How I Prepared For A 3ish Month Maternity Leave As A Blog Writer With Retainer Clients

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I was SO excited (I always knew I wanted to be a mom), but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start panicking a little on the inside…

Specifically in terms of how I could possibly keep my business afloat while also being the present mom that I’ve always wanted to be. 

Would I be able to take any time off?

How will this impact my routines and work schedule?

Crap… are we going to hire help? Send him to daycare?

Can we afford that? Do I even WANT to go that route?

Oh no, how will I keep up with all of the things that I want to do in the business in addition to client work?

That’s just a few of the questions that started to flood my mind. 

But then I remembered… I literally started my business in order to have more time freedom and flexibility to design the life that I want.

It’s never really been about the money for me. Family is my biggest value and I’ve always imagined a life where I can take my kids to and from school, volunteer to be room mom, sign up for baked goods at class parties, be the carpool mom for soccer practice… you get the picture. 

Now, I know that description is not everyone’s dream and I acknowledge that when I actually have my child and potentially grow my family even more, those desires might change, but right NOW, that is truly what I want. 

But with that, there’s still bills to pay ya know? And I do want to have an identity outside of *just* being a mom. 

So simply stopping or pausing the business for a period of time was never an option or something I ever even considered. 

Which is why from the moment I found out about our sweet baby boy, I started planning for how to make BOTH work!

How could I keep doing what I was doing at Natty Writes AND be the Pinterest mom that I want to be?

Honestly to my surprise, I didn’t find a whole lot of resources out there for how to prepare for a maternity leave as a service provider with retainer clients. 

And unfortunately it’s not as simple as those living the corporate life or regular 9-5 where they have a set amount of weeks and get to dip out the second they go into labor or even before. 

Nope, as a business owner if you want to take ANY kind of break, whether it be maternity leave, a long vacation, a sabbatical, or anything of the sort, you have to PLAN for it very strategically. 

And to add to that, I felt like I was facing even more of a challenge since most of my clients are primarily on retainer for blog and email work – meaning I have certain deliverables due to them on an ongoing basis versus offering one-time project based services.

At the end of the day, while my clients are mostly women with children themselves and they understand what a special time this is, they still expect to receive the deliverables they pay for, as they should!

So, in case you’re a service provider with retainer clients like me and you feel like it’s impossible to step away for an extended period of time, my hope is that this blog post gives you a little more insight as to how you can make it happen.

This is exactly how I prepared to make a 3ish maternity leave happen. ⬇️

How To Prepare For Maternity Leave As A Service Provider With Retainer Clients

Before I could plan anything, I decided I needed to take inventory. 

What client work did I need to consider and what work for MYSELF did I need to consider?

So, I did what any Type A girlie knows to do and started making a list.

And lemme just say… that list overwhelmed me BIG time at first, specifically the client side of things. But then I broke it down and realized that it was actually way more doable than I thought. 

Eventually, that list led me to creating a solid plan to get everything done in the timeline that I wanted – there’s a few things I DID and a few things I DIDN’T.

WHAT I DID:

1. Batched client content for 2-3 Months

First things first, I started with my clients. While the work for my business is important too, I felt the most pressure to get all of my client deliverables figured out first because without them… well, there is no Natty Writes.

From the list I made above, I created a plan for each individual client. My clients are on a variety of plans – some receive 1 blog/month, some receive 4, others receive 2 and some have emails mixed in, too.

So I got clear on what each individual client needed from me and then decided how far out I wanted to batch their content. Since my baby is being born in early April, I knew that I wanted all of April and May off and then start tiptoeing back into things in June.

Knowing this, I decided that some clients would receive batched content through May and some would receive their batched content through June. 

The WAY I made this happen is by creating a simple rule for myself – if I wrote one blog post for them, I wrote two. If I wrote one email for them, I wrote two. 

Suddenly, I found myself in a weekly rhythm where I knew what client work I would be working on on which day and little by little I started checking off things from the longggg list. 

I’m proud to say that as I’m writing this, exactly 2 weeks from my due date, ALL of my retainers clients have received their batched content through the month of May at least. 🎉

2. Planned strategically for The Writer’s Room Membership

In addition to my done-for-you retainer clients, I also had to make sure my Writer’s Room members were taken care of! In the membership, I host bi-monthly trainings and bi-weekly co-writing Wednesday’s, as well as provide Feedback Fridays where members can submit one piece of writing for review each week. 

To ensure that the membership kept running smoothly even while I was away for a brief amount of time, I planned ahead so that all trainings would be held before or after April, leaned on a few trusted members to lead co-writing Wednesday’s for me during April, and paused Feedback Fridays during April, but made up for it by giving each member for extra “credits” to use between now and December.

In May, I’ll be back to host co-writing Wednesdays and jump back into Feedback Fridays, which is the only real “work” I’m committed to before I make my full return in June.

(P.S. The Writer’s Room will open for enrollment again in August – click here to get on the waitlist!)

3. Refreshed prior blog content and leaned on guest experts to feature on the blog while I’m out

Once I had all of my clients taken care of, I shifted the focus to MY content – for my business, that’s primarily blog and email.

For the blog specifically, I always plan the content a quarter in advance (here’s why), which means I knew ahead of time what content I needed. It wasn't something I was deciding in the moment. 

Early on in Q1, I decided that Q2 would NOT be a season of new content for me, specifically when it came to the blog. Instead, I wanted to lean on a few strategies to help me continue to show up consistently even if I wasn’t creating anything new. I talk about each of those strategies here! 

For me, that meant connecting with a few industry experts that I trust and look up to to feature on my blog during the month of April. Additionally, I decided to audit my existing blog content and choose a few topics to refresh for May and June.

After that, I chose a few low lift blog topics that I could easily create to ensure that I was still showing up in some capacity each week without having to exert a ton of creative energy.

Through each of those strategies, I was able to create a way to continue showing up through the blog each week without feeling overwhelmed to write something from scratch for the entire quarter.

4. Decided to do a “Best Of” Notes From Natty series during April

After I figured out my blog content plan, I shifted my focus to my newsletter, Notes From Natty, which goes out every Friday morning!

With my newsletter content, sometimes it’s planned in advance and sometimes it’s not. It really just depends on the week. With maternity leave, however, I knew I at LEAST wanted the month of April planned and scheduled before baby.

To make that happen, I decided to do a “Best Of” series and pull some of my best newsletters from the archives to re-share with my audience!

5. Worked with my social media manager to continue social as usual while I’m out 

Then, it was time to focus on social media, which for me is only Instagram. Luckily, I already have help with that side of things, so I worked with my social media manager, Kate, to go about biz as usual as much as possible.

Of course I’ll be hopping on stories here and there to share some BTS of motherhood, but as far as the feed goes, I’m still your girl for all things blog writing. ✍🏼

WHAT I DID NOT DO:

1. Take on new retainer clients during Q1 (except 1)

Once I had my plan in place for how to batch content for my current clients and myself, I had to be honest with myself and acknowledge that I was at capacity. If I truly wanted to make the plan work, I knew I needed to devote all of my time to the clients I was currently serving, which meant I made another rule… NO new clients during Q1! 

And I stayed true to that rule except once and that’s because someone came to me wanting only 1 blog/month and I felt comfortable adding that to my plate. 

Otherwise, the only new work that I took on during Q1 were one-off projects, such as a set amount of a-la-carte blogs for a repeat client, an email welcome sequence refresh, an email sales sequence, and a few strategy calls. 

2. Take on new retainer clients for POST maternity leave 

With that said, I also decided NOT to take on new retainer clients for POST maternity leave, either. 

And I’ll be honest, this rule was hard to stick to because what’s so crazy is that I actually received the MOST inquiries to date during the month of March and as much as I was tempted to go ahead and lock them into the service they were seeking, I didn’t. 

I explained my situation and let them know that I’ve added them to my waitlist and will reach out in June when I return. Do I expect all of them to wait for me that long? Of course not. If they find someone else to work with between now and then, great!

But the reason I opted not to take on new retainer clients for post maternity leave is because I’m not actually sure how I will feel when I return. As a first time mom, I have quite literally no clue what to expect and I didn’t want to set myself up for stress or overwhelm as soon as I get back. 

Instead, I want to be able to tiptoe back in with my current clients and get back in a solid groove before adding more to my plate.

And who knows… maybe things will go great and I’ll *want* to add more people to my client roster sooner rather than later, but I didn’t want to put that pressure on myself if I didn't have to!

3. Pause current retainer clients for any amount of time

Lastly, I did NOT pause work with any of my retainer clients for any amount of time. As a business owner, it was up to me to figure out how to create a paid maternity leave for myself, which is why I opted to batch my client content to ensure that I would keep getting paid even while I was out!

And turns out, all of my clients were totally cool with this and they actually loved receiving their content a few months ahead. It’s truly a win/win. 🎉

Through all of these things, I’m really proud to say that I made it happen and as of April, I’ll officially be on maternity leave through early June so I can soak in all the baby cuddles without feeling like I have to be glued to my laptop.

During my maternity leave, I have some things I’d like to work on for the business if time allows or if I simply feel like it, but overall there’s really no pressure workwise and that feels really dang good!

So, I’m curious – does this feel doable for you? Can you see how you can make something like this work for yourself? Have any Q’s? I’d love to chat with you about it! 

Connect with me on Instagram and let me know!

Oh and after my 3ish months off, I plan to come back and let you know how it went, so stay tuned for that. 🫶🏼