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Mahurangi mums are going into business to work around the hectic hours of motherhood, invent solutions to motherly problems and meet other parents.
Lauren Harvey started making toys to entertain her baby during breastfeeding last year.
“My daughter Alexis was horrendous to breastfeed. She couldn’t sit still and I thought ‘what if she had something to play with?’ So I invented a toy which attaches to your bra while you breastfeed and it worked amazingly.”
After trialling the product with 20 other mums, she started a website to sell the toys through her business Feeding Fiddlers.
She has now sold over 250 toys around the world, based from her home in Warkworth.
Bridget White started her business, Baby Bunting this year, making quilts with babies names on them.
“I made my first quilt while I was pregnant with my daughter Caitlyn. I found it hard staying put while I was pregnant and it was a good way to keep me off my feet, but then people said I should start selling them.
“I can stay at home and work while my baby naps.”
When she held a stall at a Rodney Plunket Market Day in Snells Beach she met a number of other young mothers starting similar small businesses, who she now meets with regularly.
“It’s great because our kids can play together, too.”
The trend has been called ‘mumtrepreneurs’ and has inspired the Fly Buys Mumtrepreneurs Awards, which started last year. Entries for this year’s competition close on June 15.
The competition is open to all women who owned a business for between two and 10 years, which they started while raising a child.
Last year’s winners included Wellington-based Bridgit Hawkins and her company Regen which helps dairy farmers manage the environmental impact of dairy effluent, and Mairangi Bay’s Sandra Finlay who runs The Growth Collective, a service linking fresh food suppliers and schools so parents can order low cost and nutritious lunches for their kids.
Fly Buys chief executive Stephen England-Hall says the awards recognise the growing number of New Zealand women who manage to juggle the dual demands of family life and running a company.
“From businesswomen with sustainable ventures they manage from home to those exporting overseas, we’re looking for mumtrepreneurs from all backgrounds and levels who have identified a market opportunity and built a clear vision for the future,” Mr England-Hall says.
