16 Tips for Working from Home with a Newborn

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Are you trying to work from home with a newborn? Here are 16 practical tips to help!

When I started Lisa Tanner Writing back in 2015, Brynna was my baby. But, she was six months old at the time. When I wrote this post on Freelancing with a Baby, I shared 14 tips that I’d been implementing with her.

Since then, Bryson, Tyler, and Ezra have joined our family. I quickly learned that freelancing with a six-month old is a lot different than freelancing with a newborn. So it’s time to add an additional post to my freelancing with kids series.

16 Tips for Freelancing with a Newborn

As a freelancer, you don’t often  have the luxury of paid time off or maternity leave to utilize. So when you’re working from home with a newborn, it’s essential to cut out as much as you can.

Otherwise, you’ll be spinning your wheels and wasting your energy on non-essentials and won’t have any time left to freelance. Here are some tips to help!

1. Remember To Take Care of You

Labor and delivery takes a toll on the body. You have to remember to take time for yourself, to ensure you recover. If you do too much, you’ll slow down your recovery and feel miserable. (Yes, I’m speaking from experience!)

It’s okay to take a nap when your baby does. To stay in your jammies all day. And to seriously cut down your outside commitments.

To make sure you don’t fall behind on client work, you’ll want to make sure you’ve talked to your clients. Let them know you’re expecting. Here are some ways I dealt with work right around Bryson’s birth:

• Complete work early (I turned in several pieces in January that would have typically been due in February.)
• Take a month off (I asked one client for a month off from pitching ideas and taking on work.)
• Get someone else to cover (I had a VA client with a need and I asked my little sister to cover for me, after clearing it with my client. Thanks Katie!)
• Ask for an extension (I had a client seek an article a couple days after Bryson was born, and I asked to wait to start it for a week.)
• Just get it done (I was able to complete all of my content editing work when it was assigned.)

By clearing most of my work off my plate, I was able to focus on me and my family for the first bit. I still had a little work to do, but it was easy to knock out in the evenings, and didn’t stress me out too bad.

Your strategy may be different, but whatever you do, leave time for relaxing and recovering. You’ll get more done in the long run!

2.  Ask for Help

I’m finally learning the benefit of asking for (and accepting) help. The kids have been picking up more household chores, my step-dad is taking care of the animals, and my husband is doing a lot around the house.

I just can’t do it all. So I’m asking. It’s still hard for me. I don’t like to admit that I can’t do something. But the Lord has been showing me that I was being too prideful and it was a detriment not only to me, but to those who love me and want to help.

By delegating some of the other tasks looming over my head, I can focus on loving my family and our new baby, and ensure that I have time to get my freelancing done.

3. Put Your Feet Up

Take time to put your feet up during the day, even if you just drag a footstool or another chair over to where you are working. It’ll help get the pressure off your legs and let you rest a bit.

It may feel strange at first, but know that it is beneficial for your health.

4. Take It Slow

When you’re freelancing with a newborn, it’s okay not to focus on growing your business. Take it slow for a bit until you get used to life with a new one. And until you’re feeling stronger.

Then, work on growth. Growing a business in a sustainable way isn’t always a straight uphill climb. Take time to savor the plateaus and put plans in place to hit the hills again when you’re ready.

5. Make Simple Meals

When you’re trying to balance life with a newborn AND a business, there isn’t a lot of time for much else. Simplify your meals even more. Buy prepared food without feeling guilty.

Let your kids do more cooking. My three year old can successfully make himself a peanut butter and jelly taco. And that is good enough for some days!

My older kids can cook even more variety. It’s good for them and they enjoy the opportunity to cook for the family occasionally.

Everyone has to eat, but you don’t need to feed your family fancy, gourmet meals. Just keep it simple!

Some super simple meals for during this time:

• Sandwiches
• “Lunchable” style with cheese and crackers
• Popcorn and cheese sticks
• Mac and cheese
• Stir fry with left over meat, frozen veggies, bottled sauce, and noodles
• Frozen pizza and bagged salad

Rethink how you define “meals” if you need to. It’s okay to be simple.

6. Simplify Your Cleaning

Until my newborns grow a bit, we cut a lot of cleaning tasks. This just isn’t a season of life for dusting baseboards or worrying about much more than the basics.

Our house won’t win any awards for being spotless, but it is staying livable. And that’s good enough for me during this season of life.

We’re focusing our efforts on:

• The bathroom
• The kitchen
• A daily 15 minute cleanup
• Daily chores

All deep cleaning has been put on hold for a bit. Once I’ve fully recovered, we’ll jump back into a more detailed cleaning routine. But, for now I’m enjoying the break, and so are the kids.

We all have more time to snuggle and bond with our newborn.

7. Do More From Your Phone

I’m really learning to utilize my iPhone for my business. I can easily use it while nursing and sitting back with my feet up. Here are seven specific tasks I’m doing from my phone these days:

• Reading and responding to emails
• Managing blog comments with the WordPress app
• Outlining blog posts in the Notes app
• Planning my content calendar
• Social media marketing (both promoting my content and sharing that from others)
• Conducting research
• Brainstorming blog post ideas

Want even more ideas for growing a business from a smartphone? This post has you covered!

8. Outsource Content Creation

I wanted to take an extended break from this blog once each of my babies arrived. With other blogs to manage, cutting this one from my to-do list gave me a bit more flexibility on writing for myself.

So I put out a call for proposals to my subscribers and arranged for four paid posts. That gave me all of February to step back from my blog here. I scheduled all four guest posts at the end of January, and was able to knock some major items off my to-do list.

You might consider the same–is there someone else you can hire to create your content or take over some of your tasks? You’ll be trading money for time, which with a newborn, is a good deal if you can swing it.

If you’re looking to hire a freelance writer to create content for you, I’d love to work with you!

9. Take Time to Snuggle

Newborns grow and change quickly. I promise you won’t regret taking time to just sit and snuggle your precious bundle.

Take time to breathe in their scent, to hold them close, and not fret about what you’re not getting done.

10. Get Enough Sleep

Sleep is essential! Don’t try to do too much right away at the expense of your sleep. Burning the candles at both ends, staying up late and getting up early, isn’t healthy for the long-term. It’s especially not healthy when you’re trying to recover from delivery.

So sleep. Take a nap if you need to. And don’t feel guilty. There will be time for staying up late again during another season.

11. Set Small Goals not Large Ones

When you’re freelancing with a newborn, it’s mighty hard to jump right into huge goals. So start small. Think about baby steps.

Doing a little bit everyday will take you further in the long run than setting a huge goal that feels so massive you never move forward.

You can still reach those big goals, just take them one bit at a time. Then you can use small chunks of time throughout the day to make progress on your goals.

Making progress and meeting your goals is motivating, so that can be a win-win when it comes to goal setting.

12. Use Paper Plates

Seriously, paper plates can be so helpful! I already had my kids taking on more household and farm chores than usual, so being able to take dishes off their to-do list was a blessing to them.

I bought a huge stack of plates from Costco prior to the birth of my last two babies, and we use them for at least a full month after the baby arrives.

Dishes = super quick clean up now, which helps us all!

13. Keep Clients in the Loop

Let your clients know how you’re doing. If you asked for a month off, but still aren’t up to taking on more work, get in touch with your client. Don’t wait until the last minute–that’s not the right way to handle it. So give some advanced warning, and be polite.

Offer to find another freelancer to do the work as a temporary thing if you think it’ll help.

Communication is essential when you’re working from home. Your clients aren’t going to know what’s going on if you don’t tell them. I’ve found most clients to be very understanding and flexible.

Of course that’s not always the case. So make sure you keep the deadlines that you can.

14. Get Ahead

Getting some extra work done before baby arrives helps cut down on that frantic feeling with a newborn. You’ll give yourself some extra time to adjust.

So if you’re expecting, get ahead!

If you’ve had baby and are now freelancing with a newborn, look for times when you can do some extra work. Perhaps:

• When Grandma is bathing the baby for you
• If baby is happily sitting in a bouncer
• When your spouse is home to help
• If the other kids are on a playdate
• Over the weekend

Using those extra moments to get ahead instead of binge on a television show helps keep you from being overwhelmed.

15. Learn to Type with One Hand

I became efficient at the one-handed hunt and peck when I was working from home as a teacher for a parent partnership program. After I had my now eight-year old, I still needed to get my emails and everything done. I’ve done it with each baby since then.

It’s not pretty, and it’s not super fast. But, it works!

I hold baby in my non-dominant hand, usually over my shoulder. Then, I use my dominant hand to hunt and peck. Capital letters are harder, but I could usually maneuver my baby holding hand down to hit the shift key. Otherwise, I just hit caps lock with my typing hand, and then turn it right back off again.

This may take some time to learn, but it’s a good skill to have.

16. Remember This Stage Won’t Last Forever

This newborn stage is tough. You’re recovering and everything is different. It takes time to find your new normal.

But, babies grow quickly. You won’t have a newborn forever.

Before long, your new one will be content in a bouncer or playpen for longer periods of time. You’ll be able to utilize the tips from this post.

So enjoy your new baby while you can. You can always pitch for more clients, but you will never get these first few weeks and months back.

Successfully Work from Home with a Newborn

It’s not easy to work from home with a newborn, but it certainly is possible. Remember to give yourself grace, that is the most important tip of all!