The Moms Behind The Guardian Sleeper®
Carol Betz
After graduating from Abraham Moss College in Manchester, England, Carol, a British native, lectured for two years at Bradford and Ilkley Community College. She was instrumental in rewriting much of the course material in her department before moving to the United States in 1985 to become an owner and key resource in the start-up of a new telecommunications company, LoAd Communications. Carol remained with LoAd Communications for nine years, where her roles included those of vice president, technical director and sales and marketing liaison. She worked with companies such as Paramount Pictures, Coca Cola and MTV.
Carol also worked for an elite group at AT&T for several years, specializing in sales and marketing. She worked closely with companies such as Hewlett Packard, Gateway and Franklin Covey and won numerous gold and platinum awards for her work. Carol moved to ACI in 2002 to create a new division and new source of revenue for the company. This division, which became profitable almost immediately, steered the company on a course which allowed them to merge with the U.S. Billing Industry leader.
SIDS Prevention
Once she became a new mom in late 2002, Carol opted to sell her contract back to ACI in order to stay at home with her daughter, Jessica, and partner with Nicola Pieters in starting their own company - Mommy’s Little Helpers - where she and Nicola could develop products that would fill the gaps they, as new mothers, had discovered in the baby and toddler market, products that address the issue of SIDS and a new baby.
Nicola Pieters
Nicola graduated from West Suffolk College, England, in 1990 with a diploma in business and finance. She has been self-employed for the majority of her career, running a successful hairdressing enterprise in the U.K. Nicola moved to the United States in 1997 to pursue her goals. Immediately upon arriving in the US, she and her husband purchased a failing food service business and within six months converted it to a thriving concern which they later sold in 2000 for a considerable profit.
Nicola has been researching child comfort and safety since well before the birth of her son, Austin, in 2002, with a view to developing those products currently unavailable in the marketplace. She and Carol Betz decided to pool their resources in early 2003 to maximize productivity, and Mommy’s Little Helpers was born.
SIDS and New Moms
As Carol and Nicola started working together and addressing the challenges they faced as new moms, they developed a shared passion and desire to help other new moms avoid the stresses they had experienced.
Bedtime Anxiety
Each had experienced bedtime anxiety due to their babies kicking their covers off or over their heads, waking up too hot or too cold or getting themselves into compromising positions such as a limb through the crib bars or a face against the bumpers. These concerns, along with the niggling fear of SIDS, spurred them on to design and patent the Guardian Sleeper®, an innovative one-piece cover and positioner that ‘snuggles’ a baby to promote increased sleep while reducing the risk of SIDS and the symptoms of reflux.
SIDS Research
They spent over two years in research and development, ensuring that the Guardian Sleeper® met all the American Academy of Pediatrics' guidelines and those laid out by the 'Back to Sleep' campaign and going on to have the sleeper hospital and SIDS institute tried and tested.
