What are some tips for new moms starting a house cleaning business? Going back to work after a new baby needs special attention. One of the tips for new moms starting a house cleaning business is take care of Mom first. Put the new mom, new baby, and new business on a tight schedule.
Tips for new moms starting a cleaning business remind the new mom that “you are your biggest asset” both in your family and your business.
Listen: Tips for New Moms Starting a House Cleaning Business
Watch: Tips for New Moms Starting a House Cleaning Business
Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
Tips for New Moms Going to Work as a House Cleaner
What are some tips for new moms that are going back to house cleaning after having a child? That’s a great question and we’re going to talk about that today.
This is coming from a place of love and I have to be honest with you. To go back to work or to start a house cleaning business right after you’ve just had a child is raising the stakes of the game so high.
You’re going to have to jump through so many hoops to make this work. But, the good news is you’re not the first person that has done this. There are lots of moms that are house cleaners that have babies and come right back to work.
Tips for How to Keep New Moms Going at Work
Here are a couple of things to keep you going as you get started. The very first thing that I want you to do is to block off on your calendar a date night with your husband.
You’re going to say, “What does that have to do with house cleaning?” But as a mom, you have a new infant and so you’ve been spending a lot of time with the infant and your husband is now on the back burner. So he feels not so needed and appreciated.
He doesn’t want to be forgotten, so make a date night first for your spouse. The two of you can get away from your business and your child and spend some time to keep that bond close.
As a New Mother and Business Owner, You Need Moral Support
Because as a new business owner, you need moral support, and number two as a new mom, you need social support. That’s going to be the ground foundation.
The next thing I want you to do is to get a schedule. You are going to need a schedule that gets you out of your house.
Right now you’ve been in your house for weeks, and your routine is out of whack. Now you’re going to show up and you’re going to be a professional business owner and you have to have a routine. Because if you follow the, “I’ll show up whenever I’m ready routine,” it will never happen.
Tips for New Moms to Keep a Strict Routine
You have to be strict about the morning routine part. Let’s say that you’re going to start your business back on the first of November, so right now in October start right now with this routine.
Get your kid in daycare because they’re not coming with you. Kids don’t come to house cleaning jobs. You want to put your kid in daycare at least a week before you actually start cleaning houses.
This will get you up in the morning, it forces you to go through a couple of things that we haven’t thought of yet. The things that we haven’t thought of yet are these, “How much does your kid eat every day?”
You Have to Plan Out Meals for Your Child
So you need to plan out the meals for your child. Do they eat baby food? Is it a formula right now? Are you nursing?
What is the process that you’re going through right now for your child? You need to figure out how you’re going to do that while you’re house cleaning.
How are you going to feed your child? Are you going to prepare the bottles the night before or are you going to use a breast pump? And then you need to get that into play right now.
You Can’t Quit Cleaning to Run to Daycare
Once you start house cleaning you can’t quit a customer’s house and go running to the daycare to bring extra diapers. So you want to get all those kinks worked out.
You may want to leave your child at daycare long enough where you can come home and fix dinner before you pick up your child from daycare.
You want to add in enough extra space in your day that your day is not completely consumed by working or your child. You need a little bit of mom time.
Don’t go Full Time Right Away
Don’t go full time right away. Put your kid in daycare for five days a week and you only clean houses for four days. That gives you one full day without your child.
As a new mom, you’re going to be exhausted all the time and so you need to heal from that and you need to recoup. Starting a new business you also need business time and it’s very difficult if you’re running all over the place.
You need a day where you can focus on your business. If you have customer satisfaction and you have to go back and re-clean a customer’s house, you need to factor that in as well.
Tips for How New Moms can Take a Me Day
There may be a day let’s say that you only work Monday through Thursday but on Friday is a day for you. That’s a day where you could go back and you can do customer satisfaction guarantees if you have to do that.
It’s also a day where don’t tell anyone, but if you need a three-hour nap, nobody’s interrupting you. There are some things that you have to do to take care of yourself. You have to take care of yourself first as a business owner because as a business owner you are your company’s biggest asset.
Now the same rule applies to be a mom and so like I said this is a double whammy, there’s a lot of stuff going on. Take a day for yourself to relax.
New Moms Have to Exercise Every Day
You have to exercise every day even though you don’t feel like it, and you’re not going to feel like it for several months.
Your hormones are going to be out of whack and so you might just start crying for no reason. But what you really need to do is put on a pair of walking shoes and get out and go walking. Because the healthier you are you’re going to be a better mom and a better house cleaner.
It’s really important to the success of your business and to your child that you take good care of yourself. If there’s one person you take care of right now it’s you. Yes, it sounds selfish but you cannot take care of anyone else unless you take care of yourself first.
New Moms Have to Commit to Themselves
You have to commit to you, you are the most important person right now, you. There’s a very small window where you can go to your customers and you can say, “Hey, I’m your new house cleaner and I’m just coming off of maternity leave. I have an infant child and as I start cleaning your house, there are a couple of things I should warn you about.”
And then warn them about the hormones. Anybody who’s ever been a parent before understands the hormones.
Let them know, “I’m going to be a little on edge for a couple of months,” and they’ll go, “Oh, okay.”
Your Clients Want You to Succeed
They want you to succeed, they want you to clean their house so they’re going to give you a little bit of leeway. Don’t take advantage of it, but let your customers know.
If you show up and then you’re hormonal and they don’t know why they’re going to think you’re loopy or they’re going to think you’re crazy or something.
You need to let them know so they will work with you, customers will work with you. They’re humans, they understand what you’re going through but you have to explain it.
Nighttime Routines are Also Important
The nighttime routine is as important as your morning routine. At nighttime, before you go to bed at night there are a couple of things you can do. You have to do inventory for your cleaning supplies.
So inventory is important, you have to make sure that your supplies are clean. That they are full, that your washcloths and your towels are clean for the next day.
Anything that you use for your cleaning business must be ready the night before. Now, again, with the stack in the deck so high, your diaper bag for your child has to be packed the night before as well. You’re going to want to do an inventory for the diaper bag too.
I Prepare all My Meals One Day a Month
I have nine crockpots. I know, it sounds obsessive, it sounds like I’m hoarding them but I cook all my meals one day a month. So, I go to Costco and I buy all the groceries. I bring it home and I make all the food at once.
Then I repackage them in small freezer size containers so that we can prepare and pack meals on the go. This saves so much time because as a new mom you’re going to want to spend time with your child, not cooking.
You’re still responsible, like I said, for your health and so having healthy meals prepared in advance will keep you from eating junk food.
Prepare Your Meals the Night Before Cleaning
If you have a chance at nighttime make your meals for the next day. If you’re nursing and you’ve got to prepare the bottles for the next day, prepare the bottles for the next day for your child.
You want to make sure that you are ready for your job and for your baby the next day. A note on dropping the baby off, you’ve got to have rules and boundaries like we do when we go to customer’s houses. As you drop your child off at daycare, you want to get in and get out.
Now when we go to a customer’s house we have a 60-second rule. The same rule applies when you drop your kids off at daycare.
New Moms Take Advantage of Amazon Prime
All right, one more thing that I would recommend is to take advantage of things like Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime is 115 bucks a year and it allows free shipping for products that you need.
Order all your cleaning supplies, food, vitamins. Whatever it is you need, order it on Amazon and have it drop-shipped to you.
That will keep you from every day running to the store to buy new cleaning supplies and things that you’ve run out of and whatever. It’s great to get out of the house but when you get out of the house, it needs to be on purpose. Don’t fritter away all your time doing things like wandering around Walmart looking for cleaning supplies.
New Moms Have to Use Their Time Wisely
Your time is of better use in building your business and spending time with your new family. Starting out, it is going to be tough.
Starting a new business is tough, starting a new family is tough. There are a bunch of people that have done it, you can do it, I believe in, you’ve got the guts to do it so you can do it.
But be easy on yourself and say, “Hey, listen, I’m only human, there’s only so much I can do,” and pace yourself so that you don’t burn out. But the most important thing you can do right now is to take care of yourself.
*** Resources From This Episode ***
How to Start Your Own House Cleaning Company – http://amzn.to/2xUAF3Z
Work. Pump. Repeat.: The New Mom’s Survival Guide to Breastfeeding and Going Back to Work – https://amzn.to/2EKpr6g
Moms Mean Business – https://amzn.to/2D4pJTQ
Becoming MomStrong: How to Fight with All That’s in You for Your Family and Your Faith – https://amzn.to/2RgoTqn
Deep Breaths: The New Mom’s Handbook to Your Baby’s First Year – https://amzn.to/2EKpBdS
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