The statistics for Moms who work outside the home are staggering. One study reads that after daycare, taxes, gasoline, and food and clothing expenses, the average woman working outside the home earns approximately $1 per hour. Mothers facing this kind of financial reality often look for ways to earn money right from their homes, thus cutting out the extra expenses related to maintaining an outside career. But they soon find out that staying home with the kiddos presents its own unique challenges. Without the solid line between work and home, how do moms with home businesses juggle the balance between their business and those they do it for?

Susie Arevalo, owner of the cloth diapering business Lucy Luvs, has found many ways to keep her business growing, while raising three small children. Not only does she homeschool and have an active toddler underfoot, she is also alone for an extended period of time while her husband is deployed in Iraq as a combat medic.

First things first she says is to treat your business like a business, not a hobby. She has set business hours for Lucy Luvs and keeps them religiously. Otherwise the demands of household and childcare tasks can very easily compete with the work she has committed herself to doing. Recently, she hired a mother's helper to come care for her children during her set business hours of 8 a.m.-12 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. While they are under the care of the mother's helper, Susie can still keep an ear out for her little ones while still being able to concentrate on her business activities. One phrase she hears a lot when recommending a mother's helper to other work at home moms is that they cannot afford it. As she says "I can't afford not to have her."

Without regular business hours is often difficult to find the time to attend to your business without the guilt that you could be doing something else. As they say a woman's work is never done. A majority of mothers with work at home businesses try to isolate their work to the hours after the children go to bed. While a lot can be done after their bedtime, you also take the chance of being ready for bed yourself by this time of night. To combat relying only on nighttime hours to do your work, an established daytime routine, that includes time for your business is essential. This can be very hard to establish, with laundry needing switched, dishes needing done, etc. But it CAN be done. Write down a routine you feel comfortable with and stick to it. It doesn't have to be strict. Just write down the order in which you would like to see things done during the day. I have found that if I keep a schedule that relies heavy on getting certain tasks done by certain times in the day, I always get "behind" and then discouraged. One lifesaver for me has been the Flylady routine. The email reminders get deleted all day long, but they still serve their purpose, even if I don't always read them. One thing I have found is that most of the tasks I always thought took so long, don't take anymore than 15 minutes. Dreaded tasks like laundry, which I somehow never have managed to endear myself too, take a lot less than the allotted 15 minutes.

One of the sweetest aspects of running a work at home mom business is the free advertising you can get just by living your life. Susie has built a solid local business just by having her daughter in one of the diapers she sells on her website. Her daughter is a walking advertisement. With new websites like Café Press, you can have your business logo printed on any number of items to carry with you, or to have your child wear. These are bound to stir up some conversations when you go on an outing. High dollar advertising is not required when you truly love what you do. Your passion for your product or service speaks for itself and it gets people interested. It also speaks volumes to those who can see you have a family and still find the time to pursue this business, which says it's something worthwhile.

Running a business from home does include one very important aspect…the home. This can and should be your first priority. If you have chosen to stay home because you want to be with your children, or don't want someone else raising them, keep that your focus. This business should run around your family, not the other way around. This is the beauty of owning your own business. If your little one is sick and just needs Momma for the day, you can shut your phone off, refuse to answer emails and just be the Mom for the day. If you need to answer emails, you can keep a basket of your baby's favorite toys beside your desk to keep them occupied. It really is all about what works for you. Don't ever get frustrated and give up you hit a bump in the road. Find a solution that's all your own and fits with your family. When you are overwhelmed with business piling up, take a break and go play Lego's or dollhouse. There's something so relieving about taking the time to remember why you are doing this in the first place.

In a business where Baby is boss, there are many ways to keep the balance. There is no magic formula; no right or wrong way and nothing that can make success come faster than the problems you have to solve to get there. Because no one has been the Mom in YOUR family, no one will be able to tell you exactly how to set up your own home business. It's all trial and error. Your job is to take each obstacle and find a way that you can overcome it. For some, it's cutting back business. For other's it's finding a way to treat the business more like a real business and for yet others its simply finding the perfect toy to keep baby occupied while you complete a needed task. Just keep trucking along and doing what you love, for the people you love. That's the true measure of success!

 

For more information about how to set up and run a home based business please visit www.diaperdecisions.com and click on "Small Business Tools."
Melissa Coffey is co-owner of Diaper Decisions, a company dedicated to promoting work at home moms in the natural parenting industry. She is a home schooling mother to four wonderful children and best friend to her husband, a Radiation Protection technician at Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico.