How do you manage family plus being a doula? For me it was much more difficult managing it all when my kids were younger, but now it is easy. Right now my kids are 19, 17, 16, 13, 10, 8, and 6 yrs old, so with the older three kids being old enough to care for their siblings if I must leave I simply go and since my dh works 3rd shift he is home all day which helps too. When the kids were younger it was very hard - I had to call upon my mother if I was gone in the middle of the night because dh was working and sometimes during the day I would have to call upon her too if dh had to sleep. Thankfully she was my blessing and didn't complain too much!!
Do you rely on DH or family for nighttime childcare? What if no family is nearby? I always used to rely on my mother for nighttime care since dh works nights, but now I rely on the older kids.
How many births do you attend in a typical month, or six month period? This really varies. When I worked for a hospital program the most I did in a month was four births and privately the most I have done in a month is three clients. Some months however, I have had zero clients!! This year I have done four births in January, one in June, one so far in July with two more mamas who are due anytime. I also have three lined up for August, one in October and one in November (this is so far as their could be more as the months go on).
Do you have to market yourself, or is word of mouth by previous clients? I am marketing myself only because when I first started I did mostly volunteer births for teen mothers and then I started to move from teens to average age mothers and then left the private sector to work in a hospital program for two years and now I am coming back into the private sector again. I typically have not gotten referrals from the teens I doula'ed for mainly because I am not doing free births at this time.
Is it a feasible job to have with three children, including two toddlers? I think this depends on you, how your children will handle it and whether you have help or not. I started doula work 4 1/2 yrs ago so my kids ranged in age from 15 yrs down to 2 yrs old. I was fortunate enough to have lots of support because my husband and mother both knew I needed to be happy and doing doula work would add to my happiness. It wasn't easy and there was a period of "learning" where things didn't go smoothly.
