Separating Myth And Reality

The actual experience of most mothers of infant children reminds us of the following:

Myth: My baby will sleep most of the day.

Reality: Most infants need to eat every one to two hours. Between feeding and diapering, your baby will actually be napping in short intervals throughout the day.

Myth: I will be much more productive with my business if I don't have to worry about who is caring for my baby.

Reality: You'll worry instead about whether your baby is getting enough attention from you, or if you are working hard enough on your business.

Myth: A young baby doesn't need much entertainment, as long as they are held and fed.

Reality: After about three months of age, your developing baby will seek additional stimulation. As your baby learns to sit, interact with people, and crawl, their needs for focused attention will increase. By nine months of age, when they become mobile, they need supervision most of their waking moments.

Realistic expectations

Most parents discover that the combination of working at home with an infant works best if they have realistic expectations of how much they will accomplish in their business, and how much quality time they will actually have with their infant. Your home-based business may have to operate on a part-time basis temporarily, unless you are able to arrange for regular help with infant care or with your business. Significant sleep deprivation, and little free time are also predictable consequences. At times, you will feel like you aren't a good enough business owner, or a good enough parent. To assess whether your expectations are realistic, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Can you do your business effectively in part-time hours, in short spurts of time, with distractions and interruptions from an infant?
2. Can you work well fatigued and feeling pulled in two different directions?
3. Can you share childcare responsibilities with your spouse, parent, or older children?
4. Can you hire childcare and/or housekeeping help to come into your home? (To give you private uninterrupted time to work).
5. Can you take a sabbatical from your business for a period of time, without destroying the business?
6. Do you have the financial means to earn less than a full-time income?
7. Can you set your own pace in your business, so that if your baby gets sick, has a cranky day, is teething, etc, you can let the work slide a bit without jeopardizing a deadline?
8. Does your spouse have a realistic assessment of what can be accomplished by you while working at home with an infant?
9. Is your infant reasonably healthy, even tempered, and not demanding more care than the average infant of their age. (For example, not colicky or handicapped).
10. Are your children spaced out in age so that you aren't caring for more than infant or toddler at a time? Are any of your children old enough to help you care for the younger one(s).
11. Is raising your children at home your highest priority, and therefore, are you willing to sacrifice business success if necessary, to accomplish that goal?

If you can answer yes to all or most of these questions, you may have the ideal situation for operating a home based business with an infant at home. If you answered no to several questions, reevaluate your decision. If you set out to achieve the impossible, you will only end up feeling like a failure. If you establish realistic expectations in the beginning, your chances of succeeding as a business owner and a parent are greatly increased.

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