Taking Time Off as a Doula: How to Maintain Client Relationships and Keep Your Business Running
Have you ever wondered if it's possible to keep your birth doula business running smoothly while taking a well-deserved break?
If you are ready to explore innovative approaches to maintaining client relationships and sustaining your doula business while on a temporary leave, then get out a pen and paper, this episode is for you!
The 3 questions we answer in today’s episode are:
How do you navigate in-person doula clients when you have a breastfeeding toddler who also nurses to sleep and bedshares?
How do I navigate taking time off as a doula? Whether that's for taking vacations, or if I just need a break?
Have you ever made a bad investment/financial decision as a birth worker? How did you recover?
Every Friday, I answer your biggest questions right here on the Birthworker Blog AND the Birthworker Podcast.
To submit a question for next week’s podcast, click here.
If you're tired of sacrificing your well-being and losing business opportunities due to time off as a doula, then you wanna listen up!
Question #1: How do you navigate in-person doula clients when you have a breastfeeding toddler who also nurses to sleep and bedshares? -Ali
My short answer is: a lot of tears and a lot of patience.
There was a period of my daughter Lila’s life, from about 6 months old to 1.5 years, she would cry nonstop when I left for a birth. The worst scenario being when I was able to sneak out in the middle of the night for births, and Lila woke up looking to nurse. She would go absolutely ballistic, but to be honest, it wasn’t me who felt the effects of it.
My partner Barry is the one who had to deal with the meltdowns while I was gone, so this was a family issue we had to work out, not so much a business issue.
So my advice for you is to have a discussion with your partner or whoever will be watching your child, have faith in their ability to calm your child down without you, and be flexible. Sometimes they are just going to have to do whatever it takes to get them back to sleep, whether that is taking a car ride, falling asleep with the ipad, or even crying themselves to sleep while being held and loved by your other half. It’s not ideal, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Question #2: How do I navigate taking time off as a doula? Whether that's for taking vacations, or if I just need a break? -Samantha
Not enough doulas are asking about taking breaks from business. The “norm” in the doula world is to accept way too many births per month and never stop. So I am very happy to answer this question!
Most doulas (who actually do take breaks) take off 2 months per year. For example, they’ll deny any June or December due dates. However, due dates are very approximate, so sometimes births can still happen in those months.
In those situations, you have a few options. Either create a spot in their contract stating that you will send your backup doula if their birth bleeds into the next month, or you can just refer them out from the start and avoid the situation all together. I would recommend not to bend your own rules and attend the birth anyway, as that can set up a boundary-bending standard for yourself that can create tons of issues down the line.
Another option for taking breaks as a doula is to plan vacations during natural gaps between births. Just like any industry, there are “slow seasons”, and if you are a “go with the flow” type, these on-the-fly vacations can be a great option for you and your family during that time.
Question #3: Have you ever made a bad investment/financial decision as a birth worker? How did you recover?
This is more of a mindset question than a financial question. For all things in life, “good” and “bad” are subjective. Where someone would see a “bad birth,” someone else sees a “good birth.” It’s all depending on perspective.
All of my “bad financial decisions” or “poor investments” have led me to where I am today, so I am grateful for them. I am living my dream life, and every step I have taken has led me to this point. No decision, in my opinion, is a “bad decision” in business.
All of my “poor investments” have been a lesson on what not to invest in, or shown me who not to hire. For example, I hired a social media coach for $5,000 and social media manager to work one on one, but we quickly realized that person was not meant to be in that role, so we had to abandon ship. Some might say that entire experience was a “poor investment,” but it taught me so many valuable lessons about hiring people into my business that I can hardly manage to regret it.
Another reason why I don’t consider any of my financial decisions as a “mistake” is that I don’t allow them to encroach on my take-home pay. I do not make investments from a place where I can’t afford them. I budget out my own “paycheck” every month, and the rest of that money is my business’s money, not mine. So really, when my business takes a loss like that, me and my family are not taking the hit.
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Meet your host, Kyleigh Banks, a side-gig doula turned CEO of a multi-six-figure birth-focused business. Her passion? Teaching birth nerds, like you, how to build an incredibly successful doula business that allows you to quit your day job, stay home with your kids, and most importantly, make a lasting impact on the world.