Making Money Online: Your Success Stories - Breastfeeding Mums

by Sinead, BreastfeedingMums.com and BMums.com

Five and a half years ago I was expecting my second baby. I was working full-time as an English supply teacher in a local school and enjoying it thoroughly. However, one thing weighed heavily on my mind... how was I going to manage the return to work once my maternity leave ended? I didn't want strangers looking after my young daughter and my new baby - yet I didn't feel it was right to ask their grandparents to look after such young children.

I fretted about it for months and eventually decided I'd have to delay returning to work for the foreseeable future and concentrate on my children instead. Whilst I enjoyed the luxury of being able to stay at home, I missed the comradeship of the workplace and I certainly missed the extra money. As the bills grew bigger I often wondered if there was any way at all I could bring in some extra money whilst working from home. However, by this stage, pregnant with my third baby I couldn't see any way around it.

Fortunately for me a family member realised that I could put my teaching skills to use in another area and suggested I start a breastfeeding website, if for no other reason than to be able to add it to my CV if the time came that I wanted to return to the classroom.

To be honest, initially I sidestepped the issue as I was almost totally computer illiterate. I couldn't even send an email - although I could shop online as long as the computer was switched on! I had taken a few classes in basic computers throughout my years at school and university but I had no knowledge whatsoever of running websites or programming.

As time went by however, I began to question just how difficult it would be to work from home running a website. I was by this point getting quite fed up of being at home all day long with three children demanding my constant attention and I began craving an escape route... and that's when I decided to go for it. I'd start a breastfeeding information website based on my own experiences as a breastfeeding mum and see what happened.

Luckily my husband is a programmer so he was able to do the technical stuff like buying the domain name www.BreastfeedingMums.com and setting up the site.

But then I was on my own.

So I began to make notes, research and write short articles about all aspects of breastfeeding. I experimented with different advertising streams and played around with the design and content of my site.

Gradually visitors began to come - much to my astonishment and delight. Many times as I was about to give up I'd receive an email requesting help or thanking me and that would inspire me to keep going.

Three years on the site attracts around 3500 unique visitors every day and has expanded to include pregnancy and baby care as well as incorporating a blog and forum for women to visit.

I now earn enough money from the ads running on the site to allow me to continue staying at home with my children and being the one who leaves them to and from school every day.

To any mothers out there who have ambition, determination and don't mind working long hours from home I say go for it. I've never looked back and every day am grateful that I had the courage to do just that. These days I can do so much more than just send an email and the freedom and satisfaction I get from working for myself is incredible. In fact that's why I set up this site - to help other mums achieve the same as I have!

My children who are now 8, 5 and 3 are fascinated by what I do and I have no doubt whatsoever they'll start up their own websites at a later stage which perhaps will allow them to avoid becoming struggling debt-ridden students!

Good Luck :)

Are you a work at home mum? Have you been successful at making money online?

Then please share your success story here! We'd love to hear all about it and in return we'll link back to your website or blog :)