Many entrepreneurs refer to their first companies as their babies, and it makes sense—like parenthood, startup life is full of long days and sleepless nights. After the birth of her first child Elijah, Hana-Lia Krawchuk spent 18 months holding and rocking him until he eventually fell asleep. This exhausting routine would conclude with the dreaded transfer to his cot with Hana-Lia holding her breath and hoping he wouldn’t wake up, often to no avail. 

With the knowledge that babies often slept better when swaddled, she tried various brands, only for Elijah to wriggle his way out of each one and wake up within an hour. After noticing her son was at his most comfortable when his arms were positioned above his head—something that traditional swaddles restricted—she did her research and realised that the arms-up sleeping position is one that comes most naturally to babies and helps them to fall asleep faster. This led to her starting Love to Dream™, the multi-million-pound business behind the award-winning, patented Swaddle Up™, an Arms Up sleeping bag that has given parents around the world an extra 1.3 billion hours of sleep back. 

Hana-Lia shares how two weeks after sending out her first delivery to a store in Sydney, the manager rang to say that groups of mothers—up to twenty at a time—were coming into the store and buying up all the stock he had. “It all began with one mum using the Swaddle Up™, which led to their baby sleeping much longer,” she explains. “They shared news of their new discovery in their mother and baby groups and before we knew it, the Swaddle Up™ became a cult product. It really was incredible and I could not keep up with the demand right from the beginning!” 

This year, Hana-Lia and her team marks their next step into the sleep space with the launch of the new Sleep Machine. With an auto-cry detection feature that plays a dedicated tune or voice note if the baby wakes, this new product further strengthens their goal of helping babies sleep independently and giving parents more shut-eye as well. “It’s a wonderful product which doubles up as a nightlight and sound machine, with lots of customisable features that can be tailored to your baby or child’s individual sleep needs.  We have created it with unique functions, including a personalised record function so you can capture a parent’s soothing voice, and a Bluetooth facility so you can stream favourite songs, stories or sounds, which means the Sleep Machine can be enjoyed way beyond the baby years,” she explains. 

In this interview, Absolutely Mama’s Ina Yulo Stuve speaks with Hana-Lia about her plans for growth and why entrepreneurship is in her blood. 

Did you always know that you wanted to start your own business?

I come from a refugee family who fled Russia with just the clothes they had on their backs. My dad borrowed $100 from another refugee he met on the journey and he used this money to rent a rundown fish & chip shop in an even more rundown suburb of windy Wellington, New Zealand.  And so, his ‘start up’ career began and I was born shortly after.  Growing up, I had never seen anyone in my family work for anyone else. As a result, it never entered my mind to climb the corporate ladder. Perhaps naively, I didn’t see starting my own business as a risk.  I saw it, and still see it, as freedom, but this freedom comes with enormous—and welcomed—responsibility toward my family, Love to Dream team members, and customers.

What was your strategy for international expansion?

I didn’t have start up funds to build this business, so strategic moves, such as opening an international office, were out of the question initially. I kept my strategy very simple and decided to expand through selecting the best distributors in our industry who would purchase stock upfront and be responsible for the sales and marketing efforts.  In return, they would get an excellent profit margin and marketing collateral support from HQ. It was a win-win and we expanded quickly to over 45 countries via these partnerships. The UK holds a very special place in my heart as this was our first international market and the parents of the UK took a chance on us, so we will always be indebted to their incredible support.

What’s one of the biggest sleep myths you want to debunk?

Going through sleep challenges with my firstborn was a very tough time, which so many new parents have experienced.  So I built a blog and started to share helpful advice on our website and help guide parents on how to set up a healthy sleep routine from day one. At the time, content marketing was a relatively new concept and although some content has been refreshed over the years, it continues to be a valuable resource for our community today. We’re now exploring how we can leverage technology and data to tailor the resources for our community according to where they are at in their sleep journey.  

How has client feedback influenced your brand’s evolution?

Customer feedback has driven all our innovation.For example, our Swaddle Up™ Transition Bag was developed because we had customers asking for an XL size in the Swaddle Up™, which was unavailable at the time. I found out that parents didn’t want to risk losing sleep—both for their babies and themselves—by suddenly stopping to swaddle when their babies got older, so I created a new design that featured removable wings, allowing parents to gently make this transition, one arm at a time. We’ve since expanded our product line to grow along with the babies and this now includes roomier “wearable blanket” style sleeping bags and grip-footed sleepsuits for older children. 

What made you decide to go through the patent process for the ‘Arms Up’ design?

This is one of my favourite stories. My mother was watching a daytime television show and the host was interviewing a woman who had patented her design of a baby nappy bag. After watching the segment, she rang me and said: “Darling, maybe you have something in your design that you can patent?”. I knew straight away that it should be the Arms Up design! This design feature is a key element that has led to significantly longer sleep times as it allows babies to self-soothe in the night while still feeling snug and secure due to the swaddling effect. Without any patenting experience, I drew the Swaddle Up™ on an A4 piece of paper, annotated with scribbles and arrows highlighting why it was different to other swaddles in the market.  I then walked into the IP Australia office and lodged our first patent.  We still rely on this first filing today and the protection it has given us from infringers copying our design is incredibly significant.  

If there’s one piece of advice you could give new parents struggling with sleep, what would it be?

Just know that the difficult days will pass—all babies eventually learn how to go to sleep, and your sleep will be restored too. It is so hard in the moment to imagine that the sleeplessness will end, but I promise it does. It’s never too late to set yourself and your baby up with a good sleep routine. Swaddling your newborn is medically-proven to help them sleep, and using other sleep aids like sound machines also help soothe babies to sleep.

Find out how to get more hours of sleep for both you and your baby here.