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In this podcast episode, a sleep consultant and former stay-at-home mom, Meredith Brough, recounts her transition from motherhood to a professional career. She delves into the personal challenges she encountered during her time raising her children, running a daycare ,and taking on additional part-time jobs so she could stay home with her children. You may understand a lot of the difficulties she faced.
Meredith joyfully describes the gratifying outcomes of her career change, sincerely hoping to inspire and motivate mothers like you to join the Baby-Centered Sleep movement for improving the way the world approaches sleep training! The value of this program is much higher than the cost..
This episode centers on Meredith's experiences and the positive influence of her current profession. She invites listeners to visit her website to learn about the Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program that begins on May 20th, 2024.
Topics:
- 8 Advantages to becoming a sleep consultant & owning your own business
- The early years: raising babies & forgetting one's own needs (& still not making enough cash to make ends meet)
- Mothers need accommodations & flexibility in their careers (but it's often not possible)
- The challenging aspects of running an in-home daycare & working in the schools
- The contrast between Meredith's current life and the years of juggling multiple jobs
- What Meredith enjoys most about her work as a sleep consultant
- An invitation to join the Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program if this role feels right
- Explanation of new program and how to sign up
If you'd like to learn about the Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Program or Mastermind set up a call with Meredith HERE.
Don't forget to leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes!
Keywords
Sleep consultant, sleep consultant certification program, Stay-home mom, career transition, young mom challenges, Benefits of being a sleep consultant, personal stories of motherhood struggles, entrepreneurial success stories, the fit of sleep consultancy in family life, the need for flexibility as a mom, surrounding yourself with positive people, taking time off from work, finding time for family, rewarding work, fulfilling job, work from home, passion for helping mothers, doing good in your community, being more present, work life balance for working moms
The Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program Launched on May 27th, 2024!
Check out the links below & add your name to our waiting list so you can join our next session in the Fall of 2024.
Learn More About the Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program HERE.
Learn about our Baby-Centered Sleep approach, methods and principles, hear from a few of our graduates, and get to know Meredith HERE.
Meredith Brough (00:00:00) - Hello! I'm back today with new insight for you. This episode is for stay at home moms, for looking for a side hustle or a career that will make you feel fulfilled and complete. If you're a career mom looking for a change of pace, this is a good option or episode for you too. As you may know, this is not the only job I've had. I've been asleep consultant for almost seven years. Today, I'd like to share some of the experiences I've had as a young mom, trying to balance the needs of my family and financial demands. I also talked about the way my life has changed since becoming a sleep consultant. And in case you're wondering, the reason I'm singling out mothers who want to work from home is that sleep consulting is a good fit for family life, and it meets many of the needs and wants of mothers. I've been on both sides of the coin, trying to stay home with my kids and trying to make an 8 to 4 job work. I much prefer the one I have now.
Meredith Brough (00:00:59) - All right, I've got a list of eight highlights I'd like to address today. Number one more time at home with your children. I remember when I was ready to work again. It was a hard adjustment not being with my son all day. My friend watched him and she used to bring him to visit me. It made me so happy to see him. I just lit up. I had to hold him. I didn't care if he spit up on me. It just made my day. This was the best thing. So because I loved being a mom so much, I only lasted for was it six months? Working outside the home, I couldn't stand being away from him and I was really worried about missing his milestones. I decided then that I would do anything to stay home with him, and that commitment grew stronger as I had more children. And you know, there's the expense of having to pay for child care when you work or it becomes kind of silly. And I wasn't working in jobs where I was getting paid great.
Meredith Brough (00:01:57) - So this is just a lot. I was in contrast that situation with now when I can plan my schedule around my children's events, I can run the pick up my son from school last minute as he seems to always need help last minute and for some reason gets off school earlier than we're expecting. But it's great to be able to be there when my kids need me. The number two reason is you can make good money without giving up all of your energy of energy to care for your family and enjoy your life. You can even decide how many clients you want to serve and what your work situation will look like, which is pretty cool. I found a way to stay home. I had many part time jobs. I worked for MLM companies and at the same time I ran a daycare. So you know, when we talk about energy, I think maybe you're, you know where I'm going with this. I could not I could not have energy when I wanted it. At the end of the day, I couldn't keep up with my home.
Meredith Brough (00:03:01) - I was often too tired for my kids to really interact with me, and I couldn't make enough money doing all of this. I always had at least a couple of jobs. It was not easy to be a mom and work so hard. It was physically and mentally draining. I hardly spent time quality time with my family. Contrast that with now or I can speed things up or slow things down according to my family's needs. For my own needs, I simply put more energy into my marketing strategy, or I limit the number of people I work with I can even limit, you know, I can let them know I'm going to be on vacation. And if you want to work with me, you're going to have to put things on hold during this week. It's very nice. I decide what my fees are and people willingly pay them. In the US, some insurance companies are even covering our services, which allows more people to get the help they need. As long as I'm smart about how I run my business, this work actually fuels my energy and gives me space for self-care and downtime.
Meredith Brough (00:04:08) - Number three, you can set your own hours and decide how your day is structured. Now, as a business owner with ADHD, this is a really good fit for me. I wish I could have started this job back when I had my first child. It would have been amazing to choose my schedule and decide whether or not I worked at bedtime or when my husband was home. It would have saved time not driving to work or daycare and vice versa. Then the day I would have had the flexibility to change my workload according to my family's needs. Like when I got pregnant with my fifth child and I needed a break in recent years, I decided it was okay to not be a morning person. I decided to work when my energy was higher and when I was thinking clear more clearly.
Meredith Brough (00:04:58) - I usually don't talk to.
Meredith Brough (00:04:59) - It's until ten in the morning, and I definitely don't get up early and rush around my house almost ever. I have time to enjoy a morning routine or a nice breakfast. I can even stop in the middle of my day and talk to friends or family, or go outside and enjoy the sunshine.
Meredith Brough (00:05:17) - Of course, being disciplined and a self-starter is a really helpful trait or characteristic, because we can't just choose to do this all day and make money. But it's it's nice because I again, with my ADHD, I need more breaks. I need to slow things down. I need to nurture my brain. Sometimes my workday ends at 3:00 so that I can do what I need to for my kids. I love that I'm home when school's over and I can take a quick break to talk to my kids. Number four find friendships and share your motherhood journey. When my kids were little, it definitely got lonely running my daycare. Being with kids all day. Yes, I got to talk to parents, but they didn't always have time and we weren't always good friends. I had very little time to myself or time to talk to other people. I promise I was not on the phone while I was taking care of these kids. It was impossible. And I honestly this is funny to you, but didn't even have texting for the first eight years or nine years as a mom.
Meredith Brough (00:06:19) - So, you know, I didn't have a minute to just sit there and text or get a text from someone that, you know, cheer you up, make you laugh type of thing. It's just a really different world. Being isolated did not bring me happiness or give me the support and encouragement I needed in my life. I needed more friends who understood my life and the demands of motherhood without bringing their kids into my house and adding another bunch of kids to, you know what I already had with my daycare and my five kids in the past seven years? I cannot count how many new friends I've made, how many women I've gotten to know well, and created friendships with. I connect with past clients and online business owners, and we build friendships and we support each other. Obviously do this with new clients, but my thoughts were on friends that I've had for several years now. Who? It just it doesn't even seem like we work together, but that's at the heart of what we did. And I think it adds like a really beautiful dimension to our friendships, because there's a sense of appreciation and also a sense of being like my fan club or my cheerleader.
Meredith Brough (00:07:26) - They want to see me succeed, and often I can.
Meredith Brough (00:07:29) - Bounce ideas off them and.
Meredith Brough (00:07:31) - Share posts and and get their suggestions, or they edit my articles. It's just super cool because they understand what I teach, and they're a mom and they've struggled with sleep. And so this is kind of a really cool thing for me. I'm so grateful that we have the internet. I'm grateful for this job. Many of my good friends live in other states. I even have really close friends in other countries. There's no other way we would have connected if it wasn't for this work. Now I'm all emotional. There are cheerleaders, thought leaders, soul sisters, and lifelong friends. Number five, you can receive joy and fulfillment from helping others, which gives you energy and gets you excited to help more people. A lot of people would just be amazed that that's even possible from your work. You know, I think it's pretty uncommon to feel that kind of fulfillment and joy in volunteer work and at times as a parent, maybe serving a family member for good friends, but to be able to get that type of positive energy and motivation and excitement in your daily life doing work, there's nothing like the feeling you get when you hear from a client and they say that things are going well.
Meredith Brough (00:08:51) - It's so much fun to see that in your inbox to hear how things are progressing. Knowing I had a small part in it. I love receiving testimonials when people express how grateful they are and what they're enjoying most about their new life, and about the changes that have come. It's wonderful to compare the before and after knowing how far these families have come. It never gets old. Every single time I receive a testimonial in any form, I feel honored and amazed that I was there. Guide and mentor. It absolutely makes my day, and it's an incredible way to grow your confidence and to feel good about yourself and the way you're spending your time earning money. All of these experiences feed into your energy. My students and certified sleep consultants find more of this energy motivation as they work. As time goes on and they help more people because of the way they bring relief. They help parents feel good about themselves, trust their intuition, clear the air, clear the air, and relieve the pressure that parents are feeling.
Meredith Brough (00:09:59) - In the don't follow sleep training rules, or they worry that sleep problems are their their fault. A lot of these things that come up for a lot of parents, we're able to, I guess, maybe soothe or heal our clients by teaching them the principles that we believe in. In this program, my sleep consultants, my my students, mentor parents from the heart. Offer sleep solutions that are healthy and responsive, which feels good to them and good to their clients, and it brings them peace of mind. They have enjoyable experiences instead of negative ones. Parents are feeling happy and ecstatic instead of guilty or wondering if they did the right thing, which is what we're hearing and feeling from our clients, which is extremely energizing and joyful. Our sleep consultants, my sleep consultants have very high success rates, which is exciting and thrilling for them. There's less pressure and more joy. Number six, you can be picky about the clients you work with. Surround yourself with people who are easy to work with and teach.
Meredith Brough (00:11:08) - Easy to get along with. There's so many ways to make your job pleasant and less stressful. How often do you get to choose the people you are surrounded by in your workplace? You can be alone when you want to. You can be around people when you want to, and you can even create a schedule that works for you. You know, like maybe you only take clients a couple of days a week, and the other days you don't you don't have two people. And, it takes time to figure out the type of client that you want to work with, but you can absolutely figure out how to speak to them. So they come to you and create content and language on your website that calls out to those people that you really like connecting with. And I do free consults so that I can meet with people and. Can a connection get a feeling that we're a good fit for each other? You know what? They're having that same experience on that phone call or through email or text or whatever it is.
Meredith Brough (00:12:11) - If they don't vibe with me, then they don't work with me. It goes both ways. And that's a really good thing, because you don't want to work with everyone, and not everyone's an ideal client, and not everyone's an easy client to work with. So I really love that part of my work.
Meredith Brough (00:12:26) - Going back to my past.
Meredith Brough (00:12:27) - Sometimes my jobs were rewarding and fun, but there were also a lot of things I didn't like about running my daycare and later on, working in the schools. Mostly, it was the level of stress that I had to deal with. Often the work I was doing wasn't what I signed up for. I'm sure some of you can relate to that. I pushed myself to keep going when I was miserable at work so I could help my family financially, but inside I wasn't happy. So that affected my moods and how I treated my family. I. Really couldn't continue being or feeling stuck or miserable like that. I couldn't work that way for very long, so I was always searching for a better job.
Meredith Brough (00:13:09) - All right, number seven, you can go on vacation when you choose to. Of course, you should prepare for this time off so you can truly relax. I wish I could have taken time off whenever I wanted to when my kids were younger. I know some of you can relate how awful it is to have to go to work when your child is sick, at home, when you're sick, when there's trouble going on at home or with one of your children and you just want to be there. Or maybe you're too stressed, there's something going on in your life. And oh my gosh, it is not the time to be around people that day. It's really hard to manage family life when you have a really structured, demanding job when it comes to, you know, expectations and the flexibility is I feel so important when you're raising young children and even teenagers. I was at the mercy of other people's plans and needs with my daycare, with my current job. I've taken afternoons off to go to a concert or an assembly.
Meredith Brough (00:14:10) - I've taken weekdays off for a camping trip. I can go away for a week or more a few times in the summer, and I've even been able to take off months when we lost a family member. And there have been times when I had health reasons I needed a break. It's been such a blessing to me and my family to have this kind of flexibility. Number eight this job can ease financial burdens and help you work towards financial freedom. This is something that I have had stress over and had to deal with. You know the the burdens. the sense of like just being stuck and never getting ahead. We have to deal with that for years. I wanted to give my husband support. I want to take the stress off of him. I didn't like having such a tight budget and no wiggle room. But when my kids were young, we didn't have financial freedom until recent years. Things were always tight and I hated it. And growing up in a home where our needs weren't always met, the lights could be turned off.
Meredith Brough (00:15:17) - Or the electricity. It's not what I want my life to look like. And I don't want my kids to have to live that way either. There were times when I was, as a teenager that I had to work 2 or 3 jobs, starting at 15, to pay for my needs, my wants, and. And I just had a good, strong work ethic and that's just a hard way. Till I was a teenager and obviously I continued to be that hard working when my kids were young. And it's just it's just too much. It's just too much, especially when you're already a mother with children to take care of. How in the world are you supposed to have all this energy to work, all these jobs and all these hours and be away from home and manage everything and like it? I love that. Now, after all this hard work and figuring out my marketing and and the best way to reach my clients, I can have that sense of freedom and security and consistency in my life.
Meredith Brough (00:16:18) - I enjoy getting to buy some clothing and getting my hair done at a salon, taking my husband out to dinner when I want to celebrate my wins. I love that the income I bring helps pay for music lessons and my car payment. There's not much else to say about this. If you can relate to the struggles, then you can relate to how good I'm feeling when I talk about this sense of freedom and security that I have now. I love that my husband can rely on me and that I don't feel guilty about these things. Sometimes we spend money on needs and we still feel guilty. I am grateful that we have the money to pay for our kids needs now, without stretching the budget and living with a sinking, awful feeling of being stuck or worried sick. As you can see, being a sleep consultant has been a great fit for my family life and it's meant the needs and wants of my heart and it's met some of the wants and needs that I never realized. I guess it was more like a sense of.
Meredith Brough (00:17:29) - Meaning more without realizing it. There are many perks of being a suit consultant. You go on and on listing all the things I love about this job. The benefits of being a sleep consultant far outweigh the cost of our program, and right now it's at a lower price and we even offer payment plans. I really, really want to share my approach and change the lives of both the sleep consultants who train with me and the many, many families out there who are looking for what we have to offer this special, beautiful, but powerful sleep approach. The baby centered Sleep Consultant certification program begins on May 20th. There are 16 weeks of digital modules, 20 weeks of mentoring, and you don't have to keep up with anyone. It's a self-paced program. You can make this work. I believe in you. I believe you can do it. This is what you feel good about. You can make it work. So learn more about our certification program by visiting sweetslumbertime.com or click on the link in our show notes.
Meredith Brough (00:18:44) - if you want to find out if you're a good fit for the program, or you just have some questions you want answered, you can set up a meeting with me. There will be a link in the show notes. You can also look on my website, sweetslumbertime.com for the contact tab. And then you'll see a button and you can set one up. Thank you for being here today and considering the insight that I've shared. A sleep consultant career can fit your life and fill your bucket too. Until next time, I'll see you soon. Thanks for listening to the Sweet Slumber Podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's show. Before you go, please leave a review and hit subscribe. Have a great day!
