What Employers Miss About New Parents Returning to Work

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Balancing Act. I’m your host, Sarah Sheridan, director of sales and recruiting at Hirewell, and super excited about our guest today. We officially have our second dad, and he works in the baby product space. Lewis, welcome. Thank you. Good to be here, and, a lot of pressure representing all the dads.

I’m happy I wasn’t the first though, so. Not the first. You know, it’s good. Every once in a while, good to hear from us too. And I will say Lewis had an amazing like SNOO background that we couldn’t transfer, but he was definitely representing, so love that. Awesome. Well, let’s kick it off. So Lewis, currently you’re head of strategic partnerships at, Happiest Baby, and would love for you to share how you wound up at Happiest Baby and just within the baby product space.

For sure, yeah. So, and for those that don’t know, Happiest Baby is the corporation that makes the SNOO. That’s definitely [00:01:00] what we’re most known for, so lots of great products and educational materials and all sorts of other things, but definitely SNOO is the thing that most people know of and associate when they think of Happiest Baby.

But yeah, so I’ve been here now, as you said, title’s Head of Strategic Partnerships, but what that really, you know, means, a couple different directions, but the main focus certainly is the employee benefit program, so bringing SNOO as a benefit to parents across the country. So when you have a baby, you actually get a free SNOO paid for by your corporation, and I’m sure we’ll talk about all that stuff later.

But you know, my quick spiel, is that, yeah, I have two kids. And I always say, you know, I’m one of those rare people, I feel like you hear, you have a baby and, like, your finances, like, go in a different direction ’cause you’re like, “Oh my God, now, like, all my disposable income just went to this child.”

My daughter got me a better job, so I always have to thank her. ‘Cause my background, I won’t give you the whole story, but my background’s actually in finance, and I worked in investment consulting straight out of college for a number of years. And honestly really liked it, but it just was time to, to try something else.

And so anyway, skip a few steps, but ended up joining, several startups along the way and realized, you know, I really enjoyed that idea of how do you take good ideas, how do you take good products and turn them into good businesses and turn them into, you know, just more, more revenue, more scale, great partnerships, work with great people and, you know, solve problems.

So it’s been, kind of fun being in that side of the world for a long time. And skip a few more steps, and I was actually working for a travel technology company, and COVID hit, and my wife was pregnant. And travel was not the best industry in COVID, as you could imagine. but one of the things I really kinda got obsessed with as, you know, we were pregnant and about to be parents for the first time was you know, what [00:03:00] actually works, what actually, like, matters, you know?

‘Cause I’m-

Yeah.

I mean, we’ve been through this, and most parents can attest. But oh my God, when you first tell people you’re expecting The unsolicited advice just comes out of the woodwork. Just every- “Oh, Mike, you gotta do this. Have you heard of this?” And I just really, it was like a kind of a blessing in disguise in some ways ’cause I had so much time on my hands.

You know, I didn’t have a lot to do at work. Yeah. I wasn’t traveling for work. And I just really wanted to get my hands dirty and understand, okay, what will make a difference? What will improve my life? And one big connective tissue that I kept finding was, and I don’t know if you experienced this as well, but in that unsolicited advice, what I also found is I would gravitate towards people who I would ask for advice from anyway.

You know, the people that you really respect and admire, regardless of domain, are typically the people who I respect and admire in any domain. And so I would talk to people who, like, kinda made it look easy, or the people you’re like, “Okay, you know, I would trust you about [00:04:00] career. I would trust you for a restaurant recommendation.”

Like, “What baby products do you care about?” And it was overwhelming. People like, “You gotta get the Snoo. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. They’re gonna say, ‘Oh, maybe it’s too expensive,’ or they’ll give you, don’t listen to anybody. It’s safer. You’re gonna have a safer baby. You’re gonna have a happier baby, and you are gonna sleep more, and your baby’s gonna sleep more.”

And as a first-time parent, you know, you have all sorts of anxiety about a lot of things, but sleep is probably number one for most people because you’ve never thought about not having sleep. Your entire life, your head hits the pillow, and you’re just, that’s great. You’re good. And then you have a baby, and that’s not how it works anymore.

So I just kept having that advice given to me, and then eventually I got a Snoo, and it worked so well. And in COVID, we also, you know, we didn’t have grandparents and friends around. Like, my daughter was born September 2020. I’m also in Vancouver, Canada, where lockdowns were probably a little stricter than most American places.

Yeah. So it really was. It was me, my wife, our daughter, [00:05:00] and our Snoo. And I mean, you know, “Good night, good night, good night. Good night, Snoo. Give it a kiss good night.” Like, we went, we drove to Whistler a few times. We put Snoo in the car. Like, it really felt like an extension of the family. So this is a very long-winded preamble of saying, you know, I like the product so much that I started to look into the business, the company, and was able to honestly parlay a lot of,

I was like, “I feel like I’m selling these anyway. I’m talking to all my friends. That’s all I talk about.” I was like, “I’m already making this company money. I should get a paycheck for it.” And yeah, one thing led to another. An opening came up and the right, you know, circumstances, the stars aligned, and here I am now, five years later, still slanging SNOOs all over the place.

I love that. And I myself, I’m a big SNOO fan. Interesting, though, ’cause I always thought of it from, like, direct to consumer. You know, I had three little ones. We all used the SNOO, my sisters did, which I’m super excited to learn more about, you mentioned, like, the employee benefits program. And, you know, I think first, if we can step, take a step back, for those of [00:06:00] our listeners who aren’t familiar with the SNOO, although I think probably 90% are, just like a quick recap, kinda what it does.

Yeah. We don’t have to get technical. And then would love to hear more about, like, how you built out this, like, employer benefit side of the business beyond just direct to consumer, like myself or other individual moms. Oh, for sure, and I love that you said we definitely have good brand awareness. Something I always find funny is how often people come up to me and be like, “You guys are, like, stalking me.

You’re listening on my phone calls. Like, I feel like I’m constantly getting ads for the SNOO on Instagram or Pinterest or whatever.” I was like, “We’re not stalking you. As, like, a pregnant woman, 99% of their searches on social media have to do with them currently being pregnant. Like, you’re not hard to find.”

It’s kind of obvious. Yeah, your digital footprint is very obvious. But no, it’s, it is a really amazing product, and I do think of it as one of those zero to one type of inventions. And I cannot do it justice the same way that, you know, our founder, Dr. Harvey Karp, [00:07:00] can. But something that really stuck with me early on and I still talk about constantly is, you know, when you have a baby, you secure them all the time, right?

Like, you wouldn’t drive, my mother-in-law lives three minutes away, which is like probably too close, but I wouldn’t drive three minutes and not strap my kids in, right? Like, in fact, I’d be arrested. You know, you wouldn’t put your kid in your stroller, especially your newborn baby. You put them in a stroller, there’s 50 clips.

You put them in their highchair, there’s clips. A lot of these infant toys, you know, and like clips and all like they’re always secure. And yet statistically speaking, the single most dangerous place for a baby, is their own crib, right? The number one place that babies die, otherwise perfectly healthy babies die is in their own crib.

And you kinda think about it. You go, you supervise the baby. You secure the baby. You’re always with the baby, and then far too often, you know, what most people do, and I’m not, you know, judging, it’s just this is what most people do, is they put their baby, in a crib, and they’re unsupervised, and they’re unrestrained.

And you just kinda leave, right? And hope for the best for 10 hours, 12 [00:08:00] hours, however many hours. And that was really what connected with me was this understanding of, yeah, that is true. You know? Like they’re always secure except for the place they spend by far the most amount of time and the only place they’re not supervised usually.

So that was, you know, the genesis of everything. I think SNOO has become famous for sleep, but the genesis is actually safety. So in SNOO you have to use, everything you need comes with it, but you use our proprietary sleep sack. You clip the wings in And because of that, baby, you know, they can kick, they can move, they can wiggle, but they cannot roll over, and the number one cause of SIDS, of sudden infant death syndrome, is dangerous rolling.

So what SNOO is able to do with these clips is keep baby safely on their back so baby will be in the same position, that you left them in, and that’s a huge relief, right? The mental stress, the anxiety. You know, I know a lot of, “Oh, sleep when baby sleeps,” and you’re like, yeah, right, you know. You spend so much time over the crib and you’re like, what was that?

What was that sound? Is she moving? Is she breathing? And pretty quickly SNOO, you know, we talk about a lot is, like, the extra pair of hands in the house, and it really does feel like that. It’s like, [00:09:00] in a weird way almost like handing your baby off to a night nurse, but the night nurse, you know, never takes bathroom breaks and, like, never quits because they’re sick.

You know, they’re a very dependable night nurse. Yeah, so, and then, you know, the other kind of core concepts are the safety, certainly incredibly important, and then as I said, the sleep is probably better known. So what SNOO does, and I’ll keep this part very brief, but definitely encourage people to, you know, dive deeper.

So once again, coming back to Dr. Karp who is our inventor and our CEO and the man, what he does is, you know, teaches parents this, he wrote a book called Happiest Baby on the Block. It’s the best-selling baby book of the 21st century, and his core concept was this idea of the fourth trimester, and it’s really what you’re doing is replicating the womb-like environment.

So baby’s in utero. It’s really snug in there, not a lot of room, naturally swaddled. It’s really loud. It’s like 70 decibels, which is basically a vacuum cleaner, you know, when you hear that sound in the ultrasound, that’s what your baby’s hearing all day every day for over nine months. And they’ve also never experienced stillness, right?

When they’re really small, they’re floating, and as they grow, they’re still, [00:10:00] you know, mom is breathing, she’s moving, her blood’s flowing, the lungs are pumping. You know, all this stuff is happening. And, and what most parents do when the baby’s born is they take this incredibly sensory rich environment, and they remove all of it.

You know, it’s completely still, it’s completely silent. They’re not swaddled. They’re on their back, a position they’ve never been. And we go, “What? What’s going on? Why aren’t they sleeping?” You’re like, well, yeah, obviously. Like, we’ve taken this incredibly rich, wonderful, you know, this, just this, like, loving experience that they’ve had, and then it’s the exact opposite all of a sudden.

And, like, you know, imagine, like, just being born, right? Like, that alone is enough, and then now I’m not swaddled, I’m not held. So anyway, there’s, you know, as I said, a lot more to it, but what SNOO does is really replicates that because the baby is swaddled, the bed is motorized, so the baby is in motion.

Really, really gentle, you know. You definitely look up the videos, they’re adorable. And then really gentle noise. So there’s a white noise machine built into the product and then the beauty of Snoo is that it’s responsive. So as baby cries and fusses, Snoo will pick up on that, and a really advanced algorithm, like [00:11:00] understanding exactly what a baby does need, and it will rock and hold and shush and help put your baby back to sleep, help prolong those sleep cycles.

And really, you know, when you watch like the sitcoms and mom is, you know, they’re rocking baby, the baby just fell asleep, and then you put it down and you, you know, walk out of the room, army crawl out of the room like you defused a bomb. You don’t have to do that. Snoo will do that for you, and you can just keep sleeping.

And it really does work. You know, on average, babies will sleep about an extra hour or two a night in Snoo. And then, you know, once again, coming back to the safety, it’s the only FDA-authorized device, in the bassinet category. That’s, no one’s ever received that, so, some pretty good differentiators.

It’s amazing. And yeah, I’m so familiar with it. I, like, when you were talking about it- Yeah, what did I miss? I could hear the noise in my head. And then I do think an important call-out is like, it will, the machine will stop, right? Like when- Yeah … the baby’s been crying for a certain amount of time, it’s like, “All right, Mom,” like, you know, machine’s done its thing.

You come and get it. Yeah. So it’s like a very, I used it with all my babies, so did my sisters. Like, it really is like an [00:12:00] invention, as you said. Yeah. And that’s a really good call. So there’s a couple things I probably should have mentioned. One is it does not work if you don’t clip the clips in properly.

No. You can’t even turn it on unless, you know, it’s properly, you know, your baby is safe. And if somehow those clips become disengaged, the Snoo shuts off and you get an alert on your phone. And then the other is exactly what you said. This is not, it’s not gonna rock and shush and

your baby’s going, you know, crazy- You gotta go be a parent, right? Yeah. And what we see is typically it works like, you know, I’d say about 50/50, as your baby is crying, and it works a lot more at night than in the daytime, which is great because in the daytime, I always say at 3:00 in the afternoon, swaddle, rocking, shushing, holding your baby is, like, one of life’s greatest experiences.

At 3:00 in the morning, it’s the worst thing you’ll ever do, so. But yes, that’s correct. So it only takes, the whole process only takes about a minute, and if it doesn’t work, it’s not gonna work, and the SNOO shuts off, and then you go, you know, now it’s a it’s almost like process of elimination.

It’s is it a diaper change? Right. It’s hungry, it’s something else. [00:13:00] And the other nice thing, I mentioned that hour or two stat. It’s, as you can imagine, it gets longer and longer the longer you use it, going up to that six-month recommended usage period. So at, at two weeks or three weeks, you’re not gonna get an extra two hours of sleep because you need to wake your baby up and feed him.

But maybe it’s 20 minutes, right? Maybe it’s 30 minutes. And then by that two, three, four-month mark, the average baby in SNOO will be more like seven or eight consecutive hours of sleep versus what most parents expect, which is usually like four or five, range at that point. So really nice to have that unbroken restorative sleep.

I was sold, so. And that’s kind of the next thing that like I love having you here, ’cause again, I just think of you guys as like that is such a great sell to moms. Like, you know, I think you’ve got 90% purchasing. How have you sold the idea of like sleep deprivation to benefits leaders? Like, how have you been able to tie that back into this is a workplace issue?

It’s not just like in your [00:14:00] home, it’s, you know, it’s a season of life. You’re in the thick of it. Like, so curious to hear like what your strategy is, and then once benefit leaders implement you guys, what have been some of the experiences of the employees? Yeah, so really, really good questions. As you can imagine, ’cause the core is that the company pays for the whole thing.

So the employees, I never had a concern. When this program launched and you said, “Hey, you’re gonna get a free Snoo,” I was always very confident employees were going to love this program. Right. You know, what my job is convincing the employers why this is a good idea, and luckily that’s also been really easy.

Something we’re really proud of is we have an 100% retention rate of clients. Our net promoter score was an 88 in our surveying last year from the benefit managers. So the people who are actually offering this and deploying this and paying for it are the ones who keep coming back to us saying, “This is the best benefit we offer.”

And I won’t go into the whole pitch. You don’t need to know like the pricing and the implementation. But I, what I will share, is that it’s an incredibly ROI positive investment. And when you sell to [00:15:00] corporations, when you’re talking to these leaders, they love the warm and fuzzy, right?

The warm and fuzzy is important, but that’s not why most of them are doing this. Right. And the warm and fuzzy meaning, you know, this is, it’s the right thing to do, right? It’s I wanna take care of my people. I want them to know this is a great place to work. I want them to know this is a great place to raise a family.

You know, I wanna win awards. I wanna be the best place to work. I wanna write a news story about this. All those things are great, but what we also see a lot of is, I’ll just give you a couple, ’cause obviously we have a bunch of answers. But, you know, a couple of the most important ones.

One is there’s a McKinsey study that 34% of new moms leave the workforce for over a year after having a baby. And what’s really fascinating about that is you dive deeper into that study and it’s 90-plus percent of those moms said they had no intention of taking a career break. Like, they didn’t have a baby going, “I’m gonna take some time for myself.

I’m gonna take some time for my family.” They had a baby thinking, “I’m gonna come back to work once my parental leave is over,” and then they got to that point and realized, “I am not physically, mentally prepared or [00:16:00] capable.” And when push comes to shove, you know, if the choice is be a bad employee or be a bad parent, you’re gonna be a bad employee, right?

You’re not gonna choose to be a bad parent. So what we’ve heard from so many companies is the retention of working moms in particular is a big challenge in this country. And, you know, we can get into all sorts of, parental leave is not long enough. Support systems are not good enough. I think everyone would agree and understand that that’s all true.

But what we can do is be a part of the solution to at least help, right? Help with, and sleep is so important to everything. Like, it’s so well understood what sleep means to recovery, performance, sickness, right? You’re seven times more likely to get sick if you’re sleep deprived.

You’re 11 times more likely to get into a car accident. There’s just things that everybody knows, and yet nobody’s really tied to, you know, one’s ever really come up with a solution to say, “How can I, for a really low cost,” as I’ll get into, “actually help with this problem?” And something that’s also been really interesting about, you know, that stat of just women in particular not coming back to the [00:17:00] workforce is, you know, it’s only been,

it’s been a massive societal change in only one generation, and that is that the average woman having a baby in corporate America is in their mid-30s now. And just one generation ago, they were in their mid-20s. And the reality is not that everyone’s unimportant. Everyone’s important. We want to retain everybody.

But the cost to replace a 35-year-old vice president or a 35-year-old director and someone with a decade of institutional knowledge is vastly different than someone who’s a junior, right? Or someone who’s an associate, someone who has two years of experience. So it’s not, we’re not picking and choosing.

We want everyone to benefit from this. But when we hear from our corporate partners, they say, like, “Yeah, you’re right. You know, my” We work with a lot of law firms. And they’re like, right now, I think I saw something. Don’t quote me, but it’s like 65 or something, 66%, whatever it was. Some ridiculous percentage of graduates from law school now are women.

It’s way higher than 50%.  And that’s been happening for a little while. So a lot of the law firms that we partner with, [00:18:00] they say, “Look, my senior partner just had a baby. She’s 39 years old. She bills $1,700 an hour. If your product can get her to do one hour of work more The ROI is right there, let alone everything else that you said.

So that’s certainly one is the retention. And then the other is just kind of obvious, but tied to everything else I said, which is healthcare costs, errors and accidents, productivity. Every person intuitively, whether you’ve had a baby or not, or whether you had your baby 40 years ago, whatever it is, if you get four hours of sleep broken up into two or three stretches, or you get seven hours of sleep in one stretch, I know, I know you’re gonna be better the next day at everything.

No matter what your job is, I know that. And we’ve also seen a lot of really, like, high-stress industries, and I say that because, you know, they’re not always known as the warmest and the fuzziest and the soft. So, like, think about, you know, a surgeon or, you know, AI companies or the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers, like law firms, investment banks, [00:19:00] and a lot of them, they’re not gonna say this publicly necessarily, but a big part of why they love this benefit is they’re going, “When my people are at their job, they’re expected to be operating at 100% every single day.”

You know, if you’re a top surgeon, you can’t show up to work and be like, “Phew, I don’t have it today.” You know? Right. Yeah. Well, you should be the host. You had great stats, and honestly, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think A lot of people just focus on, like, paid parental leave, which in itself is, yes, it’s huge.

But I think we also have to think about beyond just that being, like, an important issue. It’s like how are we transitioning parents, but especially the working moms, back into their jobs when it hits immediately. And I think that the SNOO, amongst other things, are it’s not just, like, the leave.

Totally.

You know, whether it’s products or services or structures that can really, like, ease that transition back. Well, and some of it’s, you know, it’s one of those kind of whispered conversations, [00:20:00] but, I’m sure you’ve had it with people you know. But there are people who definitely, if you don’t have,

if your baby’s not sleeping, your baby’s home all day crying, you know, fussy, and you have no support, nowhere to put it, there’s a lot of people that look and be like, “I can’t wait to go back to work.” You know? Like, and it’s, it’s like societally, obviously, you know, not, probably not the best thing to say, and a lot of people wouldn’t shout it from the rooftops, but people do have that feeling, right?

And if you can extend benefits into the home, if you can really take care of your people at a time when they need it, they’re so vulnerable. It’s, you know, you’ve been through it. It’s the biggest life change you’ll ever have, going from not being a parent to being a parent. And then it just, it’s all a, you know, one to two, two to three, whatever it is.

These are massive, massive moments in a person’s life, and if It disproportionately impacts how they show up as an employee, how they show up across the board, how their, you know, mental and physical health, all these things. So yeah, you hit the nail on the head. And then, and something I also find really interesting is a lot of companies now offer fertility benefits

which is amazing. My second [00:21:00] kid was IVF. I love all these companies with all my heart and soul. Yeah but what is really interesting to me is, like, they’ve created this world where it almost feels like table stakes that employers have to cover this. But then once you have the baby, it’s actually a lot more challenging, right?

Or just as challenging I should say. Where it’s like, “Okay, great. We helped you make the baby. Like, now you’re on your own.” There’s just so many different challenges that happen to a new parent.

So it’s, like, incredible you made this huge investment in helping them on their journey to get pregnant, and, you know, pay for all their medical, A C-section costs $18,000, and corporations, like, you pay for it ’cause of course you do. And, you know, they cover breast pumps through insurance. There’s so many things that are already done.

But it’s just like a, it’s kind of that next step of, like, this is actually helping you every single day in your home with one of the single biggest challenges that most parents face, which is sleep and which is anxiety. I love that ’cause you’re right, companies are already investing so much, and if, you know, let’s say 34% leave within the first 18 [00:22:00] months back, that’s such like a financial loss, which is probably how they look at it.

So I, couldn’t agree more. Yeah. We, you know, we work with a lot of banks, and they love the nice, the warm and fuzzy. They do love that, but that is not why we have our 100% retention rate. Yeah. We have very, very smart analytical people who look at this and go It’s a good investment. Yeah, yeah.

No, that makes sense. And just curious, ’cause you are so unique, you have so much knowledge, like, in the baby product space, and you’re also a dad of, still young, six and two. Yeah. Like, I feel like even talking about parental leave, paternity leave, like, that’s, how was that for you? You’re talking to benefits leaders all the time.

Just curious, like, who do you feel like, without, like, naming or judging like, what are the things that the companies that are really progressive in thinking about this in the right way to support the mom, the dad, the family doing that not everyone is? Yeah. It’s a great question, and it is [00:23:00] kinda interesting just from, like, where I sit, ’cause we do talk to so many HR benefit leaders, all sorts of industries, geographies, and it is all over the place.

But I do think, right, that this idea that paternity leave should be taken, you know? Like, it should be encouraged. And the thing that I find, you know, really discouraging is how often we still talk to people where the, you know, the company went out of their way to say, “You have paternity. It’s paid.

We want you to take it.” And it’s the employees, not necessarily the company, who feel pressured from other employees. They’re like, “Did you take paternity? Did you? No, no, no, no. Of course I did. Of course.” Or, “I took two days.” And it’s just like that’s such a societal shift. The thing that always bothers me is, you know, you talk to, you do talk to a lot of dads who are like, “Oh, there’s nothing you can do in the early stages.”

I’m like, “Are you out of your mind?” Like, there’s a million- Mom’s are like, “Yes, there is” Yes. What are you talking about? Look, you can’t breastfeed, fine. All right, you can’t give birth, fine. Yes, there’s a few things you can’t do. Virtually everything else you can, right? Like, like almost every task [00:24:00] that mom can do in the early phases you can certainly help with.

You know, go clean the bottle. Like, go, you know, like, there’s like make yourself useful. Go change the diaper, right? Like, there’s a million things you can do, and the fact is that a lot of people use, I think they use it as a crutch, right, of saying, “I just don’t have the time necessarily to help because I had to go back to work.”

So I do love that I think directionally it’s moving in the right way that more corporations offer paternity leave, and then I just think, you know, I’ll give a shout-out to the millennial dads, but it has changed. Everything is changing for the better, and it’s just you gotta keep that, you know, keep that momentum going.

You know, I, this is like the, i’m sure you’ve, I don’t know if your husband or other people you talk to, but I know with, like, a lot of my buddies it’s a running joke where you could be doing the most basic thing in the world as a dad, and there will be, you know, older people who will stop and be like, “Oh my God, you’re the best dad.”

You know, like, “You’re the best dad ever. This is amazing.” I was like, “Lady, I’m pushing a stroller,” you know? It’s like, “I’m not, I’m not doing anything that impressive.” But it’s just like that’s, you [00:25:00] know, that, that’s, that’s kind of a, a societal issue that I think is slowly correcting. I don’t think I really answered your question, but I think from a paternity leave perspective, I mean, I would just

encourage, it makes you a better place to work, right? It makes your employees, all the things that I just talked about, regardless if you have a SNOO or not, you’re just gonna be a better employee. You’re going to at least feel a little bit better because even if you’re not the primary caregiver, your sleep is impacted and your schedule, right?

I think that’s the thing that, the dependability, I know, I know SNOO’s not like, not everyone’s gonna have the exact same experience I had, but most people do. It’s something like, you know, 97% of people said it got better. They felt that they had a safer baby, and 90-plus percent of parents say they got more sleep.

It’s really good. those are really high numbers. And just that, like, idea of dependability, that if I put my baby in the SNOO, I know I’m gonna get a sleep stretch, right? Like, I don’t know if I’m gonna get the exact number of hours, but I talked to so many friends who didn’t use SNOO, and that’s one of the things, right?

There’s no dependability. It’s, this nap might be 12 minutes [00:26:00] or it might be two hours. This sleep tonight might be three hours or 12 hours, you know, they’re just like, I don’t know. And it just felt like in SNOO, it gives you some of that routine and some of that consistency, which makes it so much easier to go back to work, and so much easier

just to, like, plan your life to some degree that you feel like you have some control. Yeah. No, for sure. Well, you have been, like, a, just a source of information. Even for me, some of those stats, I was like, wow. I steal a lot. We have a really good medical affairs team, so. I can tell. I mean, you’ve, hey, I learned something, too.

But just curious, so I feel like so much good stuff came out of this conversation. If you, you know, to, let’s say, benefits, HR leaders, and then high-level employees who are anticipating going out on leave or returning, like, what is one piece of advice you would give to, say, that employee going out on leave, ’cause you’ve been that yourself

and then from kind of, like, the HR employer side, who’s having someone go out on leave? Okay. Do you want my kinda stupid one, [00:27:00] but I really-

Yeah

do mean this? The dumber the better, yeah. Okay. So this is, like, my parent, this isn’t just for dads. This is for mom and dad. Yeah. I think this only applies for your first kid, but- If you have ever wanted to watch a movie, like if there’s like a “Oh my God, I’ve never seen The Godfather.

You know, I’ve never like, I’ve never…” Just like a, one of those fill-in-the-blank classics, you have to watch it while you’re pregnant. Like you just like get any of those movies out of the way, ’cause as you said, my daughter’s almost six years old. I don’t think me and my wife have watched a movie, both of us together, both of us staying awake and all in one sitting since my daughter was born.

Like, it’s just like the idea of having- I think, I don’t know. Yeah, the idea of having two plus hours of just the two of you, like, you’re on the couch, you’re gonna fall asleep. Like, we’ve been to a few movies, but not a lot. So anyway, there’s my stupid advice, is that you should watch all the movies you can now.

But you should save the TV shows. This one’s more for mom who are breastfeeding. You have an unbelievable amount of like 20-minute [00:28:00] stretches,

Yeah

where you’re gonna be like stuck on a couch. So like my wife nurses in the office, so we binged The Office while she was breastfeeding, and it was like something to look forward to, you know?

Or while you’re changing a diaper, whatever. So there’s my stupid advice, is watch all the movies you can now, but don’t watch any TV shows. It’s funny ’cause I did that by myself as like a guilty pleasure, like two weeks before my due date. I just didn’t know what I was doing, but that’s what I was doing.

That’s what you did? Yeah. Well, yeah, you’re like, when you’re nine months pregnant, you probably don’t want to do that much anyway. Yeah. Oh, no, it’s all good. So there’s my stupid advice. My, my genuine advice is of course to get a Snoo. Rent it, buy it, get it from your employer ideally. But I think, yeah, from a corporate perspective it is, right?

It’s this understanding that it’s you know, our founder tells a story which I love, but it really is true. You know, you don’t remember what you ate for lunch three days ago. Everyone who had a kid remembers all of the nice things that happened to them when they had a baby. You know? Like your, your next door neighbor brought you lasagna.

You know, your aunt baked you some cookies. [00:29:00] Like 20 years later, those things stick in your head. I remember getting delivered, ’cause once again, it was COVID. No one was allowed to visit us. Yeah. But people would bring us stuff, and then we could go pick it up. Yeah. And like every night we had food from all of our favorite restaurants, and it was just like, I remember who ordered those things.

Right. I remember what we ate. And, you’re in a similar position, right? As an employer, these things do matter, and the things you didn’t think mattered when you were 22 and you’re like, “All I care about is like, I don’t know, the best vacation or the best salary” or whatever, you still care about all those things, but the lens at which you look at everything changes when you have kids, right?

Yeah. Family-friendly matters. Flexibility matters. Leave matters. Health insurance matters, you know, all these, all these things you maybe didn’t care about become the thing you care about the most. Yeah. And people notice it, right? When you’re being recruited, you notice it. When you’re trying to stay at your job, you notice it.

When you want to just be the best employee, right? People start to check out. They start to burn out. They start to do all these things when they don’t feel supported. And there are relatively easy things you can [00:30:00] do to make parents feel supported. Love it. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Lewis. This was a great episode.

Thank you. And thank you guys for tuning in for another episode. Tune in next time. Thanks so much, Sarah. Bye.