Press Articles
Plight of Young Moms Spurred Pair into Action
by Bill O'Driscoll
March 9, 2008, Reno Gazette-Journal
The anxiety that comes with putting your first child to bed at night got Carol Betz and Nicola Pieters thinking about how to deal with the fears of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and give moms quality sleep time, too.
Betz recalls the morning four years ago when she approached her daughter's crib and found her entirely covered by the blanket.
"I'll never forget the feeling I had not knowing if she were dead or alive," she said.
Such moments bonded the two Washoe Valley women in a common goal to do something. So, they got down to business and launched Mommy's Little Helpers LLC and a product line led by the Guardian Sleeper, a crib mattress-fitted blanket designed as a harness to hold infants snuggly, yet comfortably, on their backs as they sleep.
Betz and Pieters received a patent for the sleeper a year ago. With production at a Wisconsin site, they began selling the sleepers last spring. By year's end, sales had doubled and their line expanded with a bassinet and Pack 'n' Play co-sleeper.
They have expanded into five states and Canada and are working on a licensing agreement to sell in their native United Kingdom and mainland Europe.
Add in swelling interest among day care providers and support groups, and Betz and Pieters' efforts have earned them the Reno Gazette-Journal's Entrepreneur of the Year award for small businesses.
Betz, whose business acumen is rooted to nine years as an executive in the telecommunications industry, said passion for the plight of other young moms has spurred her along.
Pieters, who studied hairdressing before moving to America with her U.S. Air Force husband, has felt the fire of entrepreneurship ever since she and Betz met in 1999 at the Good-To-Go deli in Washoe Valley. And it helped that both were native Englanders starting families far from home.
"We feel determined to keep moving forward," Pieters said. "We have too gem of a product here to stop what we're doing. We're two moms of small children. You want to protect them with everything possible. We started to brainstorm, and the Guardian Sleeper came into fruition. I have piece of mind for the first time."
