the bossbabe podcast - 433: Real Talk About the Taboo Topic of Childcare as an Ambitious Mama

Episode Date: November 9, 2024

In this episode of CEO Mama, Lindsay dives deep into the complexities of childcare, discussing its challenges, costs, and the various opinions surrounding it. She shares what she’s found to be the most important aspects when it comes to finding the right childcare for your family. The conversation also touches on handling disruptions in arrangements and the significance of alone time for mental health. We also reached out to our amazing CEO Mamas and asked how they navigate this as mothers and entrepreneurs. Tune in for an insightful episode that will not only offer you guidance but also leave you feeling less alone when trying to find the best solution for you and your family.  TIMESTAMPS 00:20 - The Childcare Conundrum 03:00 - Best Practices for Finding Childcare 10:30 - Onboarding and Setting Expectations 14:00 - Handling Disruptions and Inconsistencies 20:30 - Personal Childcare Arrangements and Insights 31:00 - Reflections on Childcare From Our CEO Mamas RESOURCES + LINKS Join Growth Day To Access All of Natalie’s Keynotes & Unlock The Best High-Performance Systems + Tools.  Join The Société: Our Exclusive Membership To Help You Build A Freedom-Based Business. Get Our Weekly Newsletter & Get Insights From Natalie Every Single Week On All Things Strategy, Motherhood, Business Growth + More.  Drop Us A Review On The Podcast + Send Us A Screenshot & We’ll Send You Natalie’s 7-Figure Operating System Completely FREE (value $1,997)  FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie Anna Powers Website Anna Konchar Website Megan Van Noy Instagram Lacey Sites Website CEO Mama application: bossbabe.com/ceomama

Hello, welcome back to the show. This is Lindsay and this is a CEO Momma episode all about the big C, childcare. One of our favorite topics at CEO Momma because you guys, child care is not only controversial, but also challenging. It's all the C words. You know, child care is one of these things when you start talking with moms that I think people have a really strong opinion about and valid, right? We all are entitled to our belief systems around how much child care is too much, how much is right for us, what kind is the best for you and best for the kids. I mean, everybody's got an opinion, right? And I think living in this

day and age and social media is going to always going to show you both sides of the coin, right? So there's, we were just talking the other day about like the trad wife movement and all these incredible women who are, you know, staying home and raising a gaggle of children and running big businesses. And you're like, wow, oh my God, you know, like how? I mean, my reaction is like, how do you have eight kids and run a big business with no care? Like I don't or no help. I don't I just don't think I could do it. And there's a lot of conversation out there around needing childcare and that childcare is really healthy for kids and that they need to be out and about around other children and they need to be exposed to other caretakers besides just their parents because it helps

with resilience and emotional regulation, all these things. And I'm like, okay, true, I believe that too, you know? And so anytime we have these kinds of conversations, whether it's inside of CEO Mama, on a podcast, out in the world in conversation with moms, there's always going to be a range of opinions. And so I'm prefacing everything today with this statement that I'm not an expert, I am not an expert on your situation. And what works for me is not necessarily what's going to work for you. What works for Natalie is not necessarily what's going to work for you. What works for Natalie is not necessarily what's going to work for you and we never profess that we've done it right but we have developed a lot of

tools and we have a lot of these conversations and that's what I'm going to share today. So you're also today going to hear from four of our CEO mamas who recorded little snippets of how they manage child care in their lives and we did this because I think sometimes it's helpful to hear a broader range of options and opinions of what people do that are from women who are running really successful businesses. And so you'll hear those at the end of the episode from four of the women who are in our CEO Mama Mastermind. But before I get into that, I want to just walk through, you know, from my perspective

and conversations Natalie and I have around just some of the things that we've learned about best practices related to childcare from our own experience and how childcare supports running a business like BossBabe. And just being really candid about that because I think there's seasons where it can look like you're doing everything. And I think a lot of us show a version of life on social media that isn't giving you the full behind the scenes picture of what type of support is enabling that. And I just want to be truthful about mine and I can only speak from my experience, but I'm going to just give you a whole

little insight into my world and I'll talk a little bit about, you know, how we do stuff inside of BossBabe too that enables us and our team to, and the work rhythms we have and how we all manage child care and what that looks like and And just offer my perspective from what I've learned and what I've heard and what's worked best for me Okay, so all of that being said When you hear these clips later in the episode I the other thing I want to say to preface this is Most of the women in these clips and then of course course, Natalie and I, we've talked a lot about this. We all have in-home childcare, people that come to our home to support our kids. My kids are now five and seven, so they actually go to school. So I'm in a new season

where some of the days they're actually out of the house and at school, which has been a total change in our routine. But my youngest is only in part-time kindergarten, so we do still have a nanny who watches him on the days that he's not in school. And I'll share all about my life just so that there's some perspective. But in sharing all of this and in sharing our personal stories on this episode, I do want to mention, of course, for many of us, outside childcare is not an option. Childcare is wildly expensive in this country, wildly, and that's a whole other conversation that I will not be getting

into today because I'm not an expert on, but I don't think it's a debate that childcare is insanely expensive for most families and that for many of us, that means based on where we are in our life in our stage of business it's not affordable to hire someone to watch our children and that means that we either share childcare with a partner who you know our spouse who lives in our home who co-parents with us and that we share the load of childcare or we are reliant on family members to come in and support us for some childcare at no cost or we we are working the nap time hustle. And we are

working while our children are sleeping, whether that is during the day or at night or early in the morning. And all of these things are okay. And I want to just say that off the top, because I think sometimes the perception is you can never build a big business unless you have a lot of child care and You know, I don't know I don't know I don't personally know anybody who's built a very big business multiple millions of dollars with zero child care I Don't know anybody but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened and I'm sure you guys listening know some people and so it's it I'm sure you guys listening know some people. And so I'm sure it's possible. And I always find it super valuable to hear the truth from the people that I look up to and I listen to

and I respect and I want to learn from. I like to know what's true for them and what they do. So that's what I'm going to share today, because you're here listening. And that's what our gals from CEO Momma shared was their truth. So you're going to hear what works for us and it may not work for you and that's okay.

The other thing I wanna talk about before we jump into these recordings and before I share my personal, how I manage childcare, I wanna talk on a couple points around best practices or things that have felt hard over the years of having so much childcare in my life and having so many different types of childcare and trying lots of different things and having nannies quit and having to rehire and just things that I've learned and Natalie and I talk about these

things all the time also and so there's just a few points here that I want to talk through. So one is finding childcare that's a good fit with your needs and values, and that will be reliable long term. And I think this is the dream that we're all looking for is I would like whatever childcare solution I'm getting, whether it's someone coming into my home or a child care center, like where I'm going to take my children. I want that place to be in alignment with my needs and my values. That is so important to me that my children are going to be cared for in an environment

that is aligned with my values. And I think that this day and age especially, it's even more important. And I think in the past when we relied more on local, you know, like the, I remember going to like a neighbor's house and she had an in-home daycare and my mom and her were great friends. And like, you know, as a kid, like my mom would just walk us across the street. And I think that kind of like neighborhood-y friend vibe in childcare is, I've never experienced that. You know, I've either had to hire a nanny or I've had to take them to like a daycare center where I didn't know the human very well. And so I think one of the best practices is really being clear on your values and the

things that are so important to you that the person taking care of your child knows about you and knows about your child. And I am, I mean to go so far to say as to write the stuff down, print it out and bring it to the child care center and say, These are our values. This is, these are things that are important to me, that my child is, you know, whatever said these, these things are said to my child, these things are not said to my child, these things are whatever. Also important if you're bringing someone into your home to have that list of things like these are our values. I don't want you on your phone. I want them spending as much time outside, you know, like whatever it is, and being unapologetic about knowing what you want for your child. And I think this day and age, I, you know, without getting political, I, you know, I think values become, the way that

we raise our children in our homes is one of the foundational things that will make them who they are as adults. And they are going to be exposed to things outside in the world that we won't agree with or that we wouldn't want them to know or be exposed to, right? Because that's the nature of growing up, is they get exposed to other people, they get exposed to things we would want to protect them from. And the only thing that we will ever be able to rely on to understand and hope that they make good decisions out in the world is the values we raise them with at home. And so

whatever your personal values are, if you're going to look to another human to support you in raising your child, it's important that they understand your values. And in terms of reliable long-term care, if it is a mismatch in values from the beginning, it's not going to last. And I will tell you that unreliable child care and having to rehire, like lose people and rehire and lose people and rehire because it's a mismatch, it's very difficult. It takes up a lot of time and it's distracting from work. And so if the intention of having childcare is to help you be able to focus on work, then being clear about your values up front and through the hiring process or the vetting process of going to a center or someone else's home for childcare, to make sure the value alignment is there

is so important and to be unapologetic about it. And I just want to say that. I think it's totally okay to be unapologetic about your value system and look for the right fit. So that's the first thing. The second thing is onboarding child care and really helping people understand what you expect. And this is another thing that I've learned over the years of having a lot of in-home childcare, people that come to my home to care for my children, is the relationships that have worked out the best and my kids have thrived in and they've been the most reliable long-term childcare providers for us have been the people where I was very, very clear from the very beginning about what my expectations were of the day-to-day routines and what I did and didn't like and what I wanted to have done on the days that they were here.

And a lot of this comes down to things like, you know, what's included in their job? Because I've had nannies and babysitters who said, well, doing the dishes is not part of my job. And I'm like, oh, okay. I who said, well, doing the dishes is not part of my job. And I'm like, oh, okay, I guess I didn't, that's okay. You know, I guess if I didn't set that expectation, then that's on me. But if my expectation is that they do the dishes after making lunch for my children and their expectation is that they don't have to do that, we have a problem, right? And it's much harder to solve that problem weeks or months down the line than it is

to just be clear of the expectations upfront. So another thing around childcare, whether you are hiring someone, you're having family help you, you're gonna take your children somewhere is the expectations of what you want to have done throughout that day. And this comes up a lot in CEO Mama with family, where family is helping with childcare and

how hard it can feel to be clear with your family members about your expectations, like what you do and don't want. And it never fails, you know, it's like, I don't want to like, my mom is so helpful, and I love that she's here with the kids, and we don't have to pay her. She's just helping. She's retired. She loves it. But like, I really don't like how she disciplines them. And I, you know, I don't want them disciplined in that way. And I don't want them eating this stuff for lunch. And but she doesn't, she doesn't listen to me. And I'm like, oof, values and expectations, values and expectations that you've got to come back to

onboarding and like communicating values up front and then as they start working for you giving them clear expectations of what the day in the life of this routine what you want it to look like and that's just another place that I think I've learned and Natalie's learned and we talk a lot about once you've found value alignment and you hire someone or a family member is supporting or you're taking them somewhere, now it's about communicating expectations and making sure that you're not sitting on something or like holding something in that's really important to you and it's not getting done because that's going to be a recipe for resentment down the road just like in a relationship

but just like with employees perhaps even worse with our kids because we're so protective right like so when you bring someone into a child care role just making sure you know what you want done the things that you would like them to do throughout the day with your kids, and how, if there's a lot of specifics that you get as specific as you need to get in order for you to feel satisfied that the expectations can be met. Okay, and then the next thing, so this is another big topic of conversation where I can share a little bit of best practices wisdom, and that's around how to handle inconsistencies, disruptions, and unexpected no-childcare days. And man, do these happen a lot.

There's just no way to avoid them, unfortunately. And I think we talk about this and boss babe a lot with, you know, life is unpredictable. Your business shouldn't be. So how do we build predictability into your business and into your work so that on the unpredictable day, on the no childcare day where your nanny is sick or the daycare center is closed or the weather is so bad you can't get there or, you know, somebody's on vacation or whatever it may be, that you have enough resilience built into your own nervous system and into your business that you can take over

or you can adapt your schedule to care for your child and not have it compound stress that now you can't deliver on something in the business. And you know, I think there's no perfect formula for this and there are always going to be days where it happens last minute and you're like, ah, crap, I'm not gonna be able to be on that call or that project is gonna have to get shifted. And you're, you know, so I, I want to normalize the unapologetic ness of, of my child comes first and culturally inside of Boss Babe. And, you know, with our CEO mamas, we talk about this a lot of like, you know, it's, we live in a world and the reason we're all entrepreneurs is so that we have the ability

to say, you know what, my child comes first and today I'm in mom mode. I have a sick kid or today I'm in mom mode, my nanny canceled. Today I'm in mom mode. I, you know, the daycare center is closed down or there's no school today. I'm in mom mode. And that means that I'm going to do my best or I you know I can work maybe a little bit here and there whatever is the reality for you but I'm not gonna try to keep I'm not gonna try to perform in the business at the same level I would have if I had child care and just letting that be okay and I think I think we're getting to a point I don't know maybe you can DM me and tell me your thoughts but I do think we're getting to a point, I don't know, maybe you can DM me and tell me your thoughts,

but I do think we're getting to a point in our culture where, at least on the entrepreneurial online business world, where it feels more okay to just be honest and say, hey, I've got a sick kid today, can we reschedule? Or hey, I'm going to have to postpone this call because I don't have childcare and my two-year-old is running around and I won't be able to focus. And by and large, that feeling less scary and less wrong than maybe it has in the past. Now, you know, when I had a corporate career, that was unheard of.

And I worked mostly with men. So like that's a whole other topic because they never talked about their kids. But you know, I think in the corporate world, it's perhaps very different than it is in the entrepreneurial world, it's perhaps very different than it is in the entrepreneurial world. But since, you know, we come from this lens, you know, we've developed a culture in Boss Babe and, you know, even Natalie and I, when we go through days or weeks without childcare, we just change things.

We just pivot and we roll with it and we say, you know, I'm not going to be able to do that podcast today. I'll have to reschedule. I'm not going to be able to go to speak at do that podcast today. I'll have to reschedule. I'm not gonna be able to go to speak at that thing. I'm gonna have to reschedule. I'm not gonna get that project done today. I'll do it tomorrow. But today, I'm gonna prioritize my child. And just being unapologetic about that. So I think there's that piece. And then there's building the resiliency into your nervous system and your business for the reaction or the, you know,

the downstream effect of a disruptive day. And that's where everything we teach in society and Freedom Fast Track around predictability in the business becomes so important so that you can be nimble. And it's also why we talk so much about nervous system and self-care and really understanding how to bring yourself back to center so that if you have one of these days where you have to cancel some stuff and push projects out, that it doesn't send you into fight or flight over being worried or stressed about money or your client's reactions. You can feel very centered in, you know what I'm doing? The

best thing for me and my child and my business will be okay. And being able to kind of pull that grounding back into the nervous system. So those are things I wanted to touch on that are themes we talk about a lot in CEO Mama and that Natalie and I talk a lot about just in our private conversations around managing childcare. And it's interesting, Natalie and I personally have both had a lot of childcare disruptions since likeions since the summer. My nanny quit, our full-time nanny quit unexpectedly on a Sunday afternoon right after school started in August this year and just said she was done.

It was time. We were at a point where I think it was no longer a good fit, but it was a Sunday afternoon and I had a full week of work. I was traveling to Austin that week and I was like, okay, shoot, what do we do? And luckily, I have a very supportive partner who's also entrepreneurial and he was able to adapt his schedule and we had a babysitter who luckily had some extra time and she was able to fill in some gaps. And then, you know, we spent the next couple of weeks hiring and found someone amazing and it all has worked out.

But you know, those moments where someone unexpectedly quits or, you know, in Natalie's case, same kind of situation, you know, amazing, amazing nanny with a personal situation and it's like, oh man, you know, this amazing fit we had and this great rhythm we had going with our childcare and then it just all changes in an instance because of something that happens in their life, you know, and their schedule has to shift and you have no control over it. And so, you know, we've been talking about this a lot around how do we adapt when we can't predict it, you know?

And yet this is the most important thing in our life is who's watching our children and it's got to be the priority. And so anyway, this is a big conversation, you guys. And I feel nervous to tell you about how much childcare I have because I'm like, oh, the judgment. But I think these are important conversations, and I want to be honest and transparent. And you're going to hear after I talk here, you're going to hear a few more clips of the CEO mama gals and how much childcare they have.

And some of them, it's a lot, some of it's not very much, but I think this gets to be a conversation that we're in. And again, there's no right answer and what's right for me and my family is not right for you. So anyway, my situation, let me just tell you. So yeah, we lost our full-time nanny in August. We rehired and what we currently have is we currently have two gals who are, one is a senior in college here locally,

and the other is in her early 20s and is a professional dancer. And they share the load of childcare for my two little boys. And like I said, Wesley is in, my son, my five-year-old Wesley is in halftime kindergarten. So he goes to kindergarten two and a half days a week, two full days and half day Friday. And so we have a one of the nannies does Tuesdays and Thursdays with him and a half day Friday. So that is basically full time with him on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the half day Friday. She

also does all the driving on those days of picking up my other son at school and then taking both my sons to their jujitsu practice. One of the things that I have found to be a game changer in having childcare support is childcare providers that can drive and that I trust to drive and that can take care of the afterschool driving

to afterschool sports. I want my children to have the opportunity to be in something like Jiu-Jitsu, but it is a 25 minute round trip drive to go pick up my older son at school and take them to Jiu-Jitsu. And if I have to do that, that means I'm done working a lot earlier in the day than I can be slash want to be done working.

So for us, having a childcare provider that's able to do the driving has been a game changer. Now, the way that I vetted that, so we have her location turned on, so I know where she is. And that's agreed upon. I pay her for mileage, so she is compensated for the the driving and she texts me when she picks them up when she picks them up at school and she texts me when they

get to the jujitsu place and then she texts me again when they're leaving the jujitsu place. So I feel comfortable knowing like where they are and what their timing is between everything and her location is turned on so I know where they are. And then again, for compensation, she's compensated for the miles. So that's how we handle that. We also have a childcare provider, the other gal who is a professional dancer.

She comes over to our house Tuesday through Friday and is here from four to eight p.m. So she does all the dishes. She does all the laundry. She makes dinner and she helps with shower, like after dinner time, homework, play. She helps them take showers and get all ready for bed and tucked in. And then our tea and I, my partner and I, we do, we read, we like do their night time. So we read to them and we cuddle and we lay there till they fall asleep.

I have a secret announcement. We are working on something absolutely phenomenal for Black Friday. And here's the thing, you're only going to find out what this offer is if you're signed up to the Black Friday list. Now, I do not do Black Friday deals for the whole of the month. It's very much gonna land on Black Friday and it's one of those things that you're really gonna want to make sure you're on the wait list for because your jaw is gonna hit the floor when you hear

what we're doing. It's wild. So what I want you to do is head to bossbabe.com forward slash Black Friday and get yourself signed up. The thing that we are releasing on Black Friday has the potential to completely change the trajectory of your business to close out this year. And for all of 2025, you have to be on the list. You won't hear about it if you're not so head to bosswave.com forward slash black Friday I'll also put the link below so that you can jump on the list and make sure you signed up ahead of Black Friday So that has worked for us to have evening support with all those kind of like witching our tasks and also because my kids like to eat at like 5 p.m. 5 30 p.m.

And that's basically when I'm finishing my workday And so even though I'm finishing my work day. And so even though I'm home and I could be cooking for them by that point, I like to outsource that. So for us, having evening support four nights a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, has been a game changer.

It just means that food is prepped, dishes are done, the house is tidy, somebody else can like supervise them if they want to go ride their bikes outside or they want to go you know play in the treehouse or play in the basement with Legos, whatever it is, and I don't have to feel like I'm jumping right from work brain into mom mode and not having that transition. So that's our childcare arrangement. And then the same, we also have Sundays.

So the gal who does our evenings also comes over on Sundays and gives us several hours on Sundays to... Basically what I use Sundays for is she plays with my kids because I'm not like a… I don't love to like sit and play Legos for hours or go to the park while they… like they love to go to the park and they will play at the park for like four hours. They did this yesterday. And she will sit there with them and do that. I don't love that.

I would like to do projects around my house. So on Sundays, what I tend to have her do is she'll play Legos with them Or she'll take them to a park. She'll take them to the trampoline park to the library like some activity and It gives me a loan time in my own house And I will tell you the biggest game changer for my mental health has been a loan time in my own house Where I can do the little tasks I can can organize things, I can get like the little honeydew projects done, I can watch a show. I don't know, I do all kinds of stuff, you guys, but I do it without anybody else around,

nobody else bothering me, nobody else that I have to supervise, no one else making a mess that I just cleaned up, right? A loan time in your own house. I don't know how else to describe it. It's Nirvana as a mother. So that's what we pay for on Sundays is for her to get them out of the house or to go do some activity with them so that I can have a loan time in the house. Typically, RT is also around and doing projects or he's, um, he travels a lot over the weekends.

So that's another reason why we have some weekend care is that he's probably gone once or twice a month over the weekend for his business. And so it helps me to have, again, like alone time is even more important when I'm also solo parenting over the weekend. So that's my arrangement. From when Sawyer are my oldest, when he was eight weeks old, we got our first nanny. And so I am someone that has had childcare from very early on. And in the beginning, that was because I was the breadwinner and I worked as a consultant and I had to bill my hours.

And so if I did not bill hours, we did not make money. So in the beginning, I had to have childcare so that I could bill. Now, and I don't know so that I could bill. Now, and you know, and I, I don't know if I could go back in time when I knowing what I know now, would I do it differently? Maybe? I don't know. But at that time, that's how I made money. And that's what I had to do. So we hired a nanny and she was with us for several years and she was amazing. And she's still like Sawyer's favorite person. And it's beautiful. And she she taught me

a lot, honestly honestly. Like I will say one of the things that I believe strongly about especially in-home child care bringing someone into your home is that it's an opportunity to learn a lot about how to be a parent, to have someone else's perspective and to have someone who's had experience with other kids come into your home and help you learn and to learn your child and give you perspective. And you know I've always thought of our child care providers as really like collaborative and very important to my children's mental health. And I've always wanted them to know my kids and

tell me what they observe about my kids and be honest about stuff. And that has always informed my parenting. So that's how I look at it. I am a, you know, I'm a childcare maximizer for sure. That's what's best for my mental health. That being said, I've always prioritized having childcare in my home so that my kids are around and I can choose to go hang out with them and see them at any time.

And that's always been really important to me. So I've had seasons through my life where I've had more childcare through COVID obviously and my life falling apart, which that's a story for another pod that you might have heard or might not, but you can go find. When I hit rock bottom in 2020, 2021, you know, I had a lot less childcare. I still had some, but I didn't have the financial means

that I have normally. And obviously COVID put some parameters around how that worked. So, you know, I've been through seasons of really consistent, maximized childcare and then seasons where I had less. Now I'm in this beautiful season where three days a week, my kids are in school and it's just a whole different world to have a quiet house with no one here.

So I'm happy to always share the truth about that. And the best practices, I've been through great nannies, I've been through terrible hires that were desperation hires that only made it a couple weeks because they were so bad and, you know, lesson learned. And I'm happy to share tips and tools and truths, all of the things. And I've teased this on a couple other episodes, but, you know, we're working on an offering from CEO Mama to kind of help with a lot of this kind of stuff. And one of the things that we know has been a huge benefit of the CEO Mama mastermind has been the perspectives and the tools on things like your values and your expectations

and the best practices of hiring help in your home. And so we have a lot of tools for that coming, wink, wink. Anyway, okay, that's what I wanted to say on my story and on kind of the overview of childcare as entrepreneurial mamas, ambitious mamas. As always, this is not the gospel. I am not perfect. What works for me may not work for you at

all and you may judge me and that's fine. And I, you know, I think one of the beautiful, beautiful things about being a mother is that we get to see other people's motherhood. We get to witness other women and their expression of motherhood and in finding what works best for them and we get to be compassionate. We get to adopt this mindset that, you know, there's no such thing as other people's children. We're all trying to do our best. We all love our kids.

We all want to be someone in the world and have our work be meaningful. And in my opinion, in order for me to do the best kind of work that I want to do, I need help. And I've always felt that way and I've always prioritized it. So with that being said, we are now going to play these snippets from a few of our CEO mamas and I hope you enjoy getting to hear from them. And thank you again for listening and we'll see you on a future episode. Hey, this is Anna Powers.

I'm the founder of the Clickworthy Copywriting Certification and I wanted to share some of my best practices on finding childcare and also some of the things to look out for. So I have a 19 month old daughter and I grew up as an only child. So before I had Sarah, I thought, Oh, this is going to be fine. Like she's a baby. She'll sleep. I'll just work on mentoring my students in the other room.

I'll write my emails in the other room. It will be any big deal. And those of you who are already moms are probably laughing so hard right I'm mentoring my students in the other room. I'll write my emails in the other room. It will be any big deal. And those of you who are already moms are probably laughing so hard right now, because you know, that is not how it is. Um, I also ended up having an unexpected C-section. So right off the bat, just my whole experience of motherhood was, um, was a little discombobulating. You know, I went from just kind of running my own thing.

Um, my husband and I both worked from home to then having this little baby. And I was also, um, I'm actually still breastfeeding. She's 19 months old now. And in the beginning, again, I just didn't know much about babies. I know this sounds so crazy, but I thought she would breastfeed like three or four times a day. And so she's feeding, you know, nine or 10 times a day when she's really little. And I was like, Oh my goodness, this is a lot.

So very quickly we realized we needed to find help. And, um, so that's my first recommendation is look for help before you actually need it. So if you think you might need help, look for that help and line that help up before you have your baby, because it was really challenging to do that, you know, in the midst of being a new parent. So we found a full time nanny and we did hire a nanny service, but the nanny service actually didn't find the nanny that we chose. Um, I found her through my personal network of referrals. So that's another recommendation is really go to people that you trust who might have

connections in your community. Um, one thing that we did really well with our nanny is we set up a very, uh, regular schedule. So we made her a W two household employee. She worked for us for 40 hours a week. She would come over at 9 a.m. And she would leave at 5 p.m. Um, we had an agreement.

Mississippi is a, the state that we're in and it's an at-will employment. It's an at-will employment state, but we went ahead and set up an agreement with her just to outline the terms of the engagement and that also provided a lot of clarity for both of us. So we had 40 hours a week with a generous pay rate for her. We gave her 14 paid holidays plus 10 paid personal days. We also provided her with snacks and, um, things that she could have for lunch. And I think all of that went a really long way. Oh, we also gave her guaranteed hours.

So even if let's say we were out of town for a mastermind trip, she was guaranteed to get paid for 36 hours per week. Um, she normally worked 40, but let's say we went on a trip one, one week, which we did actually several weeks that she was working with us. She still got paid. And I think that's really important. If you want to find high quality childcare, you have to recognize that, um, someone who is going to become basically a member of your family, they need stability also. So I think that's something that's really important. If you want the best kind of care is you need to be willing to offer, um,

really a generous package for them. So what also worked really well was we, we took our time looking for someone and we found someone who just had a heart for being with children and who was also very well educated and smart. And so, um, what our nanny would do with our daughter is she would read to her. She would sing to her. She had a background as a French teacher. So she actually would walk around the house, like give her, she called it the

house tour when she was a really small baby and she would point to different items in the house and she would say the word in English and then say it in French and that made my heart happy just to see all the care that was being poured into our daughter. I would say the biggest challenge for us with having a nanny in our home for 40 hours a week is that my husband and I both work from home. And we're in a fairly small home, which is a three bedroom, two bath. We're actually moving to a larger

place in the near future. But, um, but having another adult in the home full time was just sort of challenging space wise, even just, you know, establishing where in the fridge her snacks are going to go. And, um, you know, making sure that there's space for everyone. And while it was a huge pro to have her in the house overall, because I was breastfeeding, so, you know, I loved being still, still right down the hall for my daughter and when she needed to eat, you know, it was, I was just literally a few steps away, but as Sarah got older and really needed more space and needed to be able to crawl around more and just, you know, not be stuck in her nursery all day.

That became, um, pretty challenging because I gave my daughter, um, my home office as her nursery and we converted our formal dining into my office. So I don't have a door. So as Sarah got, I don't have an office store. So as Sarah got older, um, that became challenging with, Oh, she's a baby. She needs to be crawling all around the house, exploring, but also mama needs to work. Um, so that's ultimately why we actually moved our childcare to my parents. I know we're very blessed to have family so close.

And once Sarah was old enough, um, what our arrangement is now is, uh, she spends the afternoons every afternoon at her grandparents' house. And that gives me a couple of solid hours every day to really focus on work. But having that nanny full time for, um, for some of those early months was really a blessing. And I think it laid a very strong foundation for our daughter. So if you're in a position where you can do that, I highly, highly recommend it. our daughter. So if you're in a position where you can do that, I highly, highly recommend it. My name is Megan and I am the single mom to Isabel who is three and a half. And child care

has been a journey for me. So currently what I do for child care is Isabel goes to an in-home daycare that actually found via the Nextdoor app of all places and she goes for about six hours a day on Mondays and Tuesdays as we started preschool so she also goes to preschool and then I am really blessed to have my mom local so she goes to my mom's all day on Wednesdays and Thursdays and what has been really special about that is the flexibility from both places. There's no certain drop-off, there's no certain pickup, so I'm really able to tailor what I need around that. I've tried in-home care at our house before, but what happened was she knows I'm here. And so that was actually a really really big struggle to be in the same place as she was because she knew mommy was near. As she's gotten

older we can do that more with our babysitter or as I like to call her, Isabelle's personal assistant. And I can close myself in the office and they can be upstairs. But generally what's worked for the best for me is because I work from home is actually Isabelle somewhere else and that has helped with her socialization, that's helped her really get to spend time with her cousins and there's not a ton of distraction for me in my home. So

honestly I think the biggest thing is really trial and error and that sounds so, you know, that just sounds so okay. Yeah, that's obvious. But you never know. You never know who your kid is going to click with. You never know if it's better for you to be at home with them. If it's better for you to be away from them because you are such a safe space that if they can smell you, they want to be with you and being able to find flexibility and people who care about her just as much

as I do is the real game changer because it is just me. She needs to be able to know that there is healthy attachment to other people and that she is safe with other people and that if mommy thinks they're safe, then they're safe and that she's going to be okay. So it's also helped her in her resilience and her autonomy and helping her develop into her little independent self. Hi there. I'm Anna Conchar. I have three kids, five and under, and I teach course creators and coaches how to use Facebook and Instagram ads

and create funnels that convert cold audiences into a sale. Now what I have done for childcare has changed many times since my first daughter was born five years ago. At that time my husband worked full-time as a corporate attorney and we had zero outside childcare help, so I worked primarily during nap time. When she was a few months old, I started thinking about bringing someone into the home to help us part-time, but about a week after posting a job listing on care.com,

everything shut down because of the pandemic. Now fast forward a year and a half later, and we welcomed our second daughter into the world. And at this time, we still had zero outside childcare help. And I was again, primarily working just during nap time. This time though, having two kids under two, someone was always napping, but neither of them napped at the same time. So as much as I loved all the time I was getting with my girls,

I was finding myself thinking about work a lot when I was with them. And I didn't feel like I was really being present. And I had all of these business ideas and projects I wanted to try, but I didn't feel like I had the time to execute them. So when my oldest was two and my second was about six months old, we brought in a nanny into our home two days each week. Now I would love to offer you advice on how to find the right fit, but honestly the universe just brought her to us. She had been nannying for over a decade and also used to waitress on the side and that's actually how we met her. We were out for a rare date night and she was waiting on our table and we just

started talking to her and after a few minutes figuring out that she nannied, she told us that one of the families she was working with, she was actually wrapping up with and she had an opening and the rest is history. And for almost the last three years now, we have had the same nanny and the same schedule. She came two days each week from 8.30 AM to 5 PM. Her primary role is taking care of the kids, but she also has helped with laundry and organizing the house as well.

Now, even when my husband left the corporate world in early 2022 to stay at home full time, we have still kept this additional support and having two specific days each week that were dedicated to work helped me be really present when I am with my family because I knew I had the time and space each week to get work done. Additionally, it really helped my team know when I'm available and also when they need to be available to me. Now all of that being said, our nanny had her first baby last

month and my five and three year old started preschool this fall. So our childcare situation has completely changed again. My five and three year old are now in preschool five days each week and my seven month old son is home with my husband and me. We are still honestly getting into our groove and figuring out this whole new schedule. But now instead of working two full days each week, I'm putting in a few hours each day. Again, now mostly during nap time.

So Monday and Friday, Monday through Friday, my days look like this right now. So I make breakfast and I help my girls get out the door. My husband does preschool drop-off and usually when they leave the house is about when my seven-month-old wakes up. He nurses, we have playtime and a little breakfast because he just started eating solids and then we go on a walk around my neighborhood with my two dogs. When my seven-month-old goes down for his first nap, that's when I really start working. That's when I'm working right now as I

record this. I get what I need to get done that day and if he wakes up before I'm done then my husband is on baby duty. So like I said, we're still figuring out this new schedule and what's going to work for our family in the future. But the one thing that I have learned is having dedicated time to work really helps me be present with my family and also execute to the fullest in my business. Additionally, I've really been focused on making sure that my business is aligned with what I want

and what I need from it. So I have completely stopped running some profitable programs that I had because they weren't giving me the space that I wanted. And I've also doubled down on the products that are aligned with the lifestyle that I want. Our current childcare setup for our two and a half year old son is that we have an in-home nanny who comes about 30 hours a week. So our typical schedule

is 8 30 to 3 30 Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m to 12 p.m on Fridays. That just happens to be what works for us most generally in terms of our schedule of having more full-time child care Monday through Thursday and just a little bit of support on Fridays. Um, and in terms of finding the right fit, what we actually ended up doing in what's worked really well for us is to pay our nanny 40 hours a week on salary. But typically we only use her those 30 hours that I mentioned, but for us, my husband travels really frequently for work. I have work trips, um trips semi-regularly. And I also have certain functions or events or calls

that can occur outside of those specific times. And so feeling like I could have the support for that without having to constantly use that is the thing that's worked best for me. I didn't want 40 hours of child care a week if I didn't need it. But I also wanted to know it was an option when I had extra time or support that I needed to dedicate elsewhere and or even just dedicate to myself occasionally. So for example now I can say to our nanny, hey

can you come a half an hour early this week because my husband's traveling and I need that extra time to get ready. Or like hey can you stay a half an hour early this week because my husband's traveling and I need that extra time to get ready or like hey can you say a half an hour later because you know I want to like get a workout in or anything like that right so it doesn't always have to just be about I have to like I have a call and I have to use it for that but it's about what's happening in our family that week and what support feels best to us and so knowing that we have that freedom and flexibility to use up to 40 hours without regularly needing to has been such a game-changer. And for me, I really had to like wrap my brain around the idea of paying for support that we

were not always regularly going to use. And what I really came to the conclusion of is I am paying for the freedom, flexibility, and ease that I want in my life and business. Like that's actually what I'm paying for. It's not about like the specific hour usage. It's about this kind of like wrap around support that is there for our family if and when we need it without feeling like it means that we have to use it constantly. And that really has been by far the most supportive thing I've done because what never worked well is feeling like we had to You know be in this really rigid structure The truth is our family schedule changes week to week

And so having someone that can adapt to that and support us and that is such a game changer and obviously like the value for her Is she's regularly getting paid for hours? She's not always using. And so finding the right person that saw that as a win-win was the best thing that we did for our family. And it has worked out so well and given me so much ease. And not being like, oh my god, my husband's traveling this week.

It's so stressful. And said, it's like, oh, he's traveling this week. Here's the extra wraparound support I may want, right? And getting to choose whether or not to use that is so supportive. So for any working mom, just remember, it's not always about paying for the exact amount of support that you use.

For me, it's really been about knowing that our family schedule changes, and it's okay to have that change and finding someone that really wants to support us and be flexible in that has been everything. Okay I have some really exciting news about CEO Mama. So those of you that have followed along for a while know that we have a CEO MAMA Mastermind, which is for ambitious mamas in the seven or eight or even some nine figure range in their businesses. And we love this program and we'll continue to run this program. But we have also heard the feedback that it would be amazing to have something from CEO

MAMA that was at a lower price point and accessible to anybody at any stage of business and brought the community and the resources and the tools that we have at the higher level in CEO MAMA to a bigger community. So we've heard you and we are so excited to announce the CEO MAMA membership. It is launching early 2025, but we have founding member applications open right now. So you can go to bossbabe.com slash CEO MAMA. That's bossbabe.com slash CEO MAMA, that's bossbabe.com slash ceomama and fill out your founding member application. And we will be in touch shortly with more details. And I really, really hope to see you in there.

We're so excited about this program. This is one of my biggest passions inside of Boss Babe is the CEO mama brand and the community of ambitious mamas in here who are trying to do both things well, who really want to find both things well, who really want to find that harmony between their devotion to motherhood and their ambition and their businesses. So if that sounds interesting to you, make sure you go fill out your founding member application at bossfave.com slash ceomama

Can't wait to see you in there.