After a decade in a career that had stopped fitting, I found myself writing on the floor beside my five-month-old daughter’s crib - and slowly built a freelance copywriting business in the 60 to 180 minutes a day I could find between naps, feeds, and bedtime.

That experience changed the way I thought about work, ambition, and motherhood.

Because what if you don’t need more time to build something meaningful? What if motherhood isn’t the thing that makes ambition impossible - but the thing that finally makes it clear what you want your ambition to be for?

In this first episode, I’m sharing the story of how I started building a business in the margins of motherhood, and why I believe maternity leave can become a powerful trigger for rethinking the way we work.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why so many women start questioning their careers after becoming mothers - and what may actually be underneath that shift
• How motherhood can become a “bullshit filter” for work that no longer feels meaningful
• What you can realistically build with just one to three focused hours a day
• Why having more time isn’t necessarily the answer - and how a simple system and a single point of focus can change what’s possible
• What an anti-hustle, 20-hour-a-week business can actually look like in practice
• Whether it’s possible to be ambitious and deeply present for your family

THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF…

You’re a mother of young children who feels like your old definition of success no longer fits.

You’re done with the churn, the constant pressure to do more, and the idea that building something of your own has to mean sacrificing the life you actually want.

Most of all, this episode is for you if you’re wondering whether there’s another way - one where your business supports your life rather than taking it over.

Read the full story on Substack and join our community of mothers building something of their own, in the margins.

New episodes every other week.

Welcome to the Naptime CEO Podcast!

Here we explore what it looks like to build something meaningful of your own — a business, a personal brand, freelance work, a creative project — without making hustle, burnout, or abandoning motherhood the price of success.

I'm Maria. After a decade in a career that had stopped fitting, I started writing on the floor beside my daughter's crib and building a freelance copywriting business in under twenty hours a week.

I don't have it figured out — that's sort of the point. Every other week I sit down with another mother running her own version of this experiment and ask the questions most business advice skips: What does success mean after becoming a mother? Can you build something real in twenty hours a week? What are you no longer willing to sacrifice?

Join our community on Substack — because as mothers we are capable of building extraordinary things, but nobody has to do it the hard way, alone.

New episodes every other week.