Sleep-deprived Sydney mum builds $30 million business from scratch

When Sydney mum Hana-Lia Krawchuk’s baby wouldn’t sleep, her sanity began to slip, but the sleepless nights led to a genius idea.

Hana Krawchuk knows that necessity really is the mother of invention.

When the Sydney-based mum had her first baby, she faced a struggle many mums know all too well. Her son Elijah wouldn’t sleep, which meant she didn’t either.

“My husband and I struggled to get him to sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time,” she explains. “For 18 months we were sleep-deprived, anxious and desperate for a solution.”

The sleep-deprived mother had tried every baby product imaginable that promised to restore sleep for the family – but nothing worked. It was when she felt as though she was “at breaking point” that she suddenly had a glimpse of a solution.

“He seemed to sleep better with his arms wrapped up by his head, rather than by his side which is the traditional swaddling most new mothers had been taught to do,” she says.

“Once I realised this, I knew other parents must’ve been experiencing the same issues. I started researching and reading after thinking that maybe sleeping with their arms up was a natural sleep position for babies.”

When Sydney mum Hana-Lia Krawchuk’s baby wouldn’t sleep, her sanity began to slip, but the sleepless nights led to the inspiration for her multimillion-dollar business.

With a background in fashion, the new mum set out to turn her idea into a garment she could sell, “I spent many hundreds of hours refining, simplifying, sampling and resampling the very first version of our signature Swaddle Up.”

By the following year, the product hit stores in Sydney. Two weeks later it had sold out and the Love To Dream story started.

Taking out a second mortgage on her family home, Ms Krawchuk launched her business from her basement, “When I started the business I was a full-time mum with a 14-month-old baby who did not sleep and there was only myself in the business to do sales, invoicing, picking and packing the orders, the designing, marketing, running the production and doing the taxes!” she says.

“I also ‘borrowed’ $50,000 from our mortgage! It was madness as we were already struggling to make ends meet.”

However, the gamble paid off as, now a decade on, Love to Dream has 23 employees, exports its products to 45 countries around the world, is stocked in major stores including David Jones, Target, Myer, Big W and Baby Bunting, and turns over more than $30 million a year.

Now a mother-of-two, Ms Krawchuk says that every day is a ‘pinch me’ moment because she knows that she’s helping families – she estimates more than three million so far – find a solution to sleepless nights.

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She’s now taken this one step further and developed the Love To Dream Sleep Series, which is a free, digital resource to help parents learn how babies sleep, get tips on settling their babies and practical information for laying the foundations for healthy sleep patterns.

“I wanted to find a way to help more. I didn’t want other parents feeling lost or not knowing where to turn when their baby wasn’t sleeping,” says Ms Krawchuk.

“I know that parents need easy-to-read advice in the one spot. And we’ve done just that with the Sleep Series, which is designed to help parents find what works best for their baby and family.”

Now a mother-of-two, Ms Krawchuk says that every day is a ‘pinch me’ moment because she knows that she’s helping families – she estimates over three million so far - find a solution to sleepless nights.

Developed in conjunction with qualified paediatric health and sleep experts including infant sleep expert Genevieve Titov, ICU nurse Courtney Halavaka, midwife and registered nurse Edwina Sharrock, and specialist paediatrician Dr Jonny Taitz, the series has already proven popular.

“Since launching two months ago we’ve had hundreds of daily visitors to the Sleep Series pages and website traffic continues to build,” explains Ms Krawchuk.

“We’ve been hearing from parents and families about how they’ve been able to sleep easier. One family had a baby who was only sleeping 30 minutes at a time, but by working through the lessons, they’ve let us know that their daughter is now sleeping six to seven hours at a time.”

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As she looks to the next year and further expansion, the entrepreneur says the secret to her success in business all comes down to good time management.

“My biggest advice to anyone looking to start a business is that you should be serious about the business side of things from the start,” she tips.

“When I began Love To Dream, I implemented systems and processes from day one that were critical to being able to manage my time. The business has grown rapidly, but that’s been well managed and controlled, which was critical to our success and to all our customers being able to rely on the consistency and quality of the brand.”

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