731 Cara Dumaplin: Founder of TakingCaraBabies

0:00I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be.

0:09Kara Goldin:You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Kara Golden Show. Today, I'm joined by Kara Dumoplin, the founder of Taking Kara Babies. I love that we pronounce Kara the same, even though it's spelled a little bit differently.

0:58Kara Goldin:So hers is with a C, mine is with a K. But Taking Kara Babies is a trusted and beloved resource helping parents navigate one of the toughest parts of early parenthood, getting their babies to sleep. Kara is a neonatal nurse, certified pediatric sleep consultant, and mom of four. And Kara blends medical expertise with deep compassion to give parents the tools, confidence, and support they need during those exhausting early months and years. Kara, I wish you were around when I was having my four kids because it definitely is one of the most challenging. I always say that it's the time in your life when you feel stupid, right?

1:44Kara Goldin:If you ever did feel for so many parents. So since launching Taking Care of Babies in 2013, Cara has guided millions of families worldwide through her research-backed, heart-centered approach to infant and toddler sleep, best-selling digital classes to her newly launched physical products, which I love, love, love. And I cannot wait to hear all about her journey in the background around building, taking care of babies. So welcome, Kara. How are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me. It's nice to be here. Absolutely. Very, very excited. So in addition to sharing at least the sound of a name, You are located in Phoenix, where I grew up.

2:33Kara Goldin:So very, very small world and four kids. Wow. Lots, lots in common. That's right. Even our names. Yes. Lots in common. Okay. So let's start at the beginning. What inspired you to create Taking Care of Babies? Well, let me tell you, it was inspired from my own journey. Here I was a baby nurse and my husband is a pediatrician. So here we are, baby nurse, baby doctor, and we have this baby. And I kind of thought we were going to be experts, right? Like, babies are our thing. We're good at this. But let me tell you, breastfeeding, I had helped thousands of parents breastfeed. Newborn care, I could do a baby bath with my eyes closed.

3:19But fast forward eight months, and we had this beautiful baby girl who we loved more than life itself, but she did not. sleep. She did not sleep. And we were like at the end of our rope. I was exhausted. He was exhausted. Our baby girl was exhausted. And it rocked us to our core. And so I think that really set me on this journey to dig deeper. Like as a nurse, I knew how to look at evidence-based research. Look at the journals. What does the journal say? And take that and then turn it into daily practice. So I did. That's what I did. I got my baby girl sleeping. Fortunately for us, we had more babies after that to practice.

4:03And that's kind of where I thought it would end.

4:08Kara Goldin:So how long did it take you to actually kind of get into the groove of fixing this issue once you actually maybe took kind of what you were teaching into this practice? Let me tell you, I never set out to have a business. Like that wasn't my goal. I started my career as a neonatal ICU nurse. I did that for about five years, cross trained over to labor and delivery, which is delivering babies. So NICU is sick and premature babies, labor and delivery is where you deliver the babies. I loved being a bedside nurse, right? I thought I'm gonna do this forever. It was in labor and delivery that I met my husband, a pediatrician, and then I worked labor and delivery through all four kids.

4:54After my fourth was born, I traded the delivery room in for the OB office and it was there that I started seeing patients postpartum. They would come in for their four week, their six week, their eight week check and I could just see darkness in their eyes. After about the fourth woman came in crying, I was like, I wanna go home with her. I know I could make a difference in her life if I could just go home with her. So that's what happened. My son, Charlie, started preschool. The youngest started preschool and I started taking care of babies. And it started by going into mom's homes and just helping them.

5:31Like here, I was working in North Scottsdale, which pretty like, these women were running corporate America, right? But you hand them a seven pound infant and they were like, I need help. And I'm like, I'm your girl, I can help. So I was teaching things like feeding, newborn care, but sleep was the thing that they were struggling with. Like I was teaching them how to read their cues, read baby's cues, how to set them down in the bassinet, how to get more than a few hours of sleep at night. How do you get them to nap in their bassinet so you can actually shower? And as I taught, I could see hope returning to their eyes.

6:05And let me tell you, if you help one mom, she's gonna tell 10 of her friends. So from there, it just kind of blossomed. It was like, I couldn't go to all the homes. So I had this bright idea that I would start teaching a class. And Kara, I started teaching this class, and I had to teach it twice a day, three times a day, because I couldn't fit everyone in the room. It became the number one prenatal class in the Phoenix area. But people would come up to me afterwards, and they would say, but Kara, my best friend's in Boston, and my sister lives in Dallas. And I'm like, you guys, I have four little kids at home.

6:42I can't just travel all over. So I thought, you know what I'll do? I'll record my class and put it on a DVD. And I thought, that's it, that'll help people, right? Well, I started Googling and I found you could stream it into people's homes. This is like 2014, right? Nobody had heard of an online class, but I just knew how do I help people beyond the Phoenix area? And so that's what I did. That was kind of the beginning of how I took it from here. This nurse turned into a business, But again, I never set out to have a business. It was the heart of these parents have a need. I have the expertise to help them.

7:22How can I do that? And that's how Taking Care of Babies was born.

7:27Kara Goldin:That's wild. How did you get the word out? I guess it was all word of mouth in the Phoenix area, but then it's a different thing when people are not, I guess, seeing you interact. Maybe they hear from some of their friends. But how did you really build the business that you have online? I have to tell you, this little app called Instagram. And, you know, at that time, let's think back to like 2015 to 2016. People were posting pictures, right? And I would post a picture of a baby, but I would write a caption to educate parents. And I just did it because I kind of liked it. It was kind of fun. I wasn't trying to sell anything.

8:07I just was like, I kind of like this little app. Well, in 2016, Instagram stories were released. Remember, like, you know Instagram stories now. I would get on and I would just talk. I would talk to parents and I'd be like, okay, let me tell you a sleep myth. For example, never wake a sleeping baby. That's a myth. And then I would tell them about it. And the more I talked, they were like, I want more. And I'm like, well, I have this class. Do you want this class? and that Instagram grew my business. Like I have to tell you until 2021, I never spent one penny on marketing. I just showed up on Instagram.

8:48And like I said, you help one mom, she'll tell 10 of her best friends. So that's how it grew, word of mouth and Instagram.

8:57Kara Goldin:That's so wild. What was the first sign that you really had a business at this point? Was it, I guess before you went on Instagram, you were growing this business in Phoenix. I mean, there was, you know, lots of people coming to you saying, do you have a class in Boston? Do you, can you fit me into this class? But what was the moment that you said, gosh, like, I mean, it's, I would imagine at this point, you almost wish you had competition, right? You're just like, you know, I want somebody who's good, who can serve, right? Because that's what you really wanted to do. Right. So funny because even today I'm like, oh, this is a business.

9:43This is a business. I'll tell you what would happen. I would go into mom's homes and I would help them. And then they would like go to write me a check or hand me money. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, really. It's okay. You don't have to pay me. Like I had a hard time accepting money because I'm like, really? I'm just here to help you. And so, you know, I'm going to tell you, I think the day, which this is a really late sign that you have a business. The day that a member of my team came to me and she said, Kara, 10 ,000 families got one of our classes this month, 10 ,000 families. And I'm like, what?

10:27I think that's a pretty good sign. Like you have a business, right? And then the next month, 10 ,000 different families bought my class. And the next month, so I was like, okay, okay. And I also think when it started growing to the point where it's like, it can't just be me. I need a team. And that's when it's like, okay, this is real. I have to tell you, even my husband thought like, I just had this little side hobby where I just really like to help people. And I finally had to sit him down and go, no, no, look, this is a real business here. So I think he gets it out.

11:03Kara Goldin:I love it. So you've worked with millions of families. What's the most common misconception parents have about baby sleep? Oh, if there was one thing that I could like break this misconception, it would be this. I don't want you to have a nap schedule just so you can say, I have the best nap schedule. I don't want you to have a good sleeper just so you're chained at home. Our mission at Taking Care of Babies is we help babies and toddlers sleep, and this is the clincher, so families can thrive. And so I don't want you chained at home to your nap schedule. I want you to have a good sleeper so you can take that baby and go meet your friend for lunch and you have this happy baby and you have this happy parent, this mom who's like, no, I'm enjoying parenthood and I'm well rested and we're connected and bonded because we're all sleeping well.

12:07So the biggest misconception is that it's about a schedule or it's about sleep. Taking care of babies is so much bigger than sleep. It's about thriving in life. That's what I want for every family. I love it.

12:23Kara Goldin:So you launched your first ever physical product starting with swaddles this year. So exciting and they're so awesome. So why now? I would imagine many people asked you to do this earlier, but how did you decide to start with the swaddle, but then also like why now? In my newborn class, I teach about swaddling. We know that when you take a newborn, and you swaddle them, it mimics the womb, right? They feel like they're in the womb. Well, when they feel like they're in the womb, that's familiar. So they sleep better. And so it's something I've always taught is swaddling, safe sleep and swaddling.

13:08And they're like over the past 13, 14 years, I've become a resource for parents. They'll ask me like, Kara, what's the best bassinet? What's the best sound machine? What's the best swaddle? And so it's been my job to stay up to date on the latest baby products and know what's good. And let me tell you, with swaddles, there are a lot of great swaddles on the market. A lot of great ones that I've recommended over the years. But every time I'd be like, okay, I really love this swaddle, but I wish it had this. Or this swaddle is great, except for this. And then there's this swaddle, and I really love it, but not this part.

13:50And so one day, truly, I was just, I guess, complaining to my sister. And I was like, you know, just none of them are exactly what I want. And she's like, so why don't you make your own? And I'm, huh, why don't I? And, you know, as a mom, you probably know this. I hit a stage in life where all four of my kids are now kind of independent. it. Like the youngest was driving. You know, that's a big life change for you, right? When your youngest starts driving. So I noticed I had a little bit more time. I'm like, oh, I would love to make a swaddle. And so I surrounded myself with people who knew all about that because I didn't know the first thing about bringing something to market like that.

14:40But I knew swaddling. And so I surrounded myself with people, started making it. Kara, I have to tell you, our timeline was, you know, about nine months. Took us 18 months. 18 months. You want to know why? Because I was like, no, I will not bring a swaddle to the market unless it's the best swaddle on the market. And so they would show me and I would go, okay, I like it, but not this. And I like it, but nope, Nope, it's got to be better. It's got to be the best on the market, guys. If I'm bringing this to market, it's got to be the best on the market. So I wanted to get it just right. So it took a while.

15:20Kara Goldin:What was it that you, like, what was the painful part of building it? And like, what did you change and finally say, okay, green light, let's go. Okay. Well, so there were kind of four things. And it's, I call it, like, the name is called the best swaddle, B-E-S-T. And so B is buttery soft. Like I wanted you to feel this swaddle and go, oh my gosh, this, I wanted it to be an emotional experience. Like you're wrapping your baby in this. It better be like feel luxurious, right? So buttery soft. E, easy. It had to be easy. It's 3 a.m. and you're trying to swaddle a baby. I didn't want anything complicated.

16:03S is silent. The Velcro is literally silent. And here's what I saw in so many swaddles. They're so noisy. It's, you know, that big rip. And at 3 a.m. makes babies do this. And it makes parents go, oh my gosh, they hated it. So I'm like, okay, it's got to be silent. And then, so B is buttery soft. E is easy. S is silent. T, three ways to swaddle. I wanted it to be, I wanted you to have different options. So for example, I live in Phoenix. It's 115 degrees today. Swaddling a baby, it's hot. So one part of it is just, you can just swaddle their arms. Or a lot of babies become Houdini babies. They bust out of every swaddle known to man.

16:51I wanted to have one that was breakout proof. I also wanted just a quick and easy just option that could be there. So there's three different ways to use it. So that was the challenge. Like I had these standards and I was not compromising on it and they had to meet all of those. So my team was so great. I have the best team and they were like, okay, well, we hear you. It's got to be the best. Okay. We hear the standards and they just worked with me and it took us a while, but I'm like, I am not compromising. We're going to have the best swaddle on the market.

17:24Kara Goldin:I love it. Well, they are so buttery soft and so amazing. So I love what you've built. What was it like moving from just being an educational content company to, I guess, product development? I mean, you're in the early stages of it, but how challenging was that? I have to tell you, I didn't know I would love it. Like, I know babies. I know products. But what I love is listening to parents. Parents will tell you their pain points, right? They'll tell you, I don't like this. I don't like that. I love this. I want this. And so I love that. I love hearing from parents, like, this is what we want.

18:10And then taking my expertise as a NICU nurse, a labor and delivery nurse, and combining it to make the best product possible. Let me tell you though, with the swaddle, here's the other thing that I love. You have a physical product, but on that physical product, on my swaddle, there's this little QR code. And of course it shows you how to do the swaddle. Every product shows you how to use it. But I took it a step further. I'm like, oh no, no, no, no. What if you swaddle your baby and they instantly start crying? They hate to be swaddled. Let me teach you. So my swaddle comes with a little mini sleep class and I show you how to take this swaddle, swaddle your baby up, and if they're crying, what do you do?

18:54And I show you how to literally, on camera, you'll watch, it's just, I think it's an 18 minute little video, you can watch and this baby goes from crying to literally asleep in the bassinet with the swaddle. And so it's like, oh, you get a swaddle, but you also get the education. And so to take a physical product and combine it with education. That's what I want. I want parents. I didn't do this just so you could have one more product to clutter your home, right? I wanted them to feel confident and I wanted them to have physical tools and educational tools to help them. So it's been really a match made in heaven, the physical and the digital.

19:35Kara Goldin:So you've created this amazing, amazing company built around something that you're really good at. And, you know, you've got a gut for it and you're teaching others happiness. And I mean, it must be so fulfilling. And, you know, I'm sure there's super hard parts of it. You've built an incredible team. But I think what you've done is really, you know, all about entrepreneurship, right? And I'm sure my guess is you never considered yourself to be an entrepreneur. Maybe somebody said, oh my gosh, you've started a company, you're an entrepreneur, but you're like, wait, is that what I'm doing? I mean, I'm a nurse, right?

20:21Kara Goldin:And I do what I love doing. Can you talk about that and how, I guess, how it's grown into it's grown into you and sort of what you're what you're doing today yes i you know i think when you the passion comes out of you when it's like no you have a fire in your soul like fire in your chest where you're like i can make a difference in the lives of people when that's pouring out of you you can't help but to impact the lives of other people and that's ultimately what I want. I heard it say like, okay, where your passion and your talents intersect, that intersection is your sweet spot. And that's what this is.

21:11Like I have a passion to impact the lives of new parents. That's my passion. Well, my talent is educating new parents, is taking medical knowledge and teaching. And so that passion and that talent where they intersect, that's your sweet spot. And so for any entrepreneur out there, I would say, this is what worked for me. Instead of trying to like build a business or make revenue or have a business plan, it was an overflow of passion and surrounding yourself with people who are strong where you're weak. I think that's, that's what it was about for me.

21:53Kara Goldin:Yeah, definitely. So when you think about, you know, you've, you built your business, as you mentioned on Instagram, I mean, built it first in person, but then took it online. You've got a lot of people who love what you're doing. You're always going to run into the haters, right? That, and that's with any entrepreneur, you're launching a product, you believe in what you're doing, and you're going to run into the haters. What would you say to a founder that maybe is dealing with this today? I mean, you don't even have to be a founder to get those people that are on your back and being negative about whatever you're doing.

22:40Kara Goldin:But what would you say about that? You know, let me tell you, my sweet friend, Daryl Ann Denner, actually, she was on your podcast. Yeah. Her and I were talking and she said to me, she said, Kara, I saw this sign, this picture on the wall and it was a great white shark, great white shark. And it said, to be great means to be misunderstood. And she said to me, because I was talking to her about this, she said, okay, you can be here in the middle where everybody likes you, right? If that's where you want to be, be there. or you can choose to go impact lives, make a great impact. What do you want?

23:21You need to pick one. Do you want to be liked or do you want to make a great impact? And I was like, I want to make a great impact. And she said, okay. So that means not everybody's going to like you. Lean into that. Lean into that. The bigger impact you make, the more people don't like you. Are you okay with that? And in that moment, I'm like, yes. because my mission is so much bigger than people liking me. I want to change lives. I want parents who feel like I'm at the end of my rope. I am struggling with postpartum depression. I'm struggling with postpartum anxiety. I can't stand my partner because I'm so freaking sleep deprived.

24:02Isn't that funny how we turn on each other when we're exhausted like that? I want them to know, no, no, no, there's hope. because changing lives to me is so much greater than people liking me.

24:18Kara Goldin:So when you think about kind of the life cycle of your consumer, and many of them are having a second baby and going, maybe this next baby is not a sleeper versus the first one maybe was a lot easier to kind of get under control. But beyond that, it seems like you have a huge opportunity in front of you to actually help people beyond the swaddling. Where do you think taking care of babies goes from here? Is it taking care of toddlers? Is it taking care of mom? Taking care of, you know, there's so many directions that you could go in. Well, let me tell you, the business kind of did go in that direction.

25:06Like, I'm a baby nurse, right? And so I was like, I do babies. I do babies. And about three years ago, we crossed over to toddlers. So it's taking care of babies and we help toddlers now. That's come from just listening to parents. Like, Kara, I didn't find you until I had a three-year-old or a four-year-old. Like, we need help. And I was always like, not toddlers. I can do babies. but not toddler. Toddler, it becomes about behavior, right? And so it was a little different, but we leaned in and we're doing toddlers and we're helping parents with toddler sleep too. But as far as the future, like what's next for taking care of babies?