How to Run a Business Without Childcare (and Only Slightly Lose Your Mind)
What It’s Really Like to run a Business Without Traditional Childcare
If only we could all run our business as swiftly as my daughter on her 2nd birthday
Photo credit: Mary Claire Photo
Let’s get one thing straight: “It takes a village” sounds poetic until you realize you don’t have one. No live-in grandparents. No steady sitter. No expensive high-end Montessori. Just you, your baby, and your business that refuses to wait politely until preschool starts.
Welcome to the glorious, chaotic, nap-scheduled world of solopreneur parenting—where you might be on a Zoom call while nursing a baby out of camera (true story), and your greatest productivity tool is a white noise machine.
I’ve lived it. For the first 8 months of my daughter’s life, I continued to ran my business while exclusively breastfeeding my daughter with NO childcare. Then from 8 - 14 months, navigated flexible childcare with zero family support nearby until she was enrolled in full-time daycare. And while I wouldn’t trade the intimacy of that first year for anything, let’s just say… it required Olympic-level planning, a high tolerance for unpredictability, and an unholy amount of coffee.
So if you’re figuring out how to run a business while also keeping a small human alive, here’s your guide—not perfect, but real, and actually kinda doable-ish.
1. The Nap-Time CEO Method
A.k.a. Your Power Hours
Nap time isn’t just for the baby—it’s for taking priority meetings, sending invoices, editing reels, writing proposals, and catching up on Slack threads that feel like they happened in another dimension. You quickly learn to prioritize like your income depends on it. Because it does.
Tips to maximize nap blocks:
Set your “nap list” the night before: one high-focus task, one admin task, and one “nice if I get to it.”
Use apps like Focus Keeper, Pomodoro, or Sunsama to time-box deep work.
Accept that sometimes the nap doesn’t happen. Winging it is also a strategy (see point #5).
2. Shift Work, But Make It Personal
Evenings, Early Mornings, and The Mythical Middle Ground
If you’ve got a partner, roommate, or co-parent in the picture that has some flexibility too, staggered schedules can be your secret weapon. One of you gets the baby for the morning shift while the other tackles work, then you swap. It’s not traditional, but neither are you.
Sample split-day rhythm:
5:00 AM–baby wake up time: Solo focus time (aka “pre-baby chaos” window for work or prioritizing self-care like gym, meditation LOL, or journaling to stay sane)
9:00 AM–1:00 PM: Parent A works, Parent B watches baby
1:00–2:00 PM: Nap-time hustle, both Parents work (multiple times/day depending on how young baby is and nap requirements)
2:00–6:00 PM: Parent B works, Parent A takes over
Evening: Optional overflow, or just… lay on the floor
This setup was a lifesaver when I needed to prioritize breastfeeding and couldn’t commit to full-day childcare. It wasn’t always glamorous, but it gave us the flexibility to keep both our child and my business thriving.
3. Childcare Coworking Spaces (aka Co-working, But With Blocks and Snacks)
Your Local Lifeline, If You’re Lucky Enough to Have One
Search your city for “coworking with childcare” and you may just find a unicorn: a place where someone else watches your kid while you answer emails just one room over.
Bonus: You get to work around other parents who get it, and you might even have a conversation with another adult that isn’t about diaper cream.
Popular examples:
Heinsch House (Atlanta) - This was our go-to!
Even if there isn’t one in your town, some traditional coworking spaces are open to hosting a “parent pod” if you pitch it. Advocate. You’re not the only one in need.
4. The Nanny Share Sweet Spot
Like a Babysitter, But Collaborative and Cost-Smart
If a full-time nanny feels financially out of reach, consider a nanny share. Two families, one caregiver, split costs. It gives your little one social interaction and gives you a few uninterrupted hours to breathe (and brainstorm that next big move). I met another mom at the co-working space that needed an extra day to get sh*t done so we proposed to the childcare worker there to come to my house one/day week for an extra 3.5 hours. Doesn’t sound like much but any work sprint at half the cost of a full-time nanny helps!
What to look for in a nanny share:
Similar parenting styles and schedules
Proximity (your house, theirs, or alternating days?)
Open communication and clear expectations—this is a business partnership too
Even a 1–2 day per week arrangement can offer the space you need to take meetings, plan launches, or just stare into the void without someone yelling “MAMA!” every five seconds.
5. Winging It Like a Pro
Sometimes There’s No Plan B. Or A. Just… Improv
There will be days when the nap gets skipped, the sitter cancels, or the teething gremlin takes over your previously scheduled CEO energy. On those days, your business might look like:
Emailing clients from the floor while your toddler climbs you like a jungle gym
Taking a Zoom call with a child on your hip (normalize it!)
Calling on the phone instead of a Zoom because Hey Bear is distracting the baby
Delivering less-than-timely work, and being transparent about why
And here’s the thing: it’s okay. Flexibility isn’t a flaw. It’s a feature. You’re modeling what it means to build something on your terms. That’s worth celebrating.
6. Redefining “Success” During This Season
Not Lowering the Bar, Just Changing the Metric
Maybe you don’t hit 40 hours this week. Maybe your content calendar collects dust. Maybe your growth is slower than that influencer you follow who “bounced back” in six weeks.
But you’re still doing something radical. You’re creating work that works for your life, not the other way around.
And let’s be real: being a working mom that has to pause meetings to pump or soothe a fussy baby while writing a newsletter IS HARD. You’re not behind. You’re in a whole different category.
Yes, everyone loves to say “just enjoy it—they grow up so fast!” And while that’s true (believe me, I’ve tried putting a brick on her head like my grandma joked—didn’t work), it’s also okay to feel stretched thin by both your babies: the one in diapers and the one with an LLC.
Some days, your realest achievement might be keeping both of them alive. You’ll feel frustrated when your little one wakes up just before you hit send on a client email. Or when your inbox piles up because you chose to snuggle instead of schedule. There are days when you’ll feel like you’re failing at both—momming and business-owning. But you’re not failing. You’re just doing two impossibly hard things at once, and giving them both your whole heart.
Final Thoughts: You’re Not Doing It Wrong—It’s Just Really Hard
Running a business while parenting without traditional childcare isn’t a cute side hustle flex. It’s resilience, resourcefulness, and rerouting every single day. Some weeks you soar. Some weeks you white-knuckle your way through.
And while I can’t promise it’ll always be balanced, I can promise you’re not alone and that this phase doesn’t last forever. More and more solopreneurs are ditching the idea that business has to happen between 9 and 5 with a nanny on retainer. We’re rewriting the rules, one nap block at a time.