When it comes to real-life tips for working moms, who better to ask than the women who run mom-focused companies? Here are some super-helpful top tips from some of our favorite companies for moms:
Your Milk Shoppe: Your Milk Shoppe is a group of Maternity Consultants & Moms on a Mission to support & encourage women during the transition to Motherhood. They are also the Creators of The Peace of Mind Initiative, a program that supports corporations in attracting and retaining female talents once they become mothers.
Top Tip: Embrace the power of “NO.” Learn to be completely ok with not being everything to everyone, and give yourself the space to prioritize yourself and your precious time. ❤️
Soutiens: Soutiens is on a mission to help parents – and parents-to-be – feel confident and successful in their careers and at home. They know that working parents face a unique set of challenges: navigating parental leave and benefits, the stress of returning to work before they are ready, balancing family needs with work needs, guilt, and so much more. With The Return Plan, expectant parents are guided step-by-step in planning for parental leave so that returning to work after baby is a little easier. Soutiens also helps businesses create and implement programs to support working parents. We provide classes for expectant employees, community building activities for all parents, and interactive workshops for managers.
Top Tip: Use the small, in-between moments of your daily like to create quality time. No grand gestures needed.
FemCity: FemCity is your new favorite place to thrive, grow, learn, and get inspired both online and in person. They come from all walks of life and bring our collective experience to the table. They believe in lifting one another up, reaching out for help, and walking away from every interaction more empowered and excited than before.
Top Tip: Create a “co-op pod,” for those working mothers who are in the nanny-free zone and running solo, here is their top tip for working mothers: For those times when you receive that dreaded call a child is sick, the random day off from school, the summer season shuffle and the off-chance moments where you need childcare help, they hear you. They have been there and done that and here is their secret to managing it all. They created “Mommy Co-Op Pods” with each of their kids and it saved their working life, added some fun for their kids and gave their friends some time off too. The concept is to create a circle of 3-5 moms that either live in your neighborhood, work in your space or have children in the same school. This group is your agreed upon, mutually beneficial, army of moms for when emergencies happen. You can use the Co-op Pod for emergencies and for those holidays. Each mom takes part in stepping in on a rotation so that days off, long summer seasons and unexpected sick days don’t impact each working mother in the Co-Op Pod. This can take forms as a rotating playdate for summer or holiday breaks to the singular moments of a sick child in alignment with an important business meeting. We all take turns stepping in so that each working mother can flourish and the kids are flourishing along the way too with an extended community of mommy love.
Slay Like A Mother: Trying to hold it together as a human, woman and mother is an endless parade of struggles— and let’s be honest, none of us knows what the @!*# we’re doing. Sure, we may deploy some self-deprecating humor every now and then— just Google: “my book club reads wine labels”— but it’s high time you owned up to a deeper truth. That a dragon of self-doubt lies deep inside of you. A gnarly and vicious beast that may lurk out of sight, but never out of mind, as it inhales everything you do wrong, nothing you do right, and blows it back in your face. Yeah, that beast. And it’s time to slay it. Right now, you have a choice. You can do it the hard way, on your own. It’s totally possible because you’re a warrior (but of course you don’t believe that, yet.) Or, you can take the easy way. With friends. And snacks. We’re a resource for slaying what’s in front of you, one small step at a time. You’re invited to beg, borrow and steal as many “Damn, how’d she think of that?” moments as you’d like. There’s no trolling here. No “You should’ve tried X.” We’re here to confront our challenges, not each other. We’re here to say that as women we’re strong AF and if anyone can figure out how to destroy what’s holding them back so they can live the life they want, it’s an ever-lovin’ mother.
Top Tip: Decide who will be getting up in the middle of the night BEFORE going to sleep. Clear expectations make the world go round, especially with a new baby in the house.
Check out must-have newborn items from real working moms, and toddler/kid must-haves, too!
