Hi geeks, I’m just wondering if there are any mobile hairdressers on here that take they’re children with them? I have 2 children and never took them to work with me as I didn’t want the stress and the worry. They are both in pre school and nursery now and we are going to start trying for baby number 3! I have just started doing hair on Saturdays as my mother and father in law can look after them Saturdays. But when the new baby arrives I will have to take him/she with me because they won’t be able to handle 3 and are not confident enough looking after a baby. I would only be working 2/3 hours on a Saturday morning. Does anyone have experience with this? I would do evenings but my husband works late most of the time! If not I will have to work Saturday afternoons when he is home or a Sunday morning! I’m not sure what to do but I want to continue working!
Don’t stress about it. Put yourself and baby first. We all try and make things work sometimes when in reality there is no need. I really thought when I started writing this that I’d be dead against this as I’m not exactly baby mad so I’ve surprised myself.
Good clients will see you when you are available. If you get them rebooking at every appointment you will get those days you can work filled up. The ones you can’t just forget about altogether unless it gets busier and you do want to try an hourly nursery or something (near me there’s one for £6 an hour and flexible on timings). If you are happy doing those 1-2 clients a week do that, it will steadily become more but if you say from the outset this is the day I work and never budge on it, they will never expect you to do any different.
Although taking a baby would be difficult for a client to relax and many would be against it, maybe there is that market there for a mum in a very similar position as you that desperately wants her hair done and can’t take her child to a salon or get someone to come to the house because of her own children that would be open to it. I’m sure some of your clients would love to see your baby anyway and it could become the norm. There was something in the news recently about a mum that was able to take her baby to the office so she could breastfeed them. Times are changing and we are in a position as self employed that we can do whatever we want and make our own rules.
The thing to be careful with is safety of your baby which I’m sure you will be. Infection control wise always important for you but you’d need to be careful with baby. I caught whooping cough off a client at xmas and have been off since. She gave it to her newborn grandson and he was in hospital and she still cane to share it. It’s an odd disease, by a point you are fine and then are desperate for air an hour later. She didn’t say a word til I finished that she had a 3 month cough. They bring nasties with them all the time even though I explain due to an illness I’m very susceptible to catching things and taking baby you’d need to do a risk assessment eg how would you keep a client with an ill child away from your baby if it happened in their own house and you’d already started working. Not letting them kiss and touch your baby etc as people do.
I work from home and when I started a few ladies brought babies and toddlers. It was horrifying the mischief even a baby that cannot move can cause. One lady jumped up before I could say stop with tint on her eyebrows to soothe a baby that had cried for a millisecond, and stopped before she got over there; got tint all over her face and arms thankfully not the baby. So whether you can let your baby cry for a minute while you do something that needs your full attention or will you be there the second she needs you even if you are gloves and elbow deep in peroxide...Another came for a simple patch test and wouldn’t put her toddler down and he grabbed my perm lotion and got it on him. She didn’t care but I spent the next 72hrs on high alert stressed out of my mind with worry that he’d have an allergy to it.
So this is your baby and although my hairdresser used to come to our house and have stuff all over the kitchen sides, with my little sisters at her feet in the way she never once had an accident in 15 years. I’m sure my mum wouldn’t have cared if she brought her own child with her while she worked.
Then there’s me and I can’t even work properly when someone brings a friend with them that is in another room as all I can think about is them and what they are up to so I can’t focus on the actual client - so that’s my comfort level, you just have to find yours and check with your insurers about it.
You never know, it could be your niche.