Sara Ferrer: [00:00:00] Welcome to Fearless and Flawed. Today we're joined by Kristin Smith, the founder of Well-Supported Family, a national postpartum care agency operating in 14 states with over 200 team members. This is a woman who had her daughter at 19, was told by her entire family, she'd never amount to anything, and quietly went on to build a multimillion dollar company that helps families across America.

Serena Reynolds: And the bit that gets me, she was working as a nanny, took three weeks off to have her baby, then brought the baby to work because she had no other option, no support, no safety net different state from her family. She figured out how to get her daughter to sleep out of pure survival and that became the foundation of everything she's built since.

Sara Ferrer: She's also just had a five week old through adoption after a long fertility journey. [00:01:00] So she's living this in real time all over again while running a national company. 

Serena Reynolds: And I'm Serena and I help bold leaders become the go-to expert in their space. 

Sara Ferrer: And I'm Sara, an email marketing pro here to convert clicks into cash.

Sara Ferrer: Together, Serena and I are two women in charge. Digging into the fearless, the flawed, and the fabulous journeys of female founders rewriting the rules. 

Serena Reynolds: So let's dive in. Welcome to our show, Kristin. 

Kristin Smith: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. 

Serena Reynolds: So, Kristin, you had a daughter at 19. You know, I could go into your, your, the, the story that you told us offline.

Serena Reynolds: I'll leave that to you if you wanna tell everyone your circumstance and really the, the spur of, of how you've become the person that you have become and the business that you now run. 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, so I graduated high school very quickly, moved off to New York to be a full-time nanny. I met somebody at a club.[00:02:00] 

Kristin Smith: We dated for a few months. I was on birth controls and got pregnant, so my daughter's officially that 0.01%. Like I was doing all the right things, trying to be the responsible party versus free teenager going into my early twenties. Um, I got pregnant and I remember going to Planned Parenthood and them confirming the pregnancy, and I called my mom on the way home.

Kristin Smith: And all she did was cry. She cried. 'cause she's like, your life is gonna be so hard. Your life is gonna be so different. You're gonna not be able to go to college and do all the things that you wanna do. And I'm, I got off that phone call and I was like, she could have just said to me. We're here for you and we're gonna support you, and we're gonna, we're gonna support whatever decision you make for this child, right?

Kristin Smith: And so I got in my mindset in that moment, I was like, I either each, I need to either conquer this or I need to like give into that stereotype. So I continued on my pregnancy. I have my daughter. I very quickly got [00:03:00] her sleeping through the night so that I could go back to work. I would bring her with me.

Kristin Smith: I remember at that time I had a family that had a 3-year-old and a three month old, and I now had a newborn. I don't know how I did it. I, I juggled all three of them. There were many a times the mom would always be late from work and I would end up nursing her baby and my baby at the same time because she didn't leave me enough milk.

Kristin Smith: So I did the whole like, wet nurse theory thing, which was pretty, pretty phenomenal. Um, and it was in that moment of like juggling three children, struggling to pay my bills. I had a partner who didn't help me and I was like, I cannot, this cannot be my life. This cannot be. My career. So I very quickly realized that the relationship wasn't gonna work.

Kristin Smith: Moved back to Massachusetts, got an apartment, moved closer to my parents, so I have a little bit of like necessity babysitting, like so I could go back to school and training. I trained to be a postpartum, a birth doula. I also trained to be a midwife, and during my [00:04:00] midwifery training, I worked overnights.

Kristin Smith: So I would work overnights, you know, five or six nights a week, and then I would go to the office and do my apprenticeship to be a midwife. And I was like living off of protein bars and coffee and survival of energy to push through. And every single birth I went to, I realized that there's not a lot of postpartum

Kristin Smith: support. There's not a lot of focus on the actual healing and getting your body into a good place mentally and physically, and taking care of a baby. There was so much thought that went into what's gonna be written in my birth plan, what am I gonna say yes to? What am I gonna say no to? But there was no thought about how am I gonna swallow my baby or soothe my baby or feed my baby and how am I gonna sleep and then work the next day.

Kristin Smith: Right? So I kind of took this approach where. I focused on the new parents and the sleep, and I very quickly got out of MI midwifery, went back to being a [00:05:00] postpartum doula and focused on helping families build their child's sleep foundation. So from day one, teaching those babies that it's okay to fall asleep independently, it's okay, you know, to not.

Kristin Smith: Nurse for 10 hours straight throughout the night. It's okay to be in your own safe space. We're here and we're gonna come to you and we're gonna feed you when you're hungry. And then really tried to work with parents and teach them how to get their babies into daytime routines, which then filtered into the night.

Kristin Smith: And then my solo practice got really busy and I was to the point where I was, you know. Pushing away work and saying no to clients and saying no to repeat clients because I just didn't have the bandwidth to handle it myself. And then I had the idea of starting an agency. Which started off as Nightingale Night Nurses founded in Boston.

Kristin Smith: I had a team of like five or six people and I was like, this is great. Maybe I'll have a team of 15. And then as it became more popular, as our [00:06:00] clientele grew, as our clients were telling families in another state, as team members were moving, it just grew into. A massive company. You know, now we have over 200 team members.

Kristin Smith: We have solid teams in 14 states. We have a travel team. We have a team that lives in an RV like RVs and travels around the whole us. Um, it's pretty phenomenal to have gotten to this point. 

Serena Reynolds: Now, I have to say, I have to be, you know. Hearing your story and reflecting black back on my own life. So I've got a 19-year-old daughter.

Serena Reynolds: And reflecting back on your parents' reaction, I'm not sure I'd be any different at first, but, you know, listening to your story, I, I, I hear, you know, it's my, it would be my own sadness, not, and it shouldn't be reflected back. So that's my first point here. I, I would obviously be very supportive. [00:07:00] I, I know that you've got an older daughter as well, now.

Serena Reynolds: She's not, no. You know, she's, how old is she now? 

Kristin Smith: She's 22 and she actually graduates from college next week, which feels like such a pivotal, a pivotal moment in like her life and my life. But I will tell you, Serena, the way that my mom responded to me. Totally shaped the way I parented my daughter, right?

Kristin Smith: Like every single time something was hard for her or there was a situation she had to work through. I supported her feelings and I supported her where she was at, and I tried not to get my feelings involved. Like if I was sad or frustrated, I did it behind closed doors. 

Serena Reynolds: It's like, you know. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily put that on, I wouldn't wish that for her at this stage, but if it was that case, then I would, I would support her in every way possible that, any way that I could.

Serena Reynolds: Absolutely. [00:08:00] But at the same time, I can kind of still feel that reaction. I can, I can feel it. 

Kristin Smith: Yeah. I always tell people, you know, you, your best friend comes out of the closet and you're like out of the closet of a like changing their outfit and you're getting ready to go out for the night and they're wearing like a shirt that maybe isn't the best color on them.

Kristin Smith: And you could say, wow, that color looks like shit go change. Or you could say, you know. A slate, blue gr, a slate blue sweater would really take out or bring out your blue eyes. I think that would look really good on you. And, and there's just a way to twist it. Like if my mom had said to me, you know, this is gonna be hard.

Kristin Smith: You're young, you are doing this alone. It's gonna be challenging, but I know you can do it. And I'm here every south of the way. Could have been so different for me, right? Like it could have molded me differently. 

Serena Reynolds: Absolutely. So, so where I'm coming from from here [00:09:00] is actually ties quite nicely to your story, is the fact that I know how hard it's to be a mom, to have a child, to do it all.

Serena Reynolds: I mean, I, I was, I have, I have a husband, I have, you know, a support circle around me and it was still incredibly hard. So that's where I'm coming from. So a 19-year-old, you know, to feel that, you know, I mean, you must have been really scared. I would've been, I was really scared at 27 or whatever I was. So yeah.

Serena Reynolds: So that's, that's really the point where I was coming from here. So, so what was the actual catalyst? When was it that you actually decided that, okay. Sleep is so important and, and mothers need it. And I mean, really, it's just such a fascinating progression that so many of us could have come to and we never did.[00:10:00] 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, it was, I mean, one of the triggering pieces or one of the like pieces that stands out in my mind is I was at a really hard birth where we almost lost the mom, and then it like dawned on me that these midwives, because we were. We were practicing as home birth midwives, that these midwives weren't getting enough sleep because we were constantly at birth and we were running on adrenaline.

Kristin Smith: And that was our fifth birth that week. And it was a really hard week. And it, it hit me that like, I can do better. I can help. You know these midwives who have young children at home, I can help them get more sleep when they are at home. I can help these women that have really hard careers, like, can you imagine going in for a surgery and your doctor has a three month old and they're not sleeping good at night?

Kristin Smith: Right? Like that. They're going into this really big performance, not well rested. And so that was like my pivoting moment of we need to do better and we can do better [00:11:00] if we give the education and support. So then I just completely shifted and that's how it, it started. 

Serena Reynolds: I can honestly say I have never thought that that's true.

Serena Reynolds: I have never walked in and No, I know it's true. Yeah, I've been there. I've, I've no sleep and gone to work. I mean, I don't do anything that that's like, you know, would save anybody's life, but at the same time, I've done it. And I know absolutely every single woman I know that's had children have has done that.

Sara Ferrer: I think, and, and, and Kristin, this, you know, when, when I first, um, you know, got received the email a couple weeks ago, because what we do through Fearless and Flaw is there's like a bit of like a, a process where like people are pitched to us, right? And it's like, Hey, we have this fabulous person, and I'm reading through your story.

Sara Ferrer: Very high level, and I'm a new mom, right? I have a four and a half, soon to be five month old, [00:12:00] and I, first of all was just like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This, this service sounds great because sleep is so vital. Something that's, I find very interesting and I'd love for you to kind of add some color to this.

Sara Ferrer: Through my own journey as a new mom, typically what happens is there's a lot of outside voices and outside opinions and outside advice, and in my case, all incredibly well intentioned. But I'm gonna give you an example. I have my mother, Barb, who is gonna listen to this podcast. She, she works out on the, on the elliptical every morning and listens to us.

Sara Ferrer: So she'll give me this feedback. Um, but there's my mother's kind of viewpoint, 40 plus years ago when she had her kids versus my sister-in-law's viewpoint, who I have a beautiful five-year-old niece and there have been different things like my niece. I [00:13:00] went to daycare from like six months on full time from like nine to five, and when my niece was first going to daycare, my mom would quit like.

Sara Ferrer: Oh, she doesn't need that much time away from home or something to that degree of like, of like, shouldn't you be with your baby? Because my mom, well intentioned old school way of thinking 40 plus years ago is Wait, wait, wait. You're sending your kid off for the day. What the hell are you doing? Aren't you supposed to kind of be juggling it all?

Sara Ferrer: Aren't you kind of, isn't that the role of the mother to be tired and now you're having someone else take care of your kid? And I'm not, I'm not suggesting that it comes from a place of. Of anger, but it's more of what society expects out of what the mother should be. Well, you should be tired, right? You should be exhausted.

Sara Ferrer: Oh, you're not exhausted, you're refreshed, you little bitch whatcha doing differently? You know, like it's kind of a little bit of like, shouldn't we all be suffering together? And so when I saw your [00:14:00] service, I thought, this is fantastic, but I wonder. I wonder if when people do look well rested, when people do show up saying, I got eight hours.

Sara Ferrer: I wonder if there's a little bit, and I don't know if jealousy is the right word. I don't wanna say that, but I wonder if there's a little bit of, um, not jealousy, envy. Envy of like, oh, well, of course you could, because it's, it's, it's, it's a premium service. Like there's a little bit of like, oh, you, you got ahead.

Sara Ferrer: And that, that's like agitating to the others who can't afford it or don't know it exists or it's not in their area. I do hear kind of in the background in my own journey, like people want the best for you, but don't be away from your kid too much. Don't get too much sleep because who's taking care of the baby.

Sara Ferrer: How does that tie into kind of what you've been through and having to explain to people about your services, about the training? Because it does also come at a fee, which some might say is a premium [00:15:00] fee. How do you kind of tie that all in? 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, no, it's a really great question. So we get a lot of that from grandparents.

Kristin Smith: We actually get a lot of grandparents that will call in and want to like gift their children two nights. And we're like, but, but why just two nights? Well, that's just enough to get them refreshed. And I was like. I mean, I would be a rock star if I could be refreshed on 16 hours of sleep and live my life.

Kristin Smith: And then I say to that question to the grandparents, I was like, well, were you able to stay home and not work? And she's like, of course. This was like 40, 50 years ago, or 30 years ago. And I was like, well. That's not the case now. Like women have careers, they have, they're choosing to put themselves in a certain place and they're choosing and they're prioritizing their wellbeing so that they can be a better parent.

Kristin Smith: And it's okay to say yes. 

Serena Reynolds: It's also not the choice today. We don't grow. We are not in a [00:16:00] society where the man's money is normally enough. There are many, many families that are struggling on two incomes. The, the, the nuclear family set up that we all got raised to believe would be our case. It is not that anymore.

Kristin Smith: It doesn't exist anymore 

Serena Reynolds: and there's 

Serena Reynolds: still a 

Serena Reynolds: huge amount of guilt put on women to, to work, I mean. God, I have got the best husband in the whole world. Um, and this is gonna sound like a moan and a real dig at him, but ultimately I used to ask him to babysit so I could have a break. So, you know. Because I, I took it, it was my job.

Serena Reynolds: I took on that responsibility of the children. I worked, I, I started my own company and everything else [00:17:00] whilst being same as you being a mom. And I did have that support around me, but I still had that guilt too. I still put that guilt on myself. 

Kristin Smith: Yeah. That guilt is real and, and I had to ask my first partner to babysit.

Kristin Smith: I had to ask him to heat up a bottle. My husband, now I have to ask nothing. He's up in the middle of the night on the nights we have the baby and he is like fantastic. But it is, there is a huge amount of guilt. It's a guilt of. They're gonna bond with somebody else or somebody else is gonna be there taking care of them when they're crying and sad, and I always say, there's nothing that's gonna replace your bond with your baby.

Kristin Smith: They're always gonna know that you are their mother or you are their father, and it is so amazing that more people can love them in their life. 

Serena Reynolds: I just wanna say very, very quickly, I'm just gonna interject here that I asked my husband to babysit. He never asked me [00:18:00] to ask him if he could babysit. I'm just gonna clarify that we love Paul.

Sara Ferrer: Paul's a good guy. We love him. But I love what you're saying, Kristin, I, I do love what you're saying. What I'm hearing is like you are. You do so much more than just teach babies to sleep, it sounds like, or to help moms sleep. What you're doing is giving reassurance that it's okay in a world where a lot of the mommy blogs are saying it's not okay, which is strange that sometimes those in the same position are the biggest, criticizers biggest.

Sara Ferrer: You would think they'd be more uplifting, but it sounds like you are really giving the ability for women. To return a little bit back, a little bit, perhaps back to themselves to feel okay maybe with not feeling okay, hey, that's normal, to feel like someone else is quote unquote raising your child. Lemme tell you why.

Sara Ferrer: That's just a belief and the facts aren't really there like that. That's what it sounds like you're doing, which is lovely. 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, and we're [00:19:00] also there to filter. We're, we're there to filter all the different pieces of advice and we, you know, sit with them in the middle of the night when they are nursing their baby or they're pumping and we say, you know, tell us all the things that, all the feedback you're getting and all the suggestions, and we help them filter what feels good to them.

Kristin Smith: Like you can listen to every single bit of information someone gives you. It doesn't mean you need to take it, and it doesn't mean you need to use it and apply it. You can say, oh, that makes me feel awful, but this one makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I'm gonna go with that. Or you can trial and error until you find your own way.

Kristin Smith: And that's really important too, is to tell them it's okay to listen. It's okay to not use it, and it's okay to do this your way. You are the controller of this vehicle and you've got this, and we're here to support you and maybe we're gonna give you suggestions on something that's worked previously, taking all of the pieces you're getting from your mother-in-law, and your mom, and your aunt, and your sister.

Kristin Smith: And we're gonna help you do this the best [00:20:00] way possible for you and your baby. 

Serena Reynolds: Being a mom of two children, the first one, the first child, completely overwhelmed with everyone giving me advice, telling me how often you should feed your child, how often it should sleep, when it should sleep, when you should wake it up.

Serena Reynolds: All of these different rules, what time should go to be the park or, and, and all of these things, which was overwhelming. Second child. Off I went. Nothing. I knew what I was doing and I was comfortable with it. But being a new mom, having, having that flood of information and, and feels like judgment in, in a lot of cases, you know.

Serena Reynolds: Not necessarily meant that way, but it can feel very damning for, for somebody who's, who's trying to feel for it and really trying really hard to. [00:21:00] Thing that they've created. 

Kristin Smith: Yeah. And there's also a lot of silent judgment where just like a dirty look or you feel like you're being judged without words, and then moms or parents are afraid to go out into public because somebody gave them a dirty look for nursing or gave them a dirty look for wearing their baby or their baby's in a stroller, and how come you're not holding them?

Kristin Smith: And so all these thoughts start circulating in their head of like, am I not doing this right? I just say ignore them. Put on your sunglasses and go for it. And just ignore them. 

Serena Reynolds: I remember, sorry, I was just about to say, I remember feeding my, my child. It, it was, it was, it worked out to be a toilet. It was like a feeding, a baby change area and feeding area, and it was a toilet.

Serena Reynolds: And I'm like, I wouldn't eat in a toilet.

Sara Ferrer: The things you do. So lemme lemme ask you, lemme ask you this, Kristin. So new moms find [00:22:00] you. They, they, they, they Google. I'm just trying to, for those listeners, 'cause I've, I've extensively looked at the process, but let's say our listeners are like, well, how does it work? You keep talking about the reassurance about the support that's.

Sara Ferrer: Your company gives, but I'm a new mom. How do I find you? What are the services available? And then what do those, are you coming to my house? Am I going to classes? Is there, do you have to stay with me for six months minimum to get that baby sleep trained? Is there a guarantee that, hey, when you choose us, that baby is gonna be good in two weeks?

Sara Ferrer: So how does that work from soup to nuts? 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, so we are Googleable, right? If you Google well supported family or even our older name, Nightingale, night Nurses, most parents fill out a contact form on our website. We do offer overnight care, daytime care, 24 7, care, sleep training, and nanny placements. So once you fill out our form, we'll very quickly send you an email to set up a call [00:23:00] us.

Kristin Smith: We'll do a discovery call, and we'll break down everything you're looking for. And I wanna say that every single family's needs are different. Some might be calling us because they just want a couple nights a week where they don't have to think about anything and they can sleep and we come in and take care of their baby.

Kristin Smith: Or there's the families who want us to come in and get their babies into routines and sleeping. Right. So our pitch is we don't, we can't guarantee that your baby will sleep. Every baby's different. We don't know if there's gonna be undiagnosed medical issues or reflux or if the parents are gonna follow what we're doing and suggesting, because if you don't, then that kind of like messes up the process, right?

Kristin Smith: So we always say anywhere from one to three nights a week is like respite care. We come in, we help. You. We help rescue you. We take care of your baby. We feed them, we take care of them. Anything from four to seven nights a week for like eight to 12 weeks. We can work on sleep conditioning or sleep shaping.

Kristin Smith: What that looks like [00:24:00] is we work on your baby's natural rhythms and patterns, and we build on them so there's no crying, there's no leaving a baby in their crib by themselves to scream it out. We are feeding them on a schedule and when they wake up, and if they're not hungry, we soothe them back to sleep most of the time on the side of their crib.

Kristin Smith: With a pacifier or like a gentle little chest rub, or maybe we're like rubbing their third eye. We get them back to sleep and we encourage them to sleep independently so we don't hold them for hours on end of sleep. We encourage 'em to be in their own sleep space and sleeping independently. And then we work with parents on the importance of a daytime routine.

Kristin Smith: We give them schedules, we give them access to our video series, which I'll hit in another minute. We talk about how important it is that babies, in order for them to sleep longer, stretches at night, need to get their calories and their sleep in during the day. So it's not just day and night, it's the whole puzzle is connected.

Kristin Smith: So everything that happens during the day [00:25:00] sets you up for nighttime. So if your baby's eating every four hours during the day and only catnapping for 15 minutes, they're not gonna sleep because they're overtired. So if you're are doing something called an eat, play, sleep, which you feed them. A little bit, get work, stimulate their brain and get them tired, and then put them to sleep.

Kristin Smith: They're gonna sleep better and longer, and then the goal is, is to wake them up at that three hour window and start that process all over again. So if you do that and you follow that pattern, then at night we can start working on stretching our sleep out. The theory is, is the six week old baby can do a six hour stretch.

Kristin Smith: An eight week old baby can do an eight hour stretch, a 12 week baby can do a 12 hour stretch. So we're constantly, you know, playing on their natural rhythms and patterns. And stretching out one chunk of sleep at a time. So eventually, you know, they're gonna go to bed, it's between seven 30 and 8:00 PM and they're gonna sleep till four, and then five, and then six, and then seven.

Kristin Smith: And we're gonna [00:26:00] get them through that night. Um, for the parents that can't afford or don't have the ability to have in-home care, we created a video series. We literally filmed. Everything that we do with babies step by step, week by week for the first 12 weeks, to teach parents how to teach their babies, how to sleep through the night.

Kristin Smith: So that's called baby care classes, and that's something that we give access to all of our clients because we think it's really important that they can visualize the daytime routine and visualize what we're doing. So if we're there, you know, four nights a week, they can also do this on nights five, six, and seven.

Kristin Smith: Right. So it's a, it's a helpful tool for them to have an addition to our services or it's a helpful tool for parents who can't have our services. 

Sara Ferrer: Damn, I'm past the 12 week mark. And what, what does, does anyone ever like, does it have to be before 12 weeks? Or do people say, okay, listen, I thought I could tough it out.

Sara Ferrer: I thought I could do this. I'm on month 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, like, help me out. So it doesn't have to just be newborns. People can come [00:27:00] back at later, later months. 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, so we offer sleep training services and we take a very gentle approach. Every baby, you know, if you decide to, to come back to us at six months old or five months old, and your baby's really struggling, we'll have you keep a five day log and we'll go through every single thing that's happening, and maybe our first approach is to wean them off of milk at night.

Kristin Smith: And we're gonna do a very delayed two week plan to wean them off mill. And then we're gonna dive in and do a sleep training plan. We can either do in-person or virtual, and we ask you what are comfortable with. The difference between sleep conditioning and sleep training is that sleep conditioning is done from zero to 12 weeks and it's building and establishing healthy sleep habits.

Kristin Smith: Sleep training is breaking habits that are already there. So in the first 12 weeks, there's no crying or fussing. There's maybe like. You know, they're showing frustration and they're annoyed and they're making noises. But sleep training is your breaking bad habits, and there's [00:28:00] gonna be some amount of crying.

Kristin Smith: And we ask you, what are you comfortable with? Are you comfortable with crying it out? Are you comfortable with a more hands-on approach? Like what works for you? Because in order for you to be successful to and follow this, you have to do something that you're comfortable with. So every baby, every family is a different situation, and we really take that into consideration.

Kristin Smith: So yes, you can absolutely come to us when your baby's 6, 7, 8, 9 months old, 10 months old, and really getting their teeth in, like it's, we hit every single stage of sleep. We even sick train toddlers. 

Sara Ferrer: Wow. And how did you, like, you're, you're across the entire country now, which I think from a business perspective, okay, we know what you do, we know how you do it, but now you have over 200 team members.

Sara Ferrer: You are, I believe, in 14 states. How did, how did you scale it? Because these are. I mean, you're trusting someone to be with a baby, and since you have [00:29:00] all this background and you know, midwifery and all this, like how do you find the right people? What's the process? Is it easier, harder than, than one would think?

Sara Ferrer: And what's, what's, you know, how do you, how do you guarantee, I guess, that your business quality and your name is preserved as you expand? 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, that's a really great question and I'm so glad that you asked that. So I really care about the training that these women have taken. I care that it's accredited.

Kristin Smith: I care that it's approved by the NCSA. The NCSA is the Newborn Care Specialist Association. I care that they have enough families and hours under their belt. So like my criteria is somebody needs to have a course that's approved by the N-C-S-A, a minimum of three years of. In-home experience. I don't want to hear that you've had your own children.

Kristin Smith: I don't wanna hear that you worked in a daycare. I don't wanna hear that you, you know, volunteered as a cuddler in the nicu. I wanna know that you have been [00:30:00] working in somebody's home and caring for these babies specifically overnight. So that is my minimum, minimum criteria. And. You know, being nationwide, it's very hard.

Kristin Smith: It's very hard because I'm not face to face with these women. I am talking to them over Zoom or I'm talking to them on the phone. But I also have networks of, you know, when a team member moves to another state, they can meet with the person in person. If I feel like they fit our criteria, I'll fly to the states and like take my entire.

Kristin Smith: Dinner and meet with them and have that personal level. I personally talk to every single team member that comes onto our team, like I am part of that onboarding process. There's multiple steps they need to get to before they get to me and we, we probably get. 25 to 40 applicants a month and you know, you could see my team is have 200, right?

Kristin Smith: So we obviously don't take all of those people because we have [00:31:00] such a strict criteria, but there'll be times where I'm like, Ooh, this person has so much potential come back to me in a year. Reach out to me in a year, reach out to me after you gain more experience. Or if it's like a nanny coming in and changing careers into being a newborn care specialist, a postpartum doula, I will be like, let's, let's mentor you.

Kristin Smith: We can, you have this foundation. You understand scheduling, you understand routines. You understand what it's like working in someone's home. Let's, let's work together on this, you know? So that's pretty much it in a nutshell of how we build our team, but we definitely don't say yes to everybody that comes our way.

Serena Reynolds: Let's talk about the business aspect, and particularly, I'm, I'm gonna focus here on marketing. So your whole business model, not only does your clientele grow up and move on, you are essentially every time you walk into. Into a home and you get that [00:32:00] sleep schedule in place, you're, you're effectively putting yourself out of work.

Serena Reynolds: So you have to have that constant. So what is your methodology for, for, for keeping your, your, your clients high and, and what is it that you do? How you marketing and all, all the good stuff here. 

Kristin Smith: I love these questions today. They're so good. We, we actually joke on the phone with parents that we are really good at putting ourselves out of a job.

Kristin Smith: It's one of the only industries where you. Do such a good job that they don't need you anymore. So with that, you know, our goal is that we catch them when they're having their first baby, and that we could do babies two, three, and four if they choose to have more. Our goal is that we impacted their lives so positively that they're gonna tell their friends and family, right, that we are going to.

Kristin Smith: Always be on their mind in some way, shape, or form. I mean, I have a couple families that I've worked with [00:33:00] personally, maybe more than a couple, that text me every year at their children's birthday and say, my 10-year-old, my 12-year-old is still sleeping really well, and we thank you for that. Another thing that we do is we don't send a thank you gift when we're done working with them.

Kristin Smith: We send a one year birthday gift. We think it's really important to kind of ping their brain of like, oh, they were part of our journey. Right? And, and maybe they're starting to think about number two, maybe their friends are having babies, maybe their sister's having babies. So we always try to kind of s.

Kristin Smith: Sprinkle out little tidbits in terms of marketing and creative ways. You know, we're always at events, we're always at parenting events. We're always talking with doctor's office in hospitals. If I'm ever at a hospital, I ask if I can like, pop up to labor and delivery or the NICU and introduce myself. Um, even though they already know who we are, it's nice to see my face.

Kristin Smith: Or sometimes I'll drink like a basket of [00:34:00] snacks or bring in a, a box of Joe from Dunkins and. Feed the nurses and remind them of like, we, you know, they're important to us. You guys refer us. We care about you. So I always try to do really creative marketing things to kind of have people always thinking about us in one way or another.

Sara Ferrer: I love that. You know, I think we live in a day and age where like people forget the power of like a handwritten thank you note. The power of a box of coffee, a cup of Joe, a box of donuts. For those tired nurses, like I think, you know, this day and age people are always trying to, with ai, how can we do something that is so revolutionary that people remember us?

Sara Ferrer: And sometimes what I'm hearing is like I just present myself, I show up. I show up with purpose I, I say, Hey, thanks for referring us. Let me feed you because you probably haven't eaten. I love that. And that's a reminder. That's a reminder for our listeners. You don't have to be [00:35:00] extravagant, you just have to be consistent.

Kristin Smith: It really is. And this morning one of my admins called me and said, Hey, we have this client whose pediatrician, you know, recommended them, recommended us at their appointment yesterday. I was like, can you please get that pediatrician's nickname and address? I wanna send 'em a thank you card. And I always try to do that when we can.

Kristin Smith: Another thing I do. We hand write birthday cards to every single one of our team members and send them a birthday card with a Starbucks gift card in it, because I want them to know that we appreciate them too. Right? So like I do that for their birthday and then maybe on Mother's Day or. Valentine's Day, I send them another car thanking them.

Kristin Smith: Some years I have had all of my team members stop at the store and pick up flowers on Mother's Day and bring them in for our clients. And then I'm gonna just like, add it to your next invoice and I'll reimburse you. So little tidbits of sprinkling things just to make people feel seen and heard and valued is [00:36:00] so important.

Sara Ferrer: I love that. Well done. Well, I, and I know when Serena and I worked together, um, I don't know if you remember this, Serena, um. There were times where it was like, uh, how do I thank my retailers? So I had a bath and body company and, and it was sold in a, in a bunch of toy stores and retailers. And, um, I remember Serena and I were brainstorming, especially those that sold a lot of, to a, a lot of the product.

Sara Ferrer: What do we do? What do we do? Handwritten letter and Serena being the, the marketing, you know, creative whiz that she is, you know, making, you know, a little, little, I think we did chocolate covered beans, uh, espresso beans. And it's like we did a funny play on like words with like, I don't know, you're, you're the best bean or what, who knows?

Sara Ferrer: But the point is it was a little thank you. It was a little care package and the amount of people, and again, it was. Just to say thank you. I mean, you're, you're, you're, you are essentially selling a lot of our product, [00:37:00] but the amount of those retailers who would just post a Facebook story or an Instagram story, not because we asked them to, but, oh, look what, look what Zoe Coco sent us.

Sara Ferrer: Do you find that I'm, I'm, I'm have to assume that moms, they get the flowers from Mother's Day. They, or the nurses get the, the, the donuts, the coffee, and with social media these days. Click, click. Look what I just got, you know, from formerly known as Nightingale, nurses Well Supported Family. Look what I just got.

Sara Ferrer: Is that what you see? A lot of things just kind of organically happening. 

Kristin Smith: Sometimes. Sometimes, I mean, I wouldn't say a lot because they're still in like their sleep deprived time where they're just trying to get through their day to day. But I do, I get thank you notes when we send out a birthday card or well, a birthday.

Kristin Smith: We send a birthday book and a birthday card to the one year babies, and I get the most beautiful thank yous for that. Another thing that's really touching for me is every now and then I get a birth [00:38:00] announcement from a client of their baby and I'm just like. Because I don't get to see the babies anymore.

Kristin Smith: I don't get to hold them and play with them. I'm working in my office behind the scenes and not interacting day to day. So when I get that, I'm like, and I email them. I'm like, that just made my day. I'll get a text or a call sometimes from the doctor's offices because I'm friends with some of them. It's funny 'cause I actually just ordered mugs and did a custom private label for coffee bags.

Kristin Smith: And like came up with all really funny names for midwives and obs. So, and then I printed mugs that say in my baby catching era, just like pulling off of the whole Taylor Swift thing. So I'm really excited to see how those are, how those are taken in. 

Serena Reynolds: Right. So everyone that receives this is going to be thrilled and they won't know how to say thank you.

Serena Reynolds: So tell them, just say, you know, if this, this. Please share. Nobody knows how. [00:39:00] You know, you'll get a thank you or a note or, or a well meaning to do something. Just ask them, take a photo and put it on Instagram or just ask them for that. Very, very simple, and they'll be thrilled. That's, that's perfect. I love that.

Serena Reynolds: Inion, we have asked our previous guest a question to ask you. They didn't. Who you were, who you were gonna be. We didn't at the time. Very, and now I'm gonna asked, let Sara tell you the story of who she was in a minute. I think this is such a great question. I'm just going to ask it. if you were gifted a goat, what would name it? 

Sara Ferrer: The backstory, while you think Kristin is, our previous guest owned a goat milk skincare company, so using goat milk, all sorts of nourishing body lotions and [00:40:00] creams and all that good stuff, and she naturally, the company had, I believe, 12 goats on premise. That was like a petting zoo and all that good stuff.

Sara Ferrer: So. That's where the very random goat question comes from. But what would you name the goat if you had it? A baby goat. That's the tie-in.

Kristin Smith: You know, 

Sara Ferrer: we really got her. 

Kristin Smith: It would be a name that I would want to call every day, right? And have it run through my yard to me, I would probably name it Sally. I've never met an animal or a person named Sally that I haven't liked, and I feel like Sally is something that I could call upon for help or support and not think of something negative or bad.

Kristin Smith: Um. And it just feels kind of fitting to have Sally the goat running around 

Sara Ferrer: love you know? I love that. 

Serena Reynolds: I've never know. I don't think I've ever, I've even really met a real Sally. [00:41:00] 

Sara Ferrer: Yeah, same. 

Kristin Smith: I've met two in my life. 

Serena Reynolds: No, I have no, I do know a Sally. There you go. Look, the moment I said it, 

Sara Ferrer: you know what I think is so funny?

Sara Ferrer: I think because when, when you were thinking Kristin about the answer, I was thinking, what would my answer be? And I always love when animals have like real names. Like I have a friend who has a dog named Ralph. Like Ralph, you know, like, like I get that there's like, you know, oh, cutesy things like, oh, this is fur ball.

Sara Ferrer: Oh, this is Meow Meow. Like, that's cute. Don't get me wrong, but like I was, as you're answering, I'm like, I would just give it like an official government name. I'd be like, this is, this is Miss Vanessa j Smith. You know, it would be just something really legit, you know? And so I love your answer. 

Kristin Smith: So growing up, my aunt had a great Dane and she named it Kitty.

Kristin Smith: So she would be like, here, kitty Kitty. And for people who didn't know her, this like massive horse-sized dog would come running. And in my mind I was like, Ooh, that's [00:42:00] like a good trick on people. I don't wanna do that with an animal coming in my yard and stuff. That was like in the back of my head. 

Serena Reynolds: I actually really loved the, the absurdity of that.

Serena Reynolds: I, there's something about that that really appeals to me 

Sara Ferrer: so absurd. And what would you ask our next guest? You have no idea who they are, what industry they work in, what, what area of life they're in, but what is some, and again, it doesn't have to be related to your business. Anything on the top of your head that you wanna ask?

Sara Ferrer: It can be related to the business. Who knows? 

Kristin Smith: Are you a fan of hiring overnight support or not overnight support? 

Sara Ferrer: Ooh. And I love, okay, so let me, let me ask you this. So this is assuming this would, this would be the assumption? Oh, well, no, they wouldn't necessarily have to. It's just the idea of it. Ooh, this is a good one.

Sara Ferrer: Yeah. Because it really brings out, yeah. 

Serena Reynolds: Ooh. I, I have to say, do you know what outta [00:43:00] all the services for children and babies and things like that, so, you know, daycare, like daycare, nobody bats an eyelid at daycare anymore, but why? Why the hell should you be sleep deprived? You could be the one looking after your child alive, healthy, excited to be there.

Serena Reynolds: I didn't have night support. 

Kristin Smith: It's really, it's really mind boggling that people will drop tens of thousands of dollars on one day for a wedding and not, you know, $15,000 on their child's sleep foundation for the rest of their life like that. That will never make sense to me. 

Serena Reynolds: It's not just the child's sleep, it's, it's everything connected to it.

Serena Reynolds: Yeah. It's 

Kristin Smith: the 

Serena Reynolds: parent. 

Kristin Smith: It's everything connected. 

Serena Reynolds: It's the daytime activities where your child is learning to walk and talk, that you're too tired to appreciate or, or, or participate in so much. [00:44:00] 

Kristin Smith: Because the way you put your baby to sleep every night and the way you respond to them will be how you put them to sleep and respond to 'em when they're three and four.

Kristin Smith: And that will be that habit forever, right? Like I have neighbors who their kids still get up in the middle of the night and crawl into their bed and they're 10 and seven, so that, that, that stays with them. This is something that, it's a short term investment that will stay with them for the rest of their life.

Kristin Smith: I mean, you can imagine blissfully sleeping in bed with your partner and your baby sleeping in their crib all night, and then you get up in the morning and see each other and it's so wonderful because you missed them and you, everyone's well rested and happy. I think we should talk about sleep training.

Sara Ferrer: Well, you know what I think is very interesting as we're chatting about this. I had a, uh, a friend enlighten me on, [00:45:00] on medical training, doctor training that when you're in your residency, you have such little sleep, and how studies have shown that the likelihood of getting into a car accident that the likelihood of all these horrific things, um.

Sara Ferrer: In residency. And if you look into it, the backstory is that the person who set up the foundation for residency, he himself was on cocaine. This is a true story. And so the program is based on basically lack of sleep, you know, being bright eyed and bushy tailed through, through art, through through, uh, illegal substances, if you will.

Sara Ferrer: Um, but not has become the norm now. Now I'm just thinking as you're talking to me and it's something that I'm like, wait. That actually has never been really, that idea has never been tied to motherhood and lack of sleep. How many moms are driving to work, driving to work, operating a vehicle? Tired, are taking care of a second child?

Sara Ferrer: Tired are like you said, uh, doctors and, and, and, and, and, and doing surgeries or machinery? Like [00:46:00] for some reason it's like we just forget that, like, okay, yeah, mom's tired, but. I'm sure if you did a study and maybe you have those stats, what is the likelihood that you're a harm to yourself? I'm not just talking, Hey, I'm tired, but like, you should not be driving right now.

Sara Ferrer: You should not be in the air control, uh, seat right now. Monitoring these planes, like does that ever come or has that ever come up in your research about like what the stats are in terms of how harmful it can be? 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, and I can follow up with stats afterwards for you, but. Sleep deprivation is equivalent to being drunk, right?

Kristin Smith: So like if you think about how sleep deprived you are and you're driving a car, it's like you're driving drunk. Another thing to think about too is like when you have a surgery, what do they tell you? You need to recover sleep. When you're getting ready for a big presentation, what do they tell you to do?

Kristin Smith: Sleep. When you have a medical condition that you're trying to to [00:47:00] fix, what do they tell you to sleep? So sleep is the core of our being so that we can function. It also helps reduce maternal mental illness. It helps to every single mom or, or. Parent that I know that went through postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression, or postpartum psychosis.

Kristin Smith: It's usually related to lack of sleep. So, you know, sleep fixes a lot of our problems and if we can just, you know, as a society, embrace that we need to support these new moms and we need to go over to them and visit them and bring a warm meal and say, go take a nap in a hot shower. I've got everything else.

Kristin Smith: I'm gonna do your dishes, I'm gonna do your laundry. I'm gonna take your baby. I'm gonna do whatever you need me to do so you can sleep. And it's, it's amazing because in my own journey, this time around, I am, I'm surrounded by postpartum professionals and every single person that's come into my [00:48:00] home to visit us, that you know is a colleague or has the same training in me is like, go take a nap.

Kristin Smith: Go take a shower, do whatever you need to do. I got you. And those words are so powerful for a new parent. 

Serena Reynolds: So, so going full circle here for one, I was one of those really annoying parents that had the baby that slept all through the night from day one. I'm just, I'm just bragging here. And I was always tired, but, but just.

Serena Reynolds: Just taking us back a step here, when you think about how society has changed, about how we live our lives, we have cars, we drive further away from our families. I mean my grandparents, down road, their parents, and you know, society has changed. Life has changed all.

Serena Reynolds: We don't appreciate [00:49:00] how much support our parents, their parents got, raising children just by moms not working or, or you know, their parents being across the road and stuff like that. And, and we need to not, not matter ourselves like, like many of us women do. And to appreciate that. And you're still gonna be tired.

Serena Reynolds: It's tiring having children and that's okay. But you don't have to, to go to extremes. You don't have to exhaust yourself to the point that you, that it affects your life negatively. And I So the service that you're offering is phenomenal in this day and age. I, I wish I knew about it. Even if I did have children slept through the night, I didn't know that this service existed.

Serena Reynolds: So, yeah, that's, that's all I wanted. 

Sara Ferrer: What does the future hold, Kristin? I mean, you've set up this, this great [00:50:00] foundation, Serena, I agree with you. You know, it's, it's a matter of just knowing it exists and then making the choice. But if you don't even know it exists, then, then, then, then what is the choice there?

Sara Ferrer: So what's the, what's the next year look like? The next five years look like for the business? 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, I mean, I, I, the goal is, is to have local teams in more states. The goal is to make us more readily available to everyone that needs us in any way we can support them, and meeting parents where they're at and teaching them that, no, we don't have our village like we had 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Kristin Smith: You're responsible for building your own modern village, and it's okay and normal to ask for help. So the goal is. To make that the norm, to make it the norm that it's okay and we're here and we're gonna support you. And then also just to make us accessible for, you know, hundreds of thousands of families.

Sara Ferrer: Wow. What, like, an amazing, I'm, I have to imagine if I were you to go to bed at night [00:51:00] thinking like, I've had real impact, you know, like, like impact on the child, impact on the mother, impact on the family, impact on the, the broader circle. Um, because you have now helped. Form such a healthy, healthy habit.

Sara Ferrer: And if anyone's listening who is like, Hey, I, I'm in one of the states where you have a presence, or I know someone, or I'm getting ready to have kids. How can people find you? Where do they go? You had mentioned like an intake form. What does the whole process look like, um, in learning more about your services and then getting in touch?

Kristin Smith: Yeah, so they can find us on our website at wellsupportedfamily.com. They can find us on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook. They, you know, go to our website, just fill out the form. We will reply to you immediately. I'm on Facebook. You can find me on Facebook. I get so many private messages of people that need help and support.

Kristin Smith: We're here for that. And then once you. Fill out the little, we set up a [00:52:00] call with you and you step by step, but I also wanna really to what just said about, you know, impacting people's lives. You know, I. I value my clients and my team members equally. So I feel like I've also impacted the lives of my team members to be able, like a lot of them have small children, and I've, I've created this job for them where they can work at night and be home with their kids during the day, or sleep during the day, get their kids at school and make it to their sports events or their school events.

Kristin Smith: So I've, I feel like I've impacted lives with giving families sleep and helping them. Enjoy parenthood and enjoying their child and, and, you know, growing and sleeping with their family as their kids get older and really enjoying that. But I've also helped impact team members to have a career and to do something that they love and value that also supports their family.

Kristin Smith: So I, I, I look at those things [00:53:00] together and so importantly, because it means a lot to me. 

Serena Reynolds: And, and just to round this off with what we talked about in the pre-chat. None of this would've been possible. You wouldn't have got to this conclusion if you hadn't have got pregnant at 19. 

Kristin Smith: Yeah, 

Serena Reynolds: that's, that's the whole, the whole thing here.

Serena Reynolds: It was, it was that struggle at the start and that you found the solution and that you've built this entire empire on that. And every woman before you has had, or not every woman, but so many women have had children and struggled and never come to this conclusion to actually do this. 

Sara Ferrer: Yeah. Kudos to you and, and anyone who's, um, listening, we do this on video and right before we, we joined on, you know, to do the official chat if you will.

Sara Ferrer: Kristin popped on the video. She looks fab. She looks very well rested, [00:54:00] and I said to her, I said, damn girl. You got a five month old, correct? Five month old now? I said five weeks. Oh, five, I'm sorry, five week. I'm sorry. I'm the one with the five month. I literally for a hot second. I'm not even kidding you. I actually forgot I had a five month old when Serena's like you have the five month old.

Sara Ferrer: I'm like, I do. Um, mommy brain is, 

Kristin Smith: there's both the five there. 

Sara Ferrer: Okay. There's both the five. But I have to say, and like you look very well rested. You look fabulous. And you said to me before we started recording, you said, I practice what I preach. So, so for anyone listening, 'cause every now and then we do chat with people perhaps like high level, no one in particular I can think of, but like high level life coaches that like behind the scenes, like their life is in shambles.

Sara Ferrer: And I'm like, how are you a life coach? Um. But you are someone, right? Serena? We've had a couple of cases, a pre 

Serena Reynolds: we've, we've had a couple, 

Sara Ferrer: a couple pre-chat where we're like, we just can't move you forward. This doesn't make sense. But you are someone who walks the [00:55:00] walk, talks the talk, and again, for anyone looking, um, really for that guidance and for that.

Sara Ferrer: That judgment free zone. 'cause that's, as we, as I get to know more about you and your business, it's moving at the pace that the mother, that the father, that the family is, is, is looking for. So anyone who wants to know more, check out Kristin, check out the website. But know that you are definitely in safe hands 'cause she's exactly who she says she is, on and off the camera.

Sara Ferrer: So, thank you so much, Kristin. This has been. Wonderful. And it gives me hope as a new mom that I, I will sleep again. Um, you'll one, one day. I can tell you that day. One day. Thank you. This has been absolutely delightful. 

Kristin Smith: Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.