About Me (Elaine)

I'm originally from Dublin, have been married to Andy for 8 years and we now live in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath with our two little girls, Mia (4.5) and Zoey (2.5).

My background is in Customer Service Management and I am also a qualified Accounting Technician (iati). I spent 9 years working with McDonalds, starting out at 16 as a crew member and working my way up to Second Assistant Manager. I finished with McDonalds in March 2004 and moved to Hertz Europe Service Centre. I spent a year in the back office and moved then to a Team Leader role where I managed the UK Call Centre team. I left to go on Maternity Leave in June 2008 and was made redundant when my Maternity Leave finished as my role no longer existed due to restructuring within the company.

Faced then with the daunting role of finding a new job which fit around my 6 month old daughter, I decided to try something different and started as a self employed childminder from home. I looked after two toddlers fulltime as well as our own two when Zoey came along and while it was demanding and very challenging, I really enjoyed it. It gave me the opportunity to be at home with the girls which I was grateful for.

Then in December 2010 when Zoey was 5 months old I started to really give some thought to maybe starting something that I could run from home and which would mean I could eventually give up the childminding. I started BabyBitz 'n' PartyPieces in late 2010 and for the next 18 months I worked flat out, childminding fulltime from 9-5.30 every day and spending my evenings and nights trying to build up the business. Eventually, towards the summer of 2012 I felt I was in a position where I could start thinking about becoming a fulltime Mumtrepreneur! It was a very scary time but I bit the bullet, gave notice to the parents of the children I was looking after and in September 2012 BabyBitz 'n' PartyPieces became my "real" job!

The first 3 months were very tough, trying to strike a balance between home & family life and giving the business the time and attention it deserves. Our eldest is at Preschool 5 mornings per week now but the toddler is at home fulltime at the moment so she needs a lot of my attention in the mornings. We've a great routine going now since Christmas though so the hard work is paying off.

About the Business