Having a baby is both a joyful and life-altering experience. But it’s also expensive. From unreimbursed medical costs to diapers, basinets, high-chairs and baby clothing, new parents often find themselves with a pile of new bills. Side hustles can help pay the cost. But it’s important to be realistic about what side hustles you can do with an infant.
Baby 101
When determining what side hustles you can do with an infant, consider some of the realities of having and caring for a newborn.
- Babies sleep a lot, but not necessarily when you want them to.
- They rely on you for everything — food, clothing, changing, love. So, when the baby calls, you need to answer, even when it’s not convenient.
- Babies are messy You will do a lot of laundry.
- When babies are gestating, their moms need extra nutrition and calories. Those calories don’t just help the baby grow, they provide the energy to carry a rapidly growing human around 24/7. Consequently, the extra pounds don’t disappear the moment the baby arrives. Exercise can help with both the post-baby weight and with fatigue caused by sleep deprivation. (See item #1.)
- Babies are delighted by things most adults have forgotten are wonderful. Seeing the world through their eyes can ignite the imagination and spark creative ideas that can be highly profitable.
- Because infants change your world dramatically, new parents often connect with other parents to share notes. These meet-ups help parents adjust to their new normal. But they’re also great as networking and brainstorming sessions for entrepreneurial parents.
Side hustles you can do with an infant
With those facts in mind, it’s clear that short-deadline projects that can’t be interrupted won’t work, unless you have a nanny. But a wide range of deadline-flexible, practical, creative, and healthy side hustles can be done with an infant. Specifically:
Walk dogs
Not only does walking help new Moms get back in shape, an outdoor stroll is often a good way to calm a fussy infant. And, since you’re already walking, why not take along a dog to make some money at it?
Both Rover and Wag can help connect pet-parents with someone willing to walk with them. Dog walkers typically earn $15 to $25 for a 30-minute walk.
However, Rover is the better choice for someone walking dogs with an infant. That’s because this site not only allows you to set your own rates, it lets you specify the type of animals you’re comfortable walking. So, if it’s too tough to juggle a big dog with an infant, you can walk only small or mid-sized dogs.
Rover also makes it easy to communicate with your clients. Thus you can discuss the dog’s disposition — or schedule a meet and greet — before you agree to a gig. If you’re okay boarding other people’s pets when they go away on vacation, you can advertise that service with Rover too. (Typical charges to keep a dog overnight run from $25 to $100, depending on location and time of year.)
Even if you schedule just one 30-minute walk per day, this side hustle can earn upwards of $500 a month, even after Rover’s 20% fee. If you do multiple walks or add a night or two of boarding, you obviously can earn considerably more.
Watch
If you’re home full-time with your child, you may want to consider watching other children at the same time for pay. A site called Care can help you find parents in your neighborhood who need both occasional and regular childcare.
The site requires sitters and parents to buy a membership, but the sitter membership is cheap — about $9 a month. You set your own rates and determine how many and what ages of children you’re comfortable watching. So, if you want to only watch children that are appropriate playmates for your own, that’s easy to stipulate in your profile.
Notably, caregivers on Care set their own rates. But typical babysitting rates range from a low of $15 per hour to more than $35 per hour.
And if it turns out that you really love watching kids all day, you can take the next step and turn your babysitting into a family daycare business. A site called Wonderschool can help you with the licensing and administration.
Naturally, you set your own rates and terms (such as hours and the number of kids you can accommodate) here too. But even a small family day care can easily bring in $3,000 or $4,000 per month. (The average cost of daycare is $321 per week, or roughly $1,284 per month, according to Care.) Wonderschool handles the administration, including marketing and collection, for a 10% share of the revenue.
Wash
Whether it’s because they’re so cute to dress up — or because they spit up a lot (on you, as well as themselves) — babies generate a surprising amount of dirty laundry.
For people who don’t mind throwing in an extra load or two, a couple of sites offer to pay you to clean other people’s clothes. Poplin pays by the pound; Hampr pays by the load. Both enlist freelance washers who pick up, wash, fold and deliver.
The amount you earn per hour will depend primarily on how far you agree to drive to pick up and deliver laundry. A small geographic range is most profitable, but may result in less job offers.
Freelancers who work with these sites say they typically earn from $10 – $25 an hour and can earn a nice supplemental income when they’re willing to do this regularly.
Laurie Fulford, a South Carolina mom of two young kids, says that she earns about $30,000 a year with this part-time gig.
Create
Before kids, Jessica Stamm worked as a full-time registered dietitian. But having kids revived her artistic side, she says. So, while she still consults with people needing help with healthy eating part-time, she’s gone all-in on creative side hustles.
“You really go through a metamorphosis when you have children,” she says. “Writing and creating things that are fun for my kids — and that are fun to do together — is not only good for my mental health, it’s a source of revenue. That was a pleasant surprise.”
Now she sells her own children’s book, Big Bug Feelings and a variety of ancillary products on Etsy and Amazon.
Creating children’s products is an ideal side hustle for a parent, she adds. Not only do her kids inspire ideas, their friends parents are a no-cost focus group for the types of products that are needed and wanted by her peers. Better yet, Stamm can write, draw, and market her products in the evenings when the kids are in bed.
There are dozens of side hustle platforms that help creatives sell their work.
Etsy is among the best known. However, print-on-demand sites, such as Society6 and FineArtAmerica, are another good option. These sites ask artists to upload art and choose products that they’d like their art to illustrate. These products range from t-shirts and mugs to puzzles and prints. The print-on-demand shops then make, market and mail the products to customers. Artists simply earn a royalty on every sale.
Answer
Most consumer surveys don’t pay much money, but are easy to do in your free time. However, when you have a new baby, the survey options are better than average. Why? Babies require a ton of products, from diapers to car seats and bouncy chairs. So makers of all these products are anxious to get new parent feedback.
So even though well-paid surveys are few and far between for the average consumer, they’re far more common for new parents. And, while you won’t get a survey every day, when you do get a gig it’s likely to pay $60 to $150 an hour.
Some good sites to sign up with include Wynter, Respondent, UserInterviews and Maven.
Notably, too, there are a bunch of companies, ranging from Amazon to Gerber, that will provide new parents with free products for much the same reason. They want your valuable feedback. Interested? Check out The Penny Hoarders recent listing of 37 freebies for new parents.
2/16/2024
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