Self-employment is a career choice that may offer the flexibility to take care of children whilst remaining active on the labor market, and can therefore be seen by mothers as an alternative to wage employment during early childhood years. Using data from the German Socio-Economic household panel (SOEP) between 1995 and 2018, we investigate the success of this strategy, by studying wage earnings and the labor force status of mothers seven years after childbirth, once the child reaches school age. Taking account of self-selection into self-employment, we find that the consequences of self-employment experience in the early years after childbirth are no different from being inactive in terms of hourly wage for mothers who return to wage employment, while each additional month of wage employment after childbirth increases this wage by 0.4%. However, each additional month of self-employment experience does increase the odds of being active in the labor market by 22%, compared to inactivity. Analogously, for each additional month of wage employment, the odds of being employed increase by 6%. Self-employment in the early years after child birth thereby seems to keep mothers attached to the labor market to a greater degree than does wage-employment.