Preparing for Maternity Leave as a Self-Employed Freelancer: Here’s What Worked for Me
Updated: Sep 18
You’re pregnant! Congrats! While I’m sure you’re excited, you may also be wondering: What will happen to my business when I go on maternity leave?
Maternity leave as freelancers or self-employed person is different from maternity leave for traditional employees. You’re responsible not only for your recovery and your baby, but also for keeping your business healthy while you're away.
To get ready, I treated my maternity leave planning like a business project. I worked through what needed to happen before I stepped away, made decisions early, and gave myself plenty of time to put everything in place.
I’m sharing the process I followed and what worked for me to give you a practical framework for planning your own.
1. Decide what your maternity leave will look like
Maybe you need to hear this first: You deserve to have the maternity leave you want to have.
Want to detach completely for three months? Do it.
Want to check emails once a week to keep your finger on the pulse? You’re entitled to.
Want to hide under a rock with just you and your family for three years? That one might be harder, but hey, you can still try to plan for it.
But before you start planning, you need to know what you're planning for.
Decide how much leave you want to take
There’s no standard length of leave for freelancers. Which means you have both the freedom and the responsibility to decide what works for your family and your business. This can be a tricky question to answer, but it helps to consider a few key things:
What’s the minimum amount of time you want to take to recover?
How long would you like to focus solely on bonding with your baby?
How will sleep deprivation and unpredictable schedules affect how you could work?
Will you have access to childcare or family support so you have time to focus on your business?
Does your work allow for having a baby on your lap? Contact napping in a carrier? Suddenly crying and needing your attention?
What about your finances—what kind of income will you have while on leave, and how long can it sustain you while you’re away?
I planned for the amount of leave that is typical here in the Netherlands: 16 weeks.
I wanted about a month of buffer before the baby was due to focus on myself and my household and to leave space in case he came early (which he did, by 2 weeks!). I also wanted plenty of time after for my body to recover, to bond with my baby, and to adjust to my new role as a mother.
I probably would have taken more time if I knew that my finances would allow it, but because I wasn’t sure, 16 weeks it was. It’s up to you to factor in everything that goes into how much time to take to make sure that you are finding the balance you need.
Decide what happens to your business while you're away
One of the biggest decisions you'll make is what happens to your business while you're on maternity leave. Your business model will, in part, determine this for you. You may be able to pause completely or you may need to find a way to keep things running in the background during your leave.
Most self-employed businesses fall into one of these approaches:
Pause your business completely
If you're a service-based freelancer, like a writer, designer, consultant or virtual assistant, you may choose to pause things completely. While you may have digital products or a mailing list to manage, taking time away could work for you.
Pros
You get a full break from client work.
You can set clear expectations with clients before your leave.
You get uninterrupted time to focus on your family.
Cons
Your income usually stops or seriously dwindles.
You may need to rebuild your workload when you return.
Some clients may not want to (or be able to) hold work for you while you’re gone.
Keep your business running in the background
This works well if you sell digital products, earn affiliate income or have automated marketing that can continue while you're away. You won't be actively working with clients, but parts of your business can continue generating leads, sales or income without your day-to-day involvement.
Pros
You could keep some income rolling in during your leave.
Your business keeps moving without daily involvement.
Cons
You may have to do more prep work before you leave.
You may need to arrange for someone to step in temporarily while you are away, which could take training and trust to work well.
You may still need to deal with occasional issues during your leave.
Continue working in a limited capacity
You might not want to stop working completely. Whether that’s due to financial reasons or because you simply want to keep working, you can always choose to work a few hours each week during maternity leave.
Pros
You might be able to keep some pretty steady income, while still giving you more flexibility than your usual workload.
You keep your client relationships active, which can ease the transition back to full-time work.
Cons
You might find yourself working when you don’t want to be, like after a few nights of no sleep or when you’d rather be focusing on your family.
It might be tough for both you and your clients to stick to the boundaries you set.
It’s important to know that there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to take maternity leave. Pick what fits your family and your business the best. I stopped completely during my leave, which included no checking emails and not even popping on LinkedIn.
Whatever you choose, make this decision early because it influences almost every other part of your maternity leave planning. It will affect how much you need to save, when you stop taking on new work, what you tell your clients, which systems or automations you need to put in place, and how you prepare for your return to work.
To do:
Decide how long you'll take off.
Decide whether your business will pause or continue in some capacity.
Write down your ideal leave and return dates.
2. Build your financial plan
Once you know roughly how long you want to take off and what will happen to your business while you're away, you can start figuring out the financial side of your maternity leave.
This was a big part of my planning because my income was directly tied to how much I worked.
Review business expenses
Don't forget that your business can continue costing you money even when you're not making any. Go through your recurring expenses and divide them into three categories: things you need to keep, things you can pause, and things you can cancel.
Depending on your business, that might include:
Software and subscriptions
Website hosting and domains
Insurance
Accounting or bookkeeping
Professional memberships
Contractors
Email marketing or scheduling tools
Understand what financial support is available
Find out what maternity benefits or other financial support you're entitled to as a self-employed person.
This varies significantly depending on where you live, how your business is structured and your individual circumstances, so start your research early and use official government sources rather than relying solely on blogs or social media.
Make a note of what you may be eligible for, when you can apply, and whether there are any rules about working or earning income while receiving it. The earlier you understand what support you'll have, the easier it is to work out how much you need to save yourself.
Work out what maternity leave will cost
Once you know which business expenses will continue and what financial support you may be entitled to, you can start working out how much money you'll realistically need while you're away from work.
Try not to get caught up on replacing every penny you'd make if you were working. Try instead to look at what you actually need to cover during your leave, including your regular household expenses, any additional baby-related costs, and the business expenses you've decided to keep.
Then compare that with any income you'll still have coming in, such as maternity benefits, passive income or income from a partner. The difference, if any, is roughly what you'll need to cover with your savings.
I also recommend building in more of a buffer than you think you'll need. Your leave may end up being longer than planned, your return to work may be slower than expected, or you may simply decide that you're not ready to go back when you originally thought you would be. Having some breathing room gives you more flexibility if your plans change.
My personal situation involved a maternity leave stipend from the government (yay Netherlands!) for self-employed individuals, my partner's income, and a fat stack of savings.
To do:
Review recurring business expenses.
Check eligibility for maternity benefits.
Build a financial buffer.
Calculate your maternity leave budget.
3. Prepare your clients and workload
I don’t know why, but this part felt scary to me. Like suddenly if I told my clients I was pregnant, they’d poof! disappear. To be honest, this did happen with a few of them. At 20 weeks pregnant I suddenly plunged from five clients to one.
But that one client? Absolute gold. And the work I did with them leading up to my son’s birth was more than enough to build the buffer I needed before my leave. And communication played a big part here.
Exactly what you need to do will depend on how you work. For example, you might have:
One-off projects
Recurring retainers
Regular appointments or bookings
Long-term contracts
Products, memberships or other ongoing sales
Whatever your business model, the goal is the same: make sure you've accounted for anything that normally depends on you before you step away.
Decide when to stop taking new work
Once you know roughly when you want your maternity leave to begin, you can work backwards to decide how and when you'll wind down your workload.
Exactly what that looks like depends on your business. You might stop accepting new projects, pause recurring work, reduce your availability or arrange for someone else to handle certain responsibilities while you're away.
Give yourself some breathing room before your planned leave date too. I found that the closer I got to my due date, the more my motivation and energy dwindled. Plus, babies come on their own timelines (again, mine was two weeks early!), so it’s good to have the buffer.
You'll also need to let the relevant clients or customers know what to expect. There's no universal point when you need to tell clients you're pregnant, so think about how much notice they'll realistically need. Give them enough time to make alternative arrangements if necessary and be clear about:
When you expect to finish
What will happen while you're away
Whether you'll be contactable
Roughly when you expect to return
As your leave gets closer, start closing any remaining loops in your business. Take care of lingering admin and leave yourself notes about anything you'll need to pick up when you return.
Finally, prepare for the possibility that you need to stop working earlier than planned. Ask yourself: What would happen to my business if I had to stop working tomorrow?
You might prepare an email you can quickly send to clients, make sure your work is documented or give someone you trust the information they'd need to step in. You don't need an elaborate contingency plan—just enough of one that you can step away without worrying about what you've left behind.
To do:
Decide when and how you'll wind down your workload.
Tell the clients or customers who need to know.
Wrap up, pause, hand over or document anything outstanding.
Prepare for the possibility that you need to stop working early.
4. Plan your return—and give yourself permission to stop
Before you close the laptop for maternity leave, there are two final things worth thinking about: how you'll eventually come back to your business, and when you'll stop preparing for it.
Make a flexible plan for your return
You won't know exactly what returning to work after maternity leave will look like until you're there. Your energy, childcare, finances, and feelings about work may all be different from what you're imagining now.
But you can make a few decisions that will make returning easier when the time comes.
Start by thinking about when you want income to resume, rather than simply choosing a date to start working again. Depending on your business, you may need to start preparing for your return before that date.
For example, if clients typically book you four weeks in advance, you might need to let them know you're returning a month before you actually want to start working. If you rely on marketing or enquiries to generate work, you'll need to account for the time between restarting those activities and actually getting paid.
Also think about your initial capacity. Rather than assuming you'll immediately return to your old schedule, consider whether you want to:
Start with fewer clients, projects or appointments
Work shorter days or fewer days each week
Leave more space between deadlines
Gradually increase your workload over the first few weeks or months
And put a date in your calendar to reassess the plan. You don't have to predict exactly what working motherhood will look like before you've experienced it. You just need a sensible starting point that you can adjust later.
Know when you're finished preparing
If you're used to being responsible for every part of your business, preparing to step away can easily become an endless project in itself.
There will always be something else you could do. At some point, the extra preparation stops making your leave meaningfully easier and simply gives you more work to do before having a baby.
Decide what good enough looks like before you get there. What genuinely needs to be done for you to step away comfortably, and what can wait until you return?
Then, when you've done those things, stop.
Use whatever time you have left before your baby arrives for yourself. Rest. Nest. See friends. Spend time with your partner. Do things that have absolutely nothing to do with making your business more efficient.
To do:
Decide roughly when you want work and income to resume.
Work backwards to determine when you'll need to start preparing for your return.
Decide what your initial workload might look like.
Set a date to reassess your return plan.
Decide what “good enough” preparation looks like—and stop when you get there.
My maternity leave timeline
I started preparing for maternity leave around six months before I planned to stop working. You certainly don't need to follow this exact schedule, but starting early meant I could spread the preparation out instead of dealing with everything at once.
Here's roughly what my timeline looked like:
When | What I focused on |
6 months before due date | Decide how long I wanted to take off, what would happen to my business and how much I needed to save. |
4 months before due date | Start talking to clients and planning future work around my leave dates. |
3 months before due date | Start winding down my workload and take care of anything that needed more lead time. |
2 months before due date | Wrap up ongoing commitments and start getting ahead on invoices, admin and anything that would need to run while I was away. |
1 month before due date | Finish client work, put any necessary automations or handovers in place and make sure I was prepared in case I needed to stop earlier than planned. Switch on my out-of-office and officially step away from the business. |
I was able to follow this fairly well, but ran into a few snags. First, projects stretched a little later than I had wanted because I needed to wait on other people before I could complete my work. And second, baby boy showed up at 38 weeks. In reality, I had about five days of maternity leave before I gave birth, when I had planned for a month.
Looking back, I would have wanted more. But I’m also really, really happy I had a plan and followed it. It meant that my only focus when I waddled into the hospital was having a safe and healthy baby. 👶
Get the freelancer maternity leave planning checklist
Want something you can work through as you prepare? I turned the process from this article into a simple, printable checklist so you can keep track of what you’ve decided, what still needs doing and what can wait.
It covers your leave plan, finances, clients and workload, business admin, contingency planning and your eventual return to work.
Currently planning your maternity leave? Or are you on the other side, looking back? I'd love to hear how things are going for you! Feel free to drop a comment and share. 💚
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