Why Rest Is Vital As a Doula
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Welcome to doula tips and tips. This podcast is a place where we answer one question about doula work, both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaylee Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born, 12, nearly 13 years ago.
I am a birth and postpartum doula childbirth educator, La Leche League leader, and a doula coach. I love guiding and supporting doulas as they work out their doula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way.
Thank you for joining us on this journey. Welcome back to doula tips and tips. Today we are talking about rest and why rest is vital as a doula. Now, um, I want you to think about how your body and life and business could benefit from rest.
And as we're talking about this today, I want you to also take some time to evaluate like, where are you doing a good job of this? And where could you do better, right? Because the reality is we, there's nuance here, right?
And we're all kind of like on a spectrum of when we're doing good and when we're doing not as great in terms of resting. First, I want to go into why. So why is rest vital? Now, I think there are various kinds of rest, like on a very basic level, just sleep, right?
Sleep is important for our bodies on a biological level, on a cellular level, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. However, I also mean rest emotionally and mentally. I don't just mean sleep. So let's say, you know, you have, um, a client coming up who has had some trauma and you know, it might be a emotional or like triggering birth experience, right?
You're going to need some emotional and mental rest before and after that experience in order for it to not kind of sabotage the people around that person's due date, et cetera. And in order for you to not have like, I don't get, get kind of stuck in your own trauma around that, right?
And so what I think about when I think about rest is a couple different things. One, if you are a birth doula, you live in such a way that your whole life could be dropped and you run to a birth at any time.
Now, if you've been a birth doula for any length of time, you know that oftentimes there's plenty of warning. So maybe you get a call early in the morning that's like, maybe labor started, we might need you later in the afternoon or something like that.
So it's, it doesn't mean that you are going to be needed right that second. It also usually does not involve actual running. Now occasionally it does, right? Occasionally you got to grab your stuff and go super fast.
Occasionally there is running. Occasionally there are circumstances that require you to literally drop everything and go. However, most of the time it's more like, okay, well someone's in labor and so tonight I might be gone or maybe I'll get called in the middle of the night or like I might have to cancel my afternoon, something like that, where you have a couple hours to prepare for that.
However, the awareness that at any moment someone could call you is a lot. So as I'm recording this, I am on call and had a client who kind of started labor and fizzled out the other day. And so definitely I'm aware, like extra aware that someone could go into labor any second, right?
And I'm sort of living my life like that. What that means for me is I'm reminding my kids of that. I'm not scheduling a lot of stuff that's like super important because I don't know when a baby might come, right?
I'm also resting more. because I know there's a chance a baby's coming like any time and so I'm trying to give myself plenty of rest in anticipation for that. However, there was a time in my doula career where knowing that someone could go into labor any day made me not able to rest and that was really really hard because then I would be so exhausted at the end of a birth because I would have been waiting for that birth and not resting well and then at the birth and not resting and then home from the birth and just literally pass out like just dead to the world for a full day kind of scenario right and ultimately that is not really helpful for my body.
Now at this point I do sometimes get a little stressed if I'm feeling like oh man these two babies might come at the same time or something like that but in general the like a baby could come any day feels a lot less tricky emotionally um physically etc.
Excuse me it does not keep me from sleeping for instance so it's easier to manage at this point. Now the other kind of rest I want you to think about is just not having to think about other people and what I mean by that is having some time where you're not on call.
Now ideally that looks like a stretch of time where you don't have anybody do and that could be no postpartum clients and no birth clients or it could be just that no one is due for birth because postpartum has a different kind of predictability right like even if you're like well I don't know when they're going to have their baby and want to start our shifts once the baby's there your scheduling shifts so you're not like you know getting up at two in the morning to go see this person or you shouldn't be um but you are potentially still kind of waiting for them to be due right.
What I do at this point in my business which honestly I can tell you has been life -changing and I am not exaggerating when I say that is that I take off July and August from due dates every year. Now this is only my third summer doing this this summer and so I'm fresh to this right like this is not a strategy I've done for very long but I can already tell you that it is having a massive impact in my life and the life of my family and in my excitement and anticipation of babies coming after that.
What I have experienced for the last three summers or last two summers this is about to be our third is that um I am able to be so present with my children and I'm able to be like spontaneous right like what do you want to do today guys like let's just make some plans.
Now it's not that I don't work at all what I've been doing is saying like okay this day and this day I'm gonna do meetings and you know social media and things like that but otherwise I'm not on call for births and the reality is even just them knowing that I'm not gonna get a random call for a birth is massive like really huge there they love it like my kids really love knowing that I'm not just gonna all of a sudden get a call and be gone.
Now at this point my children are you know pre -teens and teenagers and they love that I do work that I love so I I really appreciate that about them because there was a time when they hated that I could get called and have to go into a birth at any second they really hated it and they would tell me that all the time like this is the worst you know like it was quite quite fun to get that feedback from them um and now they're like we see that you love what you do and we see that you're amazing at what you do and we love that you love that you know like we love that you're loving your work and it's I think really awesome for them to see me not only run a business and own a business and work for myself but also do work that is so important to me and work that like lights me up right.
But still, the part of it that they don't like is me randomly leaving and not knowing when I'm coming back. I just had someone in labor who we thought was in labor, but it ended up not being labor. And I said to my 12 -year -old, and mind you, I've been doing this since he was young.
Let's see, he's 12. So I've been on call for birth since he was five. And I said to him, I think I have a client in labor, probably going to be leaving it a little bit. And he said, when do you think you'll be home?
And I said, buddy, I'm like, dude, you know the answer to that. I have no idea. Nobody knows. And I was like, buddy, and he's like, I know you don't know, but guess, when do you think it'll be? And I'm like, gosh, dude, even at 12, you're kind of like, please tell me you're not going to be gone for a day and a half.
But the reality is I can't tell him that. And he knows that. But also, there's an emotional toll that it takes on them as well, on the family, on the children, and on my partner, on my husband, because of the unpredictability of it.
And so for me, I think it's really important to have a break from that for all of us. Now, I understand that if this is your primary income, and to be fair, this business is our primary income in our family right now.
When it is your primary income, you have to plan for those months. You have to really make sure that you have the finances to handle the months of not having people do. So I don't say that flippantly, right?
I'm not just like, everybody can handle that in their business, no, you have to build that in. And I get that, but it's worth doing. And I promise you, you will be a better doula for it, okay? Now, the last kind of rest that I want you to think about is like the mental rest of building your business and growing your business.
And what I mean by that is, how often do you give yourself time off from your business? And I just want to be really clear, this could just be like a day, right? Or like two days, or it could be like a week if you're going on vacation or something like that, right?
But I think as entrepreneurs, it is very easy to constantly be working on our businesses. And I am guilty of this. I have a to -do list that never ends. Like it, I just add to it so that I can check things off.
But there's not like a stopping point, really. Now, on the one hand, there is, because not everything on that to -do list has to happen, which is why it's still there on that list, right? But also, owning your own business means there's literally always something you could do in your business.
But you shouldn't do that. Like you shouldn't live in such a way that you are constantly filling your free time with your business stuff. Now, there is an ebb and flow to this, right? Because maybe you're at a point where you're like, yeah, but Kaylee, my business is just starting and I'm like really desperate for clients and so I have to give a lot of effort to that.
I understand that. What I'm not saying is if you're at brand spanking new doula, take a week off. Like don't worry. I'm not being flippant about this, I promise. What I'm saying is that even if you are desperately searching for clients right now, you have got to give yourself a day or two occasionally or every other week or once a week or whatever that looks like for you to not do or strategize anything for your business because your brain needs that rest, okay?
And you have to normalize that this takes time. Your business is not going to grow today and so if you take tomorrow off, you can still have momentum for the next day. That's okay, right? It's not going to sabotage anything and it is going to help you mentally and emotionally and physically so incredibly much, okay?
So I do want you to take a few minutes, think about how you could incorporate rest into your business more. How you could prioritize rest in your business more and how you could set yourself up for success with this even better than you're doing now, okay?
I also just want you to know that you are doing a great job. This is hard work. Owning a business is really hard. Being a doula is exhausting sometimes and it is good and wonderful work and I don't mean to say that to discourage you, I mean to validate you that it is hard and you're doing it and you should be incredibly proud of yourself, okay?
All right, I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula tips and tits podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at Harad doula so we can celebrate alongside you.
If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app that helps other doulas find us as we do this work together. This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment.
It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business. We'll see you again soon.
Today we are discussing rest! Rest is vital on all levels. Mental, physical, and emotional especially when we are giving so much to our clients on a regular basis.
Quote from the show:
“Sleep is important for our bodies on a biological level, on a cellular level, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. However, I also mean rest emotionally and mentally. I don't just mean sleep. So let's say, you know, you have, um, a client coming up who has had some trauma and you know, it might be an emotional or like triggering birth experience, right? You're going to need some emotional and mental rest before and after that experience”
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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class
Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
