Episode 166: Sleep of Mind Founder Alison Macklin

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

Welcome to the kids sleep show, podcast where we dive into the magical world of sleep and all things parenting. Join us as we embark on a journey filled with expert advice, practical tips and heartwarming stories that will transform your little ones into sleep superheroes and empower you to navigate the beautiful chaos of parenting. I’m your host, Courtney Zentz, and I’m on a mission to change how the world views sleep and provide accessible sleep coaching resources for all families to build healthy sleep habits in their home for children and adults of all ages. As an award winning speaker, author and pediatric sleep expert, myself and my team of consultants work intimately with families around the world to teach healthy sleep habits to children and adults. I believe wholeheartedly that sleep is the foundation for which a happy home is built. So let’s sleep together. Hey, everyone. Courtney Zentz, here, I am excited to be joined this week by the favorite product I’ve had all summer here, and it is the founder and CEO of sleep of mind. Ms, Allison Macklin, thank you for joining the show. I know you’re coming to us from Canada today, but I’ll allow you to introduce yourself and talk about your amazing new product. Thank you so much. Yeah, sleep of mind, oh my gosh. So just to let you know, we are a brand new company all about helping parents decrease their anxiety so that they can get more sleep, so the whole family can get more sleep, and that’s been a huge passion of mine for the last, oh, let’s say, like, seven years or so. I come from a background of helping lots and lots of families resolve all of their sleep issues, mainly with infants and toddlers. And it really became apparent, not only just, you know, with my own daughter, but having so many families coming to me all the time saying, like, you know, I know about SIDS, I know about sudden infant death syndrome, and all of the things that I need to do to, you know, mitigate those risks. But I’m still terrified just looking at the baby monitor that I can’t tell if my baby is breathing or not,

yeah and yeah absolutely.

Is this fear, it really doesn’t go away. Like, I know your children are older now, but you know, my daughter’s seven, and when she’s sick, I still am, like, staring at the monitor, like, are you? You haven’t moved in, like, three hours. I will tell you my kids are now eight and 10, and I go in there sometimes, if they, like, sleep in, which is very unlike them. I mean, between six and seven, they’re both up for the day. And if it’s like eight o’clock, I’m like, is sleeping okay, yeah, is there like, a cord somewhere? Did you try to climb the dress? You know what? I mean, like, your mind goes to these, like crazy places, just out of just sheer, you know, Mama syndrome, you know, just the protector, the making sure they’re sorted and good. That’s right, like when I heard about this product, and then I met you at the Prego Expo in San Jose. I was like, I have to meet her. I need to see this product. And it is just so cool what you are doing. So talk about what sleep of mind is. You mentioned the monitor, and I’ll let you share your screen too. For those of you that are watching this on video, and if you’re not, you’ll be able to find it out on tinytransitions.com where the podcast episodes live. But go out and take a look at the video, because I’m going to have Allison talk a little bit about what the product is, and then actually show us what it does. Because the second I saw this, I was like, every single human has to put this on their baby registry list right now, because it is a game changing product, absolutely. So, you know, I said to myself, is there something that we can do about, you know, having just more information about how well your baby is doing, how well they’re breathing when they’re sleeping away from you. And now there are lots of these, you know, breathing and cardio respiratory monitors that are on the market. They’re really expensive, which I number one, I really don’t think that people need to shell out that much money just to feel like their baby’s okay. So that was automatically something for me that you know, I couldn’t tell my clients. Okay, we’ll just go buy this $400 thing. Also, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend them. They, you know, take away your ability to be an active parent. We’re not just staring at our phones and, you know, and saying, Okay, well, the numbers say that she’s breathing and everything’s fine. We really want to be, you know, proactive. We want to be reactive. We want to, you know, remember, what has been happening today, and you know, is, is there any, you know, cause for us to want to continue to monitor and maybe go in and do some checks? So we want to be an active parent. And this, this is what this product helps us to do. So it is, I’m going to show you it in a second, but basically it is a sleep sack or a swaddle. Okay, we’ve got both of them that has a patent pending design affixed to it that works in conjunction with any night vision camera. So your baby monitor, your security camera, as long as it’s positioned in the middle of the sleep space, it will be able to actually. Reflect its infrared light off of the design that’s printed onto the garment, reflect it back to you. And as your infant’s body kind of moves with each breath, you’re actually going to be able to see that light reflecting back at you in a way that you’ll be able to tell whether your child is breathing or not. So if you just give me two seconds, I am going to share my screen, you’re going to be able to see a baby sort of sleeping on the left hand side, and then a baby sleeping on the right hand side, and one is wearing our sleep of mind, sleep sack. This is what’s going to be a sleep sack. I’m just going to have it loop here for you. One is going to be a sleep sack from sleep of mine. The other one is going to just be your traditional sleep sack that you would find anywhere on the market. And then you will be able to see how, how easy it is to see whether that child is breathing or not, right. So you should be able to see my scene screen there now, so baby on the left, traditional sleep sack, baby on the right, wearing our sleep of mine sleep sack. Now, it’s not, you know, lights flashing and all these kinds of that. No, it is a little bit more subtle that, because it is working with an infant’s breathing. Okay, so you do kind of see, you know that that light reflecting right every time that that torso sort of rises, that light will change the way that it’s reflecting back at the camera, and then when the torso falls, then again, you’ll see that movement, you know, taking place, which I think is just so amazing as a parent, because once you know, parents say to me, like, well, when Should I put the child in their own room? Well, honestly, that depends. It’s such a loaded question, because sometimes it your environment might not like you might not be able to have the space to have a bath and that even or a crib in the room with you, like, depends on where you live and how much space you have. Like, our first house, we did not even have room for like, a nightstand, let alone a bassinet. So our children were in their own rooms the night we got home from the hospital, they were on a hard, flat surface in their own crib. Straight away the night we got home. But I’ll tell you, every 20 minutes I like, grabbed the monitor and looked like, Are you breathing? Are you still on your back? Are you okay? It, you know, and the anxiety to your point, like I was confident in the monitor we had on, which was, you know, it could hear him fart 300 miles away. But like, you still want to make sure that, you know, like when you’re looking like, are they breathing? And to your point, like we would sneak in there and just watch the, you know, watch the chest try to rise and fall, just to make sure, especially when the first night they sleep, like, couple hours and you’re like, is everything good? I thought, you know, want to make sure you’re okay. And you know, as a parent, like, you’re just trying to raise a tiny human so gosh, to take away the anxiety of like, are they breathing, which obviously is the number one concern, especially those first months of life. Like, what a game changer, absolutely. And this design here, so you can’t really see it here, but the design goes all the way around to the back. So no matter what position your child is in, you’re always going to be able to see that torso region, you know any kind of body movement. And you’re also going to be able to get to kind of know your baby’s rhythm. So you can kind of see this baby’s rhythm is kind of got a nice, kind of very slow, deep, you know, breath in and out. You’re going to get to know your baby’s baseline. And so when they’re sick, if they are breathing in an elevated way, that’s actually not a good thing. You actually do really want to go in and check at that point, you know, do they have a fever? Do they sound maybe the baby monitor can’t pick up, you know, any kind of congestion and things like that. You really do want to go in and check in certain circumstances. And this Garmin is going to give you more information as to whether you maybe do want to check or maybe don’t want to. We’re never going to say that you shouldn’t check or you shouldn’t go in. It’s not about that. It’s really just, you know, similar to how video monitors now provide us with so much more information about what’s happening with your baby. Are they sleeping? Are they in an unsafe position? So are they trying to cry climb out of the crib? What are they doing in there? The same thing with this garment is that it’s it’s just embedded in the textile itself. There’s no batteries, no wires, no Bluetooth, no nothing. And so it’s just working with your existing night vision camera to give you that little bit more information about what’s happening in there, right? Awesome. I love it. I love it, and I love it too, if you like, decide to go out for the first time as parents, and you’re like, sitting at dinner, and you’re like, I’m

going to switch up everything. Okay?

Is everything all right, you know. And you know, you like, check the monitor, because the babysitter’s there, grandma’s there, whatever, you know. Just again, I think it’s that peace of mind with sleep of mind, you know. So talk to me about the the fabric itself, right? So I know a lot of people ask the questions around tog rating, right? Which, if you’re not familiar, or you’re just expecting and you’re catching this podcast, right? A tog rating is basically like the level of the fabric in which you dress a baby to make it like easy terms, right? Like, depending on the season, the temperature outside, the temperature inside, the type of fabric, whether it has a closed bottom or feet opened, it gets different ratings, like this thermal rating, that’s essentially an industry standard. So a lot of times, parents will ask, like, what’s the TOG rating for? You know, the product to understand, like, are they going to overheat, right? And so, you know, swaddles and sleep sacks, I always think are lovely because, you know, having one layer of added protection or comfort is totally appropriate for a child. We love cooler temperatures, 68 to 70 degrees, and wearing a swaddle or sleep sack with that is amazing. But talk a little bit about, like, the product manufacturing, and you’ve obviously got this fabric that reflects, like, what does it feel like? Right? Because as a parent, you’d be like, Well, okay, like, Can baby touch it? Is it going to cook their little hands? Are so sensitive. But, like, dispel those rumors because, like, I’m just so in love with what you’re doing here. I’m glad you asked about it, because, you know, we didn’t stop at just, you know, that reflective piece to give you peace of mind, the entire garment gives you peace of mind in every way, shape and form. So you know, Tog rating is being a sleep expert and knowing that, you know, overheating, it really is a risk factor for CIS especially with newborns like you see here. We’ve developed it so that it’s a 0.5 tog, which means that you can layer up or down underneath, right? So you’re never going to have to search around for, oh, I need a lighter. You know, version of this, because it’s summer, it’s hot, you know, our air conditioning is not broke, not working, or maybe we’re at the cottage, or something like that. So it allows you to have, you know, just diaper on underneath, if it’s really warm, if you can’t get, you know, the temperature to be ideal. Or it also allows you to, you know, dress baby in more layers underneath, if it is, you know, if you are in a cooler environment. So that’s the awesome thing, and that helps to save money. We’re all about how peace of mind should not be expensive. It should not just be for the people who can afford it. And so when you can save money, and you can just layer up underneath, and you don’t need the extra sizes, or the fleece one, or the muslin one, or all of that kind of stuff. Okay, the fabrics themselves, so all the textiles are aquatex certified. So that means that there are no harmful chemicals. We’ve achieved a higher standard than the FDA, than all the Canadian federal guidelines. So both Canada and the US, we have achieved much lower levels of all of the toxins, etc, that are allowed in infant sleepwear. That was really important to me, because your baby is going to be sleeping in this, hopefully, especially if, if they use Courtney Zentz services, they’re going to be sleeping in this for a really long time, for many hours a day. It could be 1216, who knows how many hours and whatever is touching their skin. We want it to be safe. We don’t want it to cause eczema. We don’t want it to leach any harmful chemicals or off gas, anything, right? So, and I think that’s so important in what you talk about, and I’m sorry to interrupt, but like you had me at like, you know, hello with this, because I’m I met you with naturepedic While I was at Prego Expo, right? So I joined them to do their safe sleep as their safe sleep expert. But you know, naturepedics foundation with mattresses, which was my first exposure in the pediatric space to toxic, harmful chemicals, is what’s in your mattress. And yet, people sleep on them every single night, and they are omitting toxic, lots of Gook, right? Without getting too technical. And like naturepedic, has the first EWG verified non toxic mattress, right? And then you also have organic on the nature Pedic side. And then their sister brand lullaby Earth is non toxic, right? And people, I, you know, I don’t think, as an expecting parent, that you understand what that even means and why you would care if your swaddle has that like you’re sleeping on a mattress every night for the next 85 years of your life. You don’t want it to be like leeching harmful chemicals, the same with the clothing that they’re going to wear, and ideally, swaddles and sleep sacks like, you know, parents are worried about making organic homemade foods, as they first try to wean their baby, and then they’re throwing them in, like, you know, things they bought that are leaching chemicals, you know. And I know we’re all just trying to do our best, but I think knowledge is power, and when you know better, you do better. And, you know, I think for something like this, like, how amazing that it is a cost appropriate alternative, right? That is safe and effective too, you know? So it’s like you’re checking all these boxes, which I totally love Absolutely. Got certified organic cotton. So it’s not just, you know, organic cotton written on the label. We’ve gone to the depths to make sure that it’s coming from the right type of cotton farms. You. Going through the right type of process in order to be made into these garments. So everything, all of the individual components are certified. So not just the fabrics, but also the threads, the zippers, the Velcro, even the design itself that’s imprinted, all of that is acotex certified. And then the cotton specifically is got certified as well. So when you feel this, it is like the most luxurious feeling, you know, textile that I could ever you know, it’s beautiful. I wish that I could make a shirt out of it one day. And also, it’s really the safest. And so, as you know, and maybe the expecting parents, you can kind of Google some videos. Babies love eating whatever they’re wearing. Okay, they will put everything in their mouth, and it will stay there the entire time that you know they’re in their little crib. And so you want to make sure that, if, especially with this swaddle, they’re going to be self soothing on their hands, so sucking their fingers and thumbs through the garment itself. So you definitely want to make sure that that has nothing harmful in it. These are all white, or like, it’s like an off white color, specifically, because that means that we didn’t have to dye it. It goes through a boiling process, no dyes. And then also, from a cost perspective, again, you can, you know, keep it for your next child. It’s going to be gender neutral. You can give it to your friend and all that kind of stuff. So we are, you know, trying to save lots of things, save money, they say, save your health, all those things all at the same time, hopefully as well, giving you that peace of mind, helping you understand that everything is good. Baby is safe, skin is safe, etc, so I can sleep better. The last thing that people really overlook is the zipper. So if you guys, anyone watching who has a sleep sack or swaddle right now, go and look at the zipper. Most likely it’s going to have a little tiny hole in the zipper. Pull. Okay, so when you pull that zipper up and down, if that zipper has a little hole in it, when your baby’s old enough to kind of kick their feet up and eat, you know, the bottom of that zipper and stick that in their mouth, especially when they’re teething, that can actually wrap around their little baby tooth, and some of them do get stuck. And so there have been a lot of dental injuries where zipper gets stuck around the tooth, and then they try and pull that out. And we don’t want to think about what happens there, but our zipper is a no hole zipper pull, and it’s specifically source, sourced from y, k, k, so they are the leading zipper brand in the world actually closure brand, not they don’t just make zippers. They are acotech certified as well, so no harmful like lead, all of those things that they used to make things with. None of that is in their products anymore. And the reason why YKK is just because they are the leader. They have been around the longest, and they are the most trustworthy. So you don’t want this thing to break off right in their mouth. You don’t want the zipper to end up anywhere other than just helping to close your sleep sack or your swaddle. So we really have, you know, built this from the ground up, looking at every single component that has gone into it. It’s really not just about, you know, our kind of uniqueness with the design. It’s about how, how can we improve what’s already out there, and making sure that every single component is is the same or better than everyone else. And you know, in the US, you’re only going to pay $49 so even though we’re in the premium space, we’re not going to charge you the 8090, 110 that other companies, you know, kind of mark their prices up to, because, as I said, you know, parenting, it’s, it’s full of lots of stuff, so you gotta get all the things to make your life easier, and that’s expensive. So we’ve done our best to try and, you know, give parents the best price well, not sacrificing on anything else, which I love, and I think to your point, like you’re going to have this for several years, you’re going to go through the transition of like swaddle anywhere upwards from like zero to about 12 weeks, right, in which case anywhere between eight and 12 weeks. I always recommend that, as baby shows readiness to roll, sometimes it’s earlier, sometimes it’s later, you get their arms out so that they have the ability to, to help prop themselves off, right? As their neck strength grows, they’re

going to move into a sleep sack, right? And that wearable blanket, which I think is the main thing, because then they’re in that for years, right? Like my kids. I mean, I had to pull them out of it, you know, at the point of, I think four, when they were like, can we take this thing off? Finally, you know, but they were comfortable in it. It was, like, their thing, and it’s, it’s something that you get the longevity out of, you know, I mean, I feel like parents spend so much money on things they don’t, frankly, need, and then they’re not getting the things they do Allison, which is why I’m, like, just so in love with this product, the price point, the cleanliness of it, you know, from a general speaking say, but like, it just speaks my love language. And so how can people. Find you. I know right now you’re relatively new companies, so they can find you out on sleep of mind, and they can follow you on Instagram, and we’ll put all of the like, links to the website and links to the instant, all that good stuff out in the notes. But like, how can people find you? Yeah, sleepofmind.com definitely the best place, and we’ve got all the information that you would ever want on there. So if you’re wondering about what kind of baby monitor that you might need, or how to position the baby monitor if it can work with an indoor security camera. All of that information is on the website. You can go to our how it works page, and you’ll see everything that you need to know in terms of how to put the swaddle on, how to put the sleep sack on, what cameras are our top picks and all of our top pick cameras, not only do they work really well with this, but they’re also all under $100 actually, most are under $50 so you can find out a lot of information on sleepofmind.com on Instagram, we are sleepofmind.co we will soon be on Tiktok as well. If we’re already on Facebook, all other social platforms are sleep of mind. So you can find us anywhere sleep of mind. And we will definitely be probably at a Prego Expo near you at some point soon. We’re going to be at the Toronto baby show September 28 and 29 and then we’re going to be at the LA Prego Expo November 9. I love it.

Well, I’m excited. I

appreciate you coming on today, and

thank you so much for sharing with our listeners and viewers all about sleep of mind. And I’m excited for them to see it. I’m excited for them to order it and to touch it and to feel it, and ultimately, to have sleep and peace of mind in doing so. So thanks for coming on today, and

I really appreciate you. Thanks

so much for having me. One more thing before you go, did you know that we

offer the industry’s first affordable and effective, self paced sleep coaching program that includes time with a pediatric sleep expert here on the tiny transitions team. It’s the industry’s first and only membership program like this that you can cancel anytime. And the best part, it’s cheaper than a cup of coffee every single day. So say goodbye to the ebooks and courses that are not helping your child sleep better and join sleep steps today, the most comprehensive sleep education you need to get everyone sleeping through the night. Learn more by visiting tiny transitions.com. Forward, slash, sleep steps. You.