Episode 124: Are You IN for the Mother of All Baby Showers – with Founder Amy Lundy

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

Welcome to the kids sleep show where we help tired children to fall asleep independently sleep through the night and build healthy sleep habits for Life. I’m your host, Courtney Zentz. Now let’s sleep together. Hey, everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of the Kids sleep show. I’m joined this week by the founder of Moabs. Mother of all baby showers. Miss Amy Lundy, thank you so much for joining me, Amy, and welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Courtney. So excited to be here.

It is going to be a great 2023. I am excited to be the keynote speaker for Moabs. And we’re going to talk all about what Moabs is why you need to be there. And who’s Welcome at these shows. So why don’t we start? Amy, you have been running these Moabs events? Since 2012, right? Like, where did you find the idea for this, tell us a little bit about your background. And where the idea came up as a parent of three, I would love to so this is really a labor of love, so to speak, I had my first child in 2010. And at the time, I was living in New York City. And we moved to the west coast of Florida in Tampa, shortly thereafter. And at the time, I was still working for American Express, I come from a corporate marketing PR and events background. So I was running events for this very big corporation. And I just had this baby. And I was trying to find that balance between being that working mom, and also spending time with my child, which we all know is so incredibly difficult. And I had this epiphany while living in Tampa, and starting to meet new friends and building those connections for me and my child. And what I thought in my head was, why isn’t there some kind of resource that is connecting expectant and new parents like myself, especially those who may have moved somewhere new, but even for those who may have even been born and raised in that area, but connecting them to each other for this new phase of their life and connecting them to amazing resources locally and nationally, who can help them in this new phase of their life. So I started on a smaller scale by created small fry society, which is still really the sort of producer of the mother of all baby showers. And small fry society was the six week program, where we would get together with 20 or so new parents. And we would go to a different sort of play or educational option every single week, where there would be a social element and an educational element social for the kids social for the parents, and also an opportunity to learn more about that business. And to have fun. And what happened was that program grew fairly quickly, over a year or so into into 2011. And the feedback that I was starting to get from parents was, hey, you know, I’d love to come to we call them socials each week, I’d love to come to your socials. But you know, I’m working or I can’t come to the one on the weekend because of some other thing. We actually started hearing from a lot of dads saying, you know, I’d love to go to this, but the schedule doesn’t work. And then again, sort of the light bulb went off. And I thought, you know, really what I might want to do is a much bigger scale type event back to my American Express kind of days, where I was doing events for like 10,000 plus people sometimes. And I thought, you know, maybe there’s this opportunity to create something much bigger to reach a broader audience to bring in more brands, more resources, still keep intact, the local emphasis and include some of those businesses as well. And make this a really fun opportunity for people to get out to learn to laugh and to leave with confidence, which is essentially like our motto with Moabs. So it really sort of started off where I saw a need something that was missing and an opportunity that I was looking for, for myself and my child. And then using my experience that I had in marketing and sales PR I sort of bridge the gap between my work experience and my my life experience, so to speak. And I love that because I know for myself, I had my son my mother had since passed away. My husband was in you know, accounting at a big four accounting firm. So like I had the baby and he was back to work the next day and I found myself sitting there going

yes, so now what and I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t have a village and lazy I’m out of toilet paper. Can somebody bring that over? Yes, exactly. And, you know, it was just such a crazy lonely time. You know, I look back now and like Danny definitely had like postpartum anxiety or depression but I never had votes so I didn’t really know that either was happening and you know, my girlfriend was like you need to see somebody and I like wouldn’t go in my kitchen for a very long

some period of time what, especially when I was home alone with my son, because I was like, what if I grab a knife? What if I just grab it? What if I flip on the stairs, like breaks my heart. And it was just like, so I just didn’t go in the kitchen and like I hid the knives. And it’s not that I would do anything. But it was just the fact that I even had the thought at the time, you know, and you’re like, you’re strung out, you’re exhausted, you have no friends. And it wasn’t till I found like, oh, there was a nursing support group every Thursday at the hospital, all go, oh, there’s a lunch and learn on this. I’ll go, Oh, can I get a way to transfer off to the doctor today, you know, like, I did everything I could to like, get out. Even I like walked the King of Prussia Mall, which is one of the largest malls in the country. It’s five minutes from my house. And I used to take the stroller and I would walk by myself. But I would stay on the inside. Because I was afraid to be too close to the railing that I would either jump or throw my son over the railing. Like it was just

totally terrible period of my life. But it was the most amazing period of my life, you know, at the same time, so you’re like balancing but it was it was I didn’t have that village and I feel like I so relate to what you’re doing with my bags. Because I wanted to meet people locally. I wanted to know like, who are those mom friends that I can have? And like, you know, your four mottos. Inclusivity education, celebration and relationship building for Moabs is like it’s right. I need all of this, like, how did you come up with the pillars? Because like, I know, we talk and try to glorify how beautiful motherhood is. And there’s this reality side of it. It’s not always perfect, right? So you want to do bottom line pillars, I guess everything that you’re saying was much of the way that I was feeling moving to this new place where I did not know people where I didn’t feel connected, where I was wondering a lot of those same things. Is this normal? Is that normal? Who do I ask, you know, only get so far, asking your doctor, you only got so far, asking, you know your mother who was from a different generation, and there were different issues. And then there were now and even just simple things like advice on where to buy this? Or where to get that or do I need this? Or do you need that as a first time mom, I find I found especially challenging. So, you know, I really came up with those pillars because I felt that when I did hear about events that existed out there, when I did go to some different kinds of parenting events and whatnot, I found that there was a certain amount of sort of judgment.

I found that certain times you felt sort of left out if you didn’t abide by certain set of rules. If you you know, for instance, there’s obviously a big divide between those those who breastfeed and bottle feed. That was, that’s always been a big thing, that’s probably, unfortunately will always be a big thing. But there was just a lot of judgment I found out there and not that feeling of inclusivity that you know, you can you can share ideas, but you won’t be judged. I felt like really the main pillar, I wanted to focus on exactly what you said that sense of relationship building. And that extends from a b2b to b2c to a C to C, everything where we want businesses to build relationships with other businesses, we want businesses to build relationships with consumers want consumers to build relationships, ie friendships with other attendees. It might be I mean, I’ve seen and I’ve gotten messages from people saying, you know, I met my best mom, friend at one of your events, just standing there grabbing something to drink, or we were talking about how easy it was to fold down a stroller, or we were talking about how our baby never sleeps, or whatever the topic may be, and we were bonding over it. And the next thing, you know, we were having lunch the next week. And then the next thing you know, we were taking a class somewhere else. And now here we are, you know, six years later, best friends. So relationships was a very, very important piece to me. And probably like the most important part is pillars. But I just I had felt that there was what I kind of looked to see what there was a lack of that a lack of things that existed out in the marketplace. In terms of events in terms of building connections,

I looked at a lot of the limitations of things like you were saying like hospital classes, the seriousness of it, I wanted to make sure that our events were a combination of playfulness and seriousness. So one of the ways we’ve done that is by making these events adults only, so that you can come and you can let loose a little bit. And that you can decide how you want to let loose but you know, sometimes we have adult beverages at the event. So you can let a little loose if you’d like. But we wanted to make this event where it had something for everyone. So you know, you really could come and learn about a lot of different things. No one’s going to force you to go to the sessions, or force you to visit with every single event partner that’s there, or force you to do anything you can go and take those three hours and make that night for yourself to do as you wish and to get the most out of it. And take your best friend, take your partner, take your Night Nurse, take your mom, take any one of those support systems are all of them with you to get as much information as possible but have a really fun night. And by doing this adults only.

We were basically giving parents permission

No expects parents permission. But really those parents who’ve had babies in the last few years, we’re giving them permission to say it’s okay to get a sitter, it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to invest in yourself. This is all helping your family. And this also plays into like, our focus, which we can talk about with, like mental health and self care. That’s been a big focus for us, as this business has evolved over the last 10 plus years, to really like, it’s not just about, you know, taking care of the baby, we want to make sure that the moms and dads were really, really supported. So the pillars were really focused on what I didn’t see that existed out there with other kinds of experiences and ways for people to connect and educational tools. And just also building on the things that already existed to make sure that everybody felt as supportive as possible. And I think it brings up a good point, right? Because you hear the term mother of all baby showers like, Oh, can I come if I already have a baby? Sure, right. I mean, it’s yes, we’d like to open event for adults only to come into your point, either get educated as an expecting parent, or to get educated as a current parent who maybe has a kid or is having another kid, right. Like there’s, there’s continually things to learn. You and I were talking about this before we jumped on to the podcast, right? Like I do reels, on things that I forget, people don’t know now. And I’ve had that over the past month, because I’m like, oh, doesn’t everybody know that? You know, they? And I didn’t, but I learned as both a parent and a sleep coach, right. Like, over the years, I’ve been doing all of this different stuff. And I’m like, oh, I should talk about that. Because people don’t know. And I didn’t know, you know, I mean, I had sit there with Google and a Facebook group a couple years ago, trying to figure out, you know, is this right, you know, like, yeah,

yeah, and you bring up such a good point, Courtney, that I think the other thing is that, you know, every year new products come out, new recommendations come out. One of the really valuable items with these events, and this is where you’re definitely going to play a very important role on the sleep side is just keeping people updated. So if you had a BB, you know, pre COVID, and now you’re pregnant. Again, there are probably some things that have changed. And I can tell you, most certainly one of the things that has changed is probably the products that are available out there, whether that’s updates to products, or whether that’s new products. So I think there’s this opportunity to come and really see for yourself what we call tests before you invest, so that you can see for yourself what exists out there. And what we’re trying to do. Also, I want to make a point of saying, because we do say Mother of all being chairs, which makes it sound huge. And it is a big event, but it’s not overwhelming. We make it feel like a more intimate event. And this is really a curated experience. What does that mean? That means that we’re not looking, we don’t want you to feel like you’re going into a retailer, frankly, we don’t want you to feel like you’re going to a convention center, which you’re not, we want you to feel like you’re going to this sort of intimate, upscale, yet affordable experience, where we’re trying to take some of the guesswork out of this for you. We know we’ve been there. You and I we’ve been there, that overwhelming feeling I’m going to register that overwhelming feeling when you say to a friend, hey, can you tell me my must haves, and you just get this long text or email where you’re like, Oh my God, I don’t know where to start? We’re going to try to make that easier for you. And how are we going to do that, because A, I now have that same baby that I started this business, you know, literally holding her in my arms at meetings is now 12. So I’ve been doing this parenting thing for 12 years. Plus, I have a NINE and a six year old and you have children too. We have a whole slew of resources, our influencers, our past attendees, our team who has basically gone out there and scoured the market tested a lot of these things so that we can put products in front of our audience that are really tried and true legitimately tried and true that we can stand behind that we’ve used for our own families that are you know, the safest variety of price points, suit different lifestyles and needs and and really present things that are you know, functionable fashionable. And again like to suit for different types of lifestyles what we do and and, you know, in Pittsburgh is going to be different than South Florida to really cater to that local market. But we want people to feel like they’re coming in and we’ve helped to make their their choices easier. You’re not walking into a retailer. We’re like, oh my god, this is no different. I’m going to retailer, I got to pick between 20 strollers now where do I start? It’s not like we’re putting make it easier. Yeah, we want to make it easier for the still babies or Ross was still around and I was like, Oh, my first thing you do I know. I know you’re pregnant. Like I’m gonna go register. And I went in with a gun with like booth and

just shooting like everything in the store on my registry. No idea. Didn’t use half of it, you know, her and so I think to your point, like just why do I need this not just Oh, get all this stuff. You know, it’s like, oh, darn, I wish I had known that back in the day. You know, I think, to your point, like the localization of it, too, you know, why don’t we talk about the events like where are they going to be? You mentioned Pittsburgh, so I know

There’s a few on the schedule right now with some tentative dates and times and such. Let’s talk about what an event looks like. Yes, perfect. Okay, so our events are this year, we’re doing our events in five cities. So the first one is May 12, in Orlando, and then right after that is Pittsburgh on August 30. And then we’re in South Florida in September, Salt Lake City in October, and we’ll wrap up the year in Tampa, in November, if it looks like I’m biased to Florida, I am a little biased. A we started the events in Florida in Tampa. Now I live in South Florida near Fort Lauderdale. And Orlando has always just been a really great strong market in between the two. So we those are events cities where we’ve been going to for really eight plus years. And Pittsburgh also as a market where we’ve been going for the past six years, we’re really excited to go to Salt Lake City for the first time. The interesting piece to mention about this year’s event is that we’re calling this sort of the Home Edition. What does that mean is that these are all cities where our team lives. So that means we’re really ingrained in those communities. So we’ve taken Moabs to over 18 cities in the last 10 years. Each year, we mix it up. And we make the decision based on a variety of factors. But we’re always going to market where we believe there’s a need for our event, and where we believe there’s really a growing population of expectant and new parents. And we try to To be frank, we try to avoid going to cities where we feel like they have a ton of resources, be at retail, or potentially other events. And there’s no event like ours. But there may be daytime family friendly type of events where they might be covering off and some of the things that we’re covering offline, which is great. And we try not to sort of piggyback on theirs. We want to go to cities where really we feel like there’s a need and an opportunity for them and for us. So our events are all done in basically the same format, which is adults only at night six to 9pm. Our events are typically at non traditional event spaces, meaning not convention centers or hotel ballrooms, usually cool restaurants, really cool children’s museums. The case with Pittsburgh is at PNC Park where the Pittsburgh Pirates play in Philly right where near you are Courtney, we’ve done that event, for instance, at Citizens Bank. So we we really do try to mix it up, we want our attendees to treat this like a date night or a girls night out or night out for themselves. And if we can do that,

in a non traditional event space and make it really fun and exciting for them, we want to do that. So these events are really an opportunity for those three hours that you’re there to do whatever you want. If you want to sit in on the educational sessions, like Courtney said, she has been doing amazing session on sleep, he wants to sit in on a session and learn and ask questions. And you know, at the end, potentially, what a great giveaway great if you want to leave one session and then come outside and go speak to 10 brands, and try out carseat strollers and the late learn about the latest cribs, the latest sleeps safe sleep products, you can come do that. If you want to go just sit and have a nice massage, you want to go have something to eat or drink, you know, you want to just chat with people, you are your own guide, we will provide you with a shower guide before the event which will list the brands that are there the agenda and essentially like a lay lay of the land, so to speak for Moabs. But when you come in that door, around six o’clock, you can choose how you want to spend that. And we made this a three hour event because we felt it was a sweet spot, to be honest, excuse me to be out especially for those who are pregnant on their feet a lot. We felt like this was a good amount of time where our attendees could really make the most of the time and not feel overwhelmed. Obviously, there’s a lot of daytime family friendly events that are six hours or eight hours and you’re throwing the kid in the stroller and you’re taking them on, you know in a bounce house and face paint or whatever this is for adults only. So you are really going to be able to focus, you’re really going to be able to get educated, you’re going to be able to get whatever you want to get out of the event, which we hope is a whole lot of new resources, some great deals if you’re shopping, some really great connections, but mostly just a really fun opportunity to learn as much as possible, whether you are pregnant, or whether you are a new parent, and I want to make sure I say because you brought this up about you know parent, what do we really mean by that. So our that is really for new parents meaning anywhere from your your child’s a day old, up until like the preschool year, so maybe three, four years old. So there will be products that may be geared a little bit past that certainly like a car seat the last until they’re seven or eight. That’s a different story. But we’re really focused on those parents those first few years into sort of the newborn infant. toddler years are really the sweet spot. So we have a lot of people who will come back and it’s their second child, sometimes we have one mom who’s come to four events already probably will come to five events maybe in the next year or so.

Because so much changes from event to event. But the idea here is that it’s a night out for you to really get out there and get as much as you can out of the resources that are there. And and really just

connect with people. It’s all about making connections to make your life easier.

And I think you brought up a good point, like, it’s a lot of different things, right? I’m going to be speaking about sleep, because I think people have this predisposition that like, you have to wait till your kids terrible at it to get no good at it. And if you start from birth,

with just education about what’s happening, like it makes the sleep side of things so much easier, right? I mean, I’m not going to be the only person there. So like, why don’t you talk about some of the format of the shows? Right? You’ve obviously got the vendors that are there to help educate you on their unique products. But then you have education sessions to your point like, like the mixer, if you will, I’ll date myself a bit, right, like the mixer where you meet other parents talk a little bit about what can a parent expect? They show up at six? And we have some new things this year with the suite potentially, you know, so yeah, what do they do? Okay, so typically, we have three educational sessions. So this year, we’re gonna definitely do one on sleep, we’re going to do another health session, depending on what the market is, it might be, you know, ABCs of pregnancy in the first years. And it will have you know, pediatricians and OB GYN and nurses, and Orlando, they do a great interactive one about like swaddling and breastfeeding. It just depends on which market and all of our markets, we have a major, the major labor and delivery and pediatric resources, they’re on hand to answer your questions, and also help you make decisions about who you may want to be your OBGYN or your pediatrician or both. So there will always be a health focus session, there were this year, we’re super excited to be working with you, Courtney so that we can focus on the sleep topic, which is always very popular. And then there’ll be a third session, which is kind of like what we call like our fun warm up session where there’ll be an amazing local influencer, who worked very closely with my close friend who’s in South Florida, Rachel Sobel, who has wine and cheese, let’s look her up. If you haven’t before, at Wine and cheese, it’s I promise, you’re gonna get your daily dose of laughter every day, and every parent needs that.

So there is a good amount of sort of education there and serious stuff mixed in with a lot of laughing in that mix as well. And there are those sessions, we sort of spread them out. So you can go in between going to a session, then going and visiting with some of the brands grabbing some at a drink, maybe going get a spa treatment, whatever the case may be. But we put a lot of emphasis on making sure we have the right mix of information about products, information about services, information about resources. And like you were alluding to before, we really try hard to include a lot of local resources, whether it’s, you know, doulas, massage therapists, local retailers, local play spaces, those things that are really important on a daily basis for you to have those kinds of connections. And you mentioned, we’re really excited this year that we’re going to have an entire what we’re calling sleep suite, which will be all types of products related to helping your baby sleep. And let’s be real.

This is very, very important. Because if they’re not sleeping, you’re not sleeping, and everybody needs their sleep. So we’re going to be bringing some phenomenal brands that are going to probably blow your mind, I always find at these events that we have a high percentage of people who say to themselves, usually it’s a grandma saying, Oh my God, why didn’t they have this when my daughter was born, and things like that, I think we’ll probably find some of that coordinate with the suite when people see some of the products that will be there. And I’m just so excited. Because I think to your point, as we talked about at the beginning, like and I’m not embarrassed to talk about it, because I think there’s too much of like, my life is perfect. And I love following Rachel as well, because everybody’s real, you know,

I’m very good at what I do with sleep. parenthood, sometimes this is a reminder for their kids get out the door to get on the bus, you know. So I think balancing that reality of like all of us in a world that we’re a bit stressed, we’re a bit nervous, you know, you’re having a baby for the first time or another one. And, you know, I think we’re all in different parts of this journey. But we can learn from each other in a judgment free zone. You know, I’m like, huge on judgment free. Like, let me help you because I didn’t, I was afraid of the judgment, right when I had my son and I want to be the super corporate mom who was working, you know, all of her maternity leave with a team of 40 and milk shooting out of my nipples. And I’m going to take the baby and exercise and get my pre baby by, you know, in my mind, it was just such a delusion of what I was expected to be as that perfect mom. And you know what, I go to bed every night now and I asked myself, do I feel joy? That’s all I care about? You know, and I think if we can educate parents, so they are less stressed, more confident, less overwhelmed, better educated and better supported with relationships slowly right, where you can feel like you’ve got that little village and to your point, like maybe a meetup group, once a month even it’s something to look forward

or to to say, hey, let’s all meet it, you know this coffee, shop that with the kids and just get a scone and talk about, you know, X, Y, Z, like cool. That’s something to look forward to. And I just, I think it’s hard to make those connections today like social media job of, I think connecting people in like situations, but we all talk about how a lot of people also try to make it perfect.

So I think the realism of meeting at a coffee shop and being like, this sucks, and then having somebody go, oh, try this, you know, like, I almost had a nervous breakdown, because I couldn’t use one of these being wearing things. And I was in the middle of a barbecue at our house with like a three month old, and I’m like, I have a failure, my girlfriend called me like mid meltdown and came over and gave me the baby. And here’s how you put the wrap on and take a break, man, like you’re cool.

You’re building that you’re building that tribe of like minded, non judgmental, inclusive people. And that’s, you know, Moabs is I think, that place where people can go, and they’re going to find someone, if not many people, who is very much in the same position that they’re in at a similar stage, looking for the same kind of information. And just looking for a friend, just looking for a friend, somebody they could talk to comfortably without judgment. And like you said, it’s a building block, then the next phase of that relationship. So I’m, like I said, so many people have said after these events, and I connected with this person, or that person, and even some of the brands they’ve connected to, and said, Oh my gosh, you know, I’ve built such an amazing relationship with this company. And now I’m so loyal to all their products. I hadn’t even heard about them before. So there’s just so many opportunities, I think, for just connection. I feel like, you know, especially after COVID times, people just really want to be connected to people, and they want to feel supported. And that’s really at the core of what we’re trying to do with monads is build the connections, build those support systems, and make people’s lives easier. Wouldn’t that be great if we can just all help make each other’s lives a little bit easier? Love, love? Love that? Yeah. I mean, let’s talk about like, how do people get tickets? How do they find out about the dates and the locations and all that, like, where’s the best place to start? Okay, so super easy. So I would say the best place and we’re currently updating our website, but it should be up in the next few days, is to go to www dot the mother of all baby showers.com. But I would also say follow along with us on social media, that’s a great place to get acquainted with the events to learn more about our partners to see what we’re about. If you’re interested to learn more about me and my sometimes crazy life coordinator, we’re just talking about how every day we’re sharing different things. And some days, you’re gonna see us be kind of silly. And some days you’re gonna see us on the struggle bus. And it’s all real life, because we are just real parents living this day by day alongside each of you. But our social media is at the underscore Moabs for Instagram at the mother of all baby showers on Facebook. We do ticket giveaways, we put promo discounts, we promote our event partners, we promote our amazing speakers you guys will see in the next few weeks. And you’ll also see that there’s an event in there on Facebook, for the mother of all baby showers, so that you guys can you know, click that you’re going see different event updates, you’ll see the ticket website on there. So there’s a lot of good info right there that you can get just by going on our social media. Because we all know that we’re all addicted to social media, and I’m there all the time anyway. So give us give us a like, follow up for some of our content. And you’re probably win some great stuff on there. So why not? Yeah, no, I love that. I’ll make sure all of this is in the show notes as well. So people can easily find it. And I am just most excited to be speaking at the events, and I will be at all of them. So if you want to come meet me and learn about sleep, we would definitely encourage you to do so. And I look forward to hear and so much more about things that we can share across social as we get closer to these events. So it should be great for jumping on the show today, Amy and like I said, I’ll make sure everything’s linked up and look forward to it. Because I think parents are really going to love this. This event, too. I hope and if you ever have any questions, that’s another thing. I always tell people, whether you’re in our cities or not, if you have questions, if you need guidance, if you’re looking for certain resources, always feel free to message us, we will always write you back right away. We’re always happy to support expected new parents and help make their life easier digitally as well. And we have lots of great resources we can share with you guys, especially as it relates to health, especially as it relates to sleep, all the sort of major topics within the pregnancy and parenting space. We’re wanting to be as supportive as we can to all of you. We’ve been there done that and we’re here to help. Awesome, love it. Thank you so much, Amy, thank you. I appreciate you being on the show. And I look forward to afford all these awesome events this year. Can’t wait. All right. One more thing before you go. Did you know that we are

For a risk free guarantee on all of our private sleep coaching services. In addition, we have the largest library of free sleep training content available for children of all ages. Jump on over to tiny transitions.com and learn more about how we are supporting and changing the quality of sleep that your family gets one family at a time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai