This is the second most popular question I see singers ask. [The first one being “What will pregnancy do to my voice?”]
So let’s chat a bit, shall we?
I think many people assume they’ll go back to work super quick. The benefit of being a singer means your life is innately flexible. Your days are mostly free with your evenings and weekends devoted to rehearsing and performing. If you’re lucky enough to have a partner who isn’t a professional musician, you can easily think that the schedule tradeoffs mean you’ll easily be able to balance childcare between the two of you.
And you’re not wrong to assume that, but….
There’s a lot more happening in the postpartum period than simply scheduling childcare.
At this point you’ve likely asked friends and colleagues when they went back to work and you’re desperately trying to decide if you should audition more or take that next job offer. Here’s the thing, if you are looking for someone to prove that singing at 6 weeks or 2 months is doable, you will find plenty of examples of singers who did. But while it is possible to sing at 6 weeks postpartum, every single singer I’ve spoken to said they wouldn't do it again. Why? Because there’s more going on than meets the eye.
When is it safe to physically sing again?
In my opinion, you can start singing as soon as you feel able. Good singing is a low-impact activity - you breathe in, you breathe out. Healthy singing should involve very little effort or pressure. In a properly functioning system, it is safer than sneezing or coughing for any of your stretched out lady parts.
However, I want to point out that many, if not most singers don’t sing this way. So if singing is effortful for you in any way, you are right to proceed with caution.
Unfortunately, there’s no voice doctor or teacher (that I know of) who approves singers for singing postpartum. Most American doctors approve women for all sorts of activities at six weeks postpartum so it might be safe to assume that once you clear your 6 weeks appointment you’re good to go… and yet many other resources suggest 9 months in 9 months out. And if you’re breastfeeding you can easily add another 2-3 years of hormonal fluctuations to that timeline.
My ideal recommendation, if you have the resources and ability, is to work with a Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist ASAP to work on more focused breath support. A good Pelvic Floor PT will look at coordinating your support muscles through breath work - a great way to start getting back to it in the postpartum phase and help you decide if you feel ready for more intense singing.
But when can I go back to work?
Here’s where it gets tricky. You and I both know that performing is about way more than simply singing. There’s music to learn, lyrics to memorize, staging, blocking, rehearsals, coachings, lessons, travel… all sorts of things go into making a performance. Things that require brain space, time, support, financial means and energy which are all in especially finite amounts in the early stages of postpartum.
While you absolutely CAN sing at 6 weeks postpartum, I’m not worried about your singing… I’m worried about YOU. Physically you can probably sing just fine, but mentally and emotionally there’s a lot of changes happening.
Your brain physically changes size and composition during the transition into parenthood.
And this applies to anyone regardless of whether they are a biological mother or not - your brain is changing to meet the demands of a tiny human dictator. So even if NOTHING has changed in your body, you, your sense of self, how you feel in your human meat sack will feel vastly different.
You are a different person.
And I don’t say that like everything about you is gone, but there’s a good chance that in those first few months of postpartum life you’ll be living very hand to mouth. Between the feedings and diaper changes and lack of sleep there is incredibly little time for you to be human. It’s not uncommon for many parents to simply want to focus on the task of parenting because when given the choice of leaving your child and doing a job you don’t particularly care for anymore or staying at home with your baby… It's not a hard decision.
I think it’s fair to say that most parents feel wholly unprepared for the overwhelm of this stage of life regardless of their career choices. It’s nothing you thought it would be like and perhaps everything you thought it would be like and now you’re here there’s no getting off the train - and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s not like this forever!
Something happens around the 3-4 month mark. The baby starts to sleep more. The stretches between feedings get longer. Your baby starts smiling and laughing. Suddenly the absolute energy suck of having an infant feels like it’s starting to pay off.
I think this is a time when many parents start to want to go back to work. I know parents who’ve taken longer parental leave start to wish they had more to do than just take care of their baby around this time. They’re getting more sleep, they’re feeling more confident in their abilities, and there’s just a tiny bit more room to think about “who am I away from this child?”
So in a perfect world, I’d say waiting at least 3-4 months is a great safety net for a singer going back to work. There’s a little cushion here to get you through those first dark weeks and gives you the space to be more present in your new self. This gives you a better chance of having a good performance, of getting rehired, of feeling capable, of connecting with colleagues again, of feeling valuable outside of parenting.
At the end of it all, I want you to WANT to perform, not to feel like you HAVE to.
But we live in a world with financial requirements, bills, professional commitments, career-making opportunities… it’s more than likely you might not have the luxury of taking 3-4 months off and that’s OK too.
How can you support yourself if you need to go back to work sooner?
First of all, what are you signing up for? I would absolutely advise against a brand new role in a big house with tremendous pressure - that doesn’t sound like a recipe for success. But repertoire you know well, a company that knows you and loves you, colleagues that can support you as your flounder a bit, reduced rehearsal commitments… anything to reduce the energetic, physical and mental strain. You can create safety and support for yourself if you absolutely MUST.
What other support can help you get back to singing?
Again, Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy would be my first stop. A good Pelvic Floor PT will help you get reconnected with your body in a way that no other fitness or health professional can. Period. Don’t get sucked into the motherhood fitness craze and everyone saying they can help moms and their pelvic floors - start with the actual Pelvic Floor PT professionals.
Sleep. Can you hire a night doula or night nanny? If you’re the breadwinner of your family that might mean your partner taking the lion’s share of parenting so you can go back to work. What can you let go of so that you can get ample rest?
Childcare. This is the single hardest and most important factor in getting back to your career. So many people struggle to cobble this together, but you will need someone to take care of your child. (It’s also why many singers don’t go back to work as childcare often exceeds the meager amounts a singer gets from a contract.) It’s hard at first, but it also gets easier with time. Finding a good childcare provider will also give you space to explore who you are now as a human (which can make your performances more exciting!).
Time. Learning music, preparing yourself, reconnecting with your body - all of these things take time. So even if you go back to work sooner than you’d like also know that time is on your side. What happens on day one of parenting isn’t indicative of what things will look and feel like in a year or two years or five years. So even if everything goes tits up, your career isn’t over, you’re not done singing forever. Give yourself time to recover and do what you can to take as much pressure off your system as possible. Parenthood is stressful enough - adding the pressure of a career can overload you and lead to burn out or injury.
There’s a silver lining to all this change: it’s the opportunity to become the singer you’ve always wanted to be!
You see, all that brain change and overwhelm in those early days of parenthood were priming you for some deep magic. Those changes unlock heightened neuroplasticity and myelination in your brain which means you get to learn new things more quickly. So a piece of music or technical challenges that might have taken you months to master, could be integrated in weeks or even days.
All of these things that feel so hard are working to make you a better parent, a better musician, a better singer, a better performer and, most importantly, a better human being.
While you can’t force these things to happen when and how you want them to, you might find that taking the pressure off your career, your body, and your singing actually allows you to level up faster. So please take a moment to enjoy that for yourself.
Amazing things are on their way and all you have to do is be available for them when they get here.
With each year that goes by I feel more and more like myself, but a newer and better version of myself. Now that my son is almost 6 I’m finally at a place where I feel empowered in making a singing career that works for me, as opposed to trying to fit myself into a career that feels at odds with all of what being a parent entails. Flexibility, proximity to home, support from friends and family, artistic integrity all factor into my peformance decisions. And that confidence and security in my decision making is priceless.
That’s what I want for you!
If you want to dive deeper into any of these topics feel free to check out the Pregnant Singer Course or contact me about private coaching.
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