on their phones in front of their children, the happier and more engaged the children were.
While scrolling during the more mundane moments of parenting is natural and at times a chance to switch off, taking mindful breaks from your device (be it on aeroplane mode or in another room) can not only benefit your child and relationship with them, but give you a moment to recalibrate, be present and enjoy disconnecting too.
2. Ask for help
Be it a mum’s group, a nanny, recruiting a grandparent or doing night shifts with your partner, finding ways to not carry all the mental load alone is so important. For Keira, this looked like finding a nanny so she could balance home and work life: “My partner and I went back to work quite quickly after the birth of Hunter, so with this in mind, we hired a nanny, and honestly it turned out to be such an amazing thing to do as a family. “
With increased flexibility to work from home while still breastfeeding and alternating working from home days and office days, Keira found having this support gave her the best of both worlds: “It’s still a juggling act and it’s definitely took me some time to accept that I wasn’t going to have a long maternity leave after the birth of my first son, but knowing he was in good care (while I was working at home upstairs for the first 9 months) gave me the flexibility and confidence to juggle work life and mum life.”
3. Take breaks to reset
Finding small moments to pause and soak in the scenery is often a lost art in modern times. Yet practising mindfulness is known to bring so many benefits from: reducing stress, increased productivity and work engagement and better concentration through to increasing gratitude and life satisfaction.
One trick Keira swears by is to set a timer throughout the day: “I schedule reminders in my phone twice a day at 10am and 2pm to actively stop for a second, look up and focus on something in front of me. It can be as simple as a leaf on the tree outside or a glance at my toddler. Taking a split second out of my day to stop, focus and recalibrate always makes me smile and really helps my mental health!”
4. Slow down your skincare ritual
The ancient philosopher Lao Tzu once famously said, ‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’ In remembering that we too are a part of nature, and that things will always get done can be a relief just in itself. But in finding ways to slow down throughout the day, it also can keep us on an even keel and much more calm amidst the busy-ness.
With skincare a daily ritual that occurs both morning and night, finding ways to infuse a ‘slow’ mindful element into your usual routine can be one of the best ways to restore balance and reconnect to your breath and the moment. Whether it’s: indulging in a delicious gua sha facial massage once a week, applying the Hydrating Sleep Mask before bed and repeating an affirmation as it soaks in or frothing milk while cupping your morning coffee, there are so many ways you can slow down and savour the moment in between the daily parenting and working grind.
5. Sneak in a nutrient boost
Sustaining energy levels is something that needs to be kept front of mind at all stages of motherhood, particularly in the early breastfeeding days. One of the simplest ways to ensure you are getting your nutrition needs met and keeping healthy, hydrated and revitalised is by adding ingestibles into your daily drinks. Within Habitual Beauty, our Ingestible Beauty Collagen Products are designed to both lift skin, hair and nails and at minimal effort - think skincare you can drink. Either add to your morning glass of water, smoothe or sneak it into your morning coffee the way Keira likes to.
For mama’s who aren’t big on the taste of water or just have no time to top up the one glass let alone eight, ensuring your electrolytes needs are met is crucial. A saviour throughout her own recent prenatal journey, Hydramama® (a hydration aid) has been a game changer for Keira, especially with an ongoing Hyperemesis Gravidarum pregnancy.
Founded by Keira to support her own journey and other new parents too, Hydramama® (from Mini + Me) is packed with water-soluble vitamins including: Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, Electrolytes and Folate. Through the simple act of adding a sachet to your daily drink of choice, be it collagen infused or electrolyte, you can feel at ease knowing your nutrient needs are being met and you're making a choice as a mama that puts your mind at ease and has so many benefits for you and your little one, no matter your age or their life stage.