Kaile Hunt 0:09
Maternity leaves comes with a lot of ups and downs, from baby's first bath to waking up every two hours during the night, navigating witching hour and so much more when your maternity leave comes to an end. Many women stress about the work life balance when becoming a mother. Today, we will be discussing how to navigate motherhood as a working mom. Thanks for joining us. This is newbies.

Kaile Hunt 1:06
Welcome to newbies. My name is Kaile Hunt, and I'll be your host today. If you haven't already, be sure to visit our website, at New mommy media.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, which keeps you updated on all the episodes we release each week. Another great way to stay updated is to hit that subscribe button in your podcast app, and if you're looking for a way to get even more involved with our show, then check out our online community. It's called Mighty moms. That's where we chat more about the topics discussed here on our show, and it's also an easy way to learn about our recording. So you can join us live. Our expert today is Garrett wood, because Myers, Garrett story is one of a transformation, resilience and creativity before becoming a mom and launching her newest venture, cozy, cozy, a store focused on birthing products, she did something incredibly bold. She wrote and published a novel, dare to move in 2018 inspired by true events in her own life. This began her creative journey, which later led to the launching of the dare to move podcast now the cozy, cozy podcast so Garrett, thank you for joining us today. Please tell our listeners where you guys are located and more about yourself.

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 2:12
Thank you so much for having me. I am actually located north of Boston in New Hampshire, so not super far from the city, but still close to people, although we back up to about 1000 acres of wood. So we have this really interesting balance of city and woods access. I have a son who is almost four, and I don't have any other kids yet, but I've been on a really, really, really awful fertility journey, and the amount of time it has taken me through IVF and all these things and the intensity of IVF, I feel like I have a second because of just the fertility journey itself. Oh

Kaile Hunt 2:53
yes, definitely. I struggled conceiving my first daughter. I just have one kid as well. And it's so interesting, because you don't know, like, what infertility is until you're like, in the deep trenches, right? Because you just think growing up like, Oh yeah, I'm just gonna have a baby and then become a mom, and it's gonna be so easy. And for a lot of women, it's not. So I can totally relate with you on that aspect. And so even on top of that, you think of, right, becoming a mother. And for some women who it's a hard process to become a mother, and then you want to go back to work, right, which is our topic today. So walk me through a little bit about, you know, you get pregnant with your son, you have him, and then you're like, Okay, work life balance, you know? I mean, like, you work so hard to have this baby and then, but you also want your own career. Talk to me a little bit about your career,

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 3:39
yeah, so I have been an entrepreneur since day one my first job out of college, I took my lunch break and filed my first LLC. I've always known that I wanted the flexibility and freedom to not be tied down to a nine to five, but with choosing that freedom comes a ton of responsibility and building your own path. And so I had what I'd call a portfolio lifestyle from 2014 up until I gave birth in 2021, and right before I gave birth, right? Yeah, I would say during I was pregnant during the pandemic, and that shifted a lot for a lot of people, but the one thing that I let go of during the pandemic was teaching in person fitness classes at Barry's boot camp. And so I had no I had didn't have to be anywhere, which was nice. And so I knew I was walking into having a baby with the flexibility of seeing my I was a coach for 10 years, mindset, life coaching, business consulting, and I knew I could make my own hours. And so I whittled myself down to just two clients, and I told them that I would be able to text them. I wouldn't promise a response, you know, in 12 or 24 hours, but that they could text me for the first four to five weeks of my son being here, but that I would not be doing any meetings, no sessions, no four. Normal sessions, and so I gave myself that grace period, and then in the end of week five, I had these two one hour sessions, and it felt like chaos just trying to figure out how to fit this one hour block into my day. Was a newborn. It was way harder than I thought, and so I kind of worked them back into my life, and by the time my son was four and a half months old, I think I had eight clients. Wow. That was intense. And I thought I had had the idea for cozy, cozy. It kind of struck me like lightning in the middle of the night, my third night home from the hospital. But I knew that in order to build an entirely new venture. I had to be totally sourced and resourced from postpartum, so I really didn't take action on that until my son was 18 months old. So from four months to 18 months, I was just seeing clients on my time, whether that was 6am or 8pm or when I had a sitter once a week for four hours, I kind of worked my way into seeing my clients and feeling really good about that. And my husband was like, it was great. I don't know why you changed it and decided to do the hardest thing ever, but I had the calling, so I had to listen to that.

Kaile Hunt 6:11
Oh, I love that. Yeah. Well, I'm so excited to dive more deep into your business and more work life balance tips, but first we're gonna take a quick break. You.

Today we're discussing work life balance and becoming a mother, so jumping right back into it. I want to know more about your maternity leave. I love that you set boundaries for yourself, right? Because you work for yourself. And so what were those boundaries? Like you mentioned earlier that you had two clients. When were you kind of ready to take on more clients? And how were your clients, you know, willing to work with you? I know a lot of people are so willing to work with new mothers, but like, how did the boundaries look like? And then, when were you ready to take on more?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 6:53
Yeah, I wanted to just experience four weeks of, like, not having to open my laptop if I didn't need to. And I realized I had never experienced that, and so it was actually kind of nice to have the two clients in the waiting and because they did actually want to text me and needed my support. And I found it nice when my son was napping to actually have something real to sink my teeth into. Again, a couple texts a week is really not a big deal, but I did also set a boundary with my podcast. I had banked enough episodes that they would run through the first I want to say at least, at least six weeks of his life. And I told myself, if I want to record something, I will, but otherwise I'm open to not returning to my podcast until he's six months old. So I gave myself that grace period. I did record a podcast with my husband on the birth story because I had a like the worst birth story ever, and it was a four day long birth, and I just wanted to debrief it before I forgot some of the details. So we did that. But I my business was always so lucky to be kind of fueled by word of mouth, and so I had just an influx of clients around four months, and I just took the calls if it worked with my schedule. And just my husband has a really flexible like he works from like nine to 430 and has an hour lunch break and works from home. So I was really lucky to have his help. I could take a call at 8am because he didn't have to work till nine. I could take the call at 430 and still have a 530 dinner. So I was, it was really, really nice. I did feel a little overwhelmed. At about seven months postpartum, I had, I'm gonna say, like almost 12 clients. That was like a lot, and I purposely whittled it down into the, I guess, the second year of my son's life, because we were also getting married. So I was like, Okay, I have a lot going on. And I whittled it. As soon as I whittled it down, I was like, Oh, my God, I'm bored. And then I started cozy, cozy. So you are

Kaile Hunt 8:51
just a natural, that is my next question. Literally, is what led you to start cozy, cozy. So now you have a thriving business, right? You're helping your clients, and now you're like, Hmm, I need to do more. Tell me about cozy, cozy, and what exactly is it? It really

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 9:06
made no sense to start, but that's, I guess, how it starts. I am so I walked into postpartum after four days of not sleeping through a four day long birth. So I was pretty traumatized. I wish it wasn't my truth, but it was just such an awful birth. And when I got home thinking, okay, I can finally rest and recover, my milk came in, and I went from I joke a not memorable B cup to like a Triple G, and my double E bra that I had ended my pregnancy with didn't fit, and I was leaking everywhere. And so people kept saying, Oh, well, just like, put pads in your bra. And I was like, Well, my bra is too tight, and I've never slept in a bra in my whole life. And now, when I'm in the most pain I've ever been in through chapped, raw nipples, I'm supposed to put a real bra on and stuff paper in it. Basically like, that sounds awful. So I was. My bras didn't fit. I didn't have the mental capacity to go bra shopping. My camis were too tight and leaving red marks. So I slipped on a towel and I'm like, I'm like, the most vulnerable I've ever been. And after changing my sheets three days in a row from leaking everywhere and sweating postpartum sweats, I was like, the fact that I'm sleeping on a towel in 2021 when hundreds of 1000s of women have given birth years, you know, years before me. Like, why is this a thing? And I just, like, flagged it. I was like, if I could invent a diaper for my boobs, I would like a disposable bra that's absorbent, you know, hygienic, all the things. You know, we don't think twice about throwing away the hospital underwear that they give us. Like, why not have that for your boobs? So I sat on it and it I had spent, you know, also five or not five, four years up to that point, podcasting and interviewing founders and listening to these stories of people who had either invented things or just really created products and put them out into the world. And I think I had, like, a lust for it, like I thought it was super sexy, and I really wanted to do it. And I'm like, Well, I have an idea. I have white space in the market. The fact that there's white space and the in the birth space is ridiculous, because we're all here because someone gave birth to us. So yeah, it makes no sense. And I was like, okay, so I just started talking about it a lot. I talked about it with a ton of my friends. One of my friends who's been on this, on my podcast is a self made billionaire, and I remember telling him the idea, and he didn't, you know, I didn't say, like, You're crazy. Like, he just looked at me with like, a straight face, and was like, you know, just make sure you can protect it. I would get a patent, you know, you want to tell investors how you can keep it safe and keep it, you know, keep your intellectual property safe. And he was basically like, like, hearing him look me, like, in the eye with a straight face and be like, Yeah, go for it. I was like, I have to do this. And so that was it. So we just that cozy cozies. Our mission is to bring comfort to moms, and we build every single product with the intention of reducing medicine stress so that mom can better bond with baby. Because part of my trauma around my son's birth was that I was so focused on, like, literal personal hygiene needs, that I bond with my baby because I'm leaking everywhere. I was just like, this makes no sense, and I knew I had to do it. And so here we are. I love

Kaile Hunt 12:13
that. Geez, you took me back. My daughter is almost two, and I vividly remember, like, the first what is it like four to six weeks when you're leaking. Like, I didn't. I never wear bras at home ever, and so I didn't change when I, you know, got pregnant and had a baby. But I would just like, literally, go through my husband's T shirts. Like, he would just have a T shirt I would wear it, leak through it, and then I, you know, that it like stains, because you're like, using, like, nipple cream. Then I would just like, you know, Chuck his old college T shirts. Like, that's just the process. That was my process. Um, yay. Okay, so I want to definitely hear more about your business and your products, but first I'm gonna take another quick break.

Welcome back. We are continuing our conversation with Garrett. So before the break, we were talking about your broad diapers. What is the correct terminology for I want to learn more about it, and where can people buy them? How did you think of them? I want to know more about the business aspect of it.

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 13:11
Yeah. I mean, the only thing I had ever created and like, built and sold before was a book. So I had no experience with creating a product. And so I literally Googled like, how do you create a product? Is there a company that can help me? And I found a company out of Austin, Texas that takes you from idea, you know, to through design, through sourcing materials, through finding the right factory partner globally. And I was like, Well, this sounds great. And so we got to work on it, thinking we would launch in summer of 2023 and news flash, it's 2025 and we're launching in two weeks. So I didn't know how really awful it would be to get the first this, you know, the nip. We call it the nipple diaper done. But we knew we didn't want it to be a bra like we didn't want it to lift shape and smooth. We wanted it to hug you, keep you dry and cozy and be a hygienic place for your nipples. Because we know that a lot of times women are sitting in like milk sopping, you know, bras or candies, and that's a really great place for thrush to develop. Yes, and thrush is not a fun thing to experience. And we also didn't want anything to potentially, like, we didn't want a mom to think about a cup size or worrying about what size because engorgement. You know, you can grow two sizes just through engorgement. So we call it the nipple diaper because we don't want the word bra in there. But obviously, when we were trying to describe it to someone who's never seen it, we're like, yeah, it's like a disposable bra, but again, not designed to lift, shape and smooth. It can hold up to 25 ml of leakage. So we imagine, like a Super League group like myself, like I might have changed mine once in the middle of the night, which is why they come in a pack of seven. And some people who we've had tested over the years were like, Oh, it was great. Like I actually thought. One woman said, I thought my milk dried up when I woke up, because I didn't feel the milk all over me, and I was worried. And then she's like, but then I just realized, like I wasn't sleeping in a T shirt. I was like a nipple, which was pretty cool to hear. So we knew that we wanted to start in the postpartum phase and build a suite of products, and then work backwards towards fertility. So go postpartum, pregnancy, fertility, and along the way, we got done with a really, really, really amazing nipple bomb in the short term that has been out now for almost a year and a half. It's called nip gloss. And the cap opens with one hand, so that moms can, you know, mommy, we do everything with one hand.

Kaile Hunt 15:37
Yeah, non dominant hand too, of course, literally, literally. And so

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 15:42
the nipple bomb, called nip gloss, it actually glides on like a gloss with a ceramic applicator, but it heals and hydrates like a bomb, which is really, really nice because it's a lot it's mess free, which is our intention, and it's organic and non toxic, and, you know, has all the clean ingredients that you could want and need in a nipple bomb. But we were really excited to kind of have that be our Trojan horse, to break out into the market, to meet people, to seed product. Because a lot of people, like, you know what a nipple bomb is, but you don't know what a nipple diaper is. So we were like, how can we get people to know who we are by way of a product that's, you know, it's not that novel, per se, but we have our innovative spin on it, which is the capital wins with one hand and it glides on, versus having to dunk your finger in a jar and then try to find something to wipe it off on, because you're probably in bed. So anyway, we've been selling that now. It's on Amazon if you need it same day, if your nipples are chafed, like right now as you're listening to this, or you can find it on our website, and we're also on several other platforms. We're on Walmart. We're on a company called suret, which is pregnancy like safety. They basically do all the vetting for new moms, so they don't have to, like, double check the ingredients, like, you just kind of know it's safe and clean and like, a bunch of box companies like progo box or bump boxes, stuff like that. So we're making our way out there, but we're still very, very new, and it's just been really exciting to work in a space that literally changed my life. I mean, I'm sure all the listeners, oh, but becoming your becoming a mom, changes your life and in so many ways. And so it's really fun to play and create in that space. Oh,

Kaile Hunt 17:20
I love it. And I love that your shop. I'm actually on your website right now. It's like a one stop shop. Honestly, you can get your nipple diaper plus your nip gloss. I went through so much until your breast milk stabilizes. Kind of crazy. That's something I just didn't even think I needed, you know, right? Like you hear and I feel like for again, I've had my daughter. She's almost two, so that was a while ago. You really do forget, like the first six weeks, because it's such a blur. Your body is healing from birthing a baby. You know, no matter how you birth, whether it was vaginally or C section, your body still has to heal. And then you literally have this newborn who's not sleeping, and then you have your husband who wants to help. But then it's just, it's so chaotic. Anyway, this is bringing me back, and this is so helpful. I vividly remember, yeah, like, getting out of the shower putting on some, like, you know, gloss or whatever, on my nipples, because they were, like, chapped and red. And I'm like, Okay, wait, but now I have to, you know, feed my daughter. And, oh, no, it's almost bedtime. Should I put on my bra or not it? Yeah, this is a one stop shop. Love it. Switching gears. Let's talk about your podcast. And the beautiful thing, Hello, we're on a podcast now is that episodes don't go away. So whether you're recording new episodes or not, tell us a little bit more about your podcast and what you guys talk about over there.

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 18:35
Yeah, the cozy, cozy podcast is a place where we talk about birth and business, the easiest ways to frame it. I know so many mompreneurs and so many companies similar to ours that were forged, you know, by fire, moms going through problems, and moms saying, okay, like, why similar to me? Like, why am I still dealing with this problem? And so we really mix that, yeah, business and birth, and women who are birthing products and birthing humans, kind of all in the same season of life. We've had a few men on that are in the mommy baby space as well, who and some who work with their wives, which is pretty cool. I actually started the podcast in 2018 because I had published my book that year, and I was so tired of writing and blogging that I was like, All right, I'm starting a podcast. And so when I started cozy cozy in 2022 I just changed the name so that there'd be some, you know, brand recognition, and zoomed in a little bit more on the birth space. But prior to it being called cozy, cozy, I just because I had been pregnant and I had been documenting a lot of my life on the podcast, I was always alternating between solo cast, which would support my coaching work that I could send out to clients, and then interviews with other coaches and other entrepreneurs. And like I said, a lot of founders and people who I looked up to.

Kaile Hunt 19:56
well, that's awesome. We'll definitely link that in our show notes to check. It out, and we have more questions coming up for Garrett, but first, let's take one of our last breaks.

Welcome back to newbies. We are continuing our conversation with work life balance as a new mother speaking to Garrett and so I want to flip this section to be more like inspiring for the new moms who are in the trenches right now, right? So what tips do you have, I guess, walk me through some instances in your life where you know you're in the trenches, you're in maternity leave is coming up, and you know you want to get back to work, or you know you want to take on more clients. What tips do you have for moms to kind of get in the good head space? And I really want to touch on mom guilt, right? Like I had mom guilt. I think I went back to work at 12 weeks postpartum, and it was part time, but just mom guilt to, like, do something for yourself and for your family. That's not, you know, 100% for your kid. You know, like I wasn't changing every diaper anymore. You know, my husband was picking up slack. What tips do you have for moms and you know, who are having these thoughts right now.

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 21:02
I think for me, I had to remind myself that it's kind of not to, like, spiritually bypass it, but it's sort of a psychological phase that I think our brain is biologically hardwired to do. So one of the things I primed my brain for, like, before I gave birth, was that, you know, I think it's 80% of women will experience the baby blues. Now, the baby blues are not postpartum depression or anxiety, but they can feel like it. They just pass more quickly. And it's, it's literally the product of your hormones bottoming out and shifting in the way that, you know, I'm not a scientist to explain, but we know that there's a massive hormonal shift, you know, in the week or so after you you give birth. So I was like, Okay, I know that's gonna happen. So if I get really weepy, like I'm gonna do this. And I think if I could go back, I would tell myself that, like, you can literally feel guilty for feeling lonely when you're next to a newborn. You can feel guilty for taking too long of a shower. You can feel guilty about going back to work. Like it's it's a thing that you're a mechanism I think our brain does to keep us as closely connected at to the baby as possible, because it's literally how our humanity survives. So I always try to put it into these like these physiological or biological things that I know to be true, because I know that I'm not alone in experiencing it. Because I think when we feel alone, it's very, very scary and isolating and kind of to that point. I also think trying to if you know you're someone who doesn't want to feel lonely, or you know you're someone that forgets who you are, if you're not with your friends, or conversely, really, really, really needs alone time, like, try to set yourself up for that before you even go into your postpartum days. Because I think if you feel nourished when you're not working, you'll go back to work feeling better. If you completely run yourself ragged postpartum, you're not going to enter work and feel energized to do work, it's going to probably feel even harder. And I think I was kind of because I didn't have a formal return to office where I had to separate from my baby for more than I think one time I did, like, three hours in a row back to back with meetings like, because I knew I wasn't going to fully separate. I didn't have that looming over me. But what I did have was severe loneliness, because I moved during the pandemic when I was pregnant, so I had no friends and no community. And for me, it was finding Actually, I didn't expect it to come this way, but I found community through going to baby gymnastics, and that was so helpful for me to just have an outlet there. And also work was an outlet, for sure, but I was working for my basement in my house. I wasn't going to an office where I could talk to people and kind of feel like totally like a normal, a human I was, you know, still in pajamas and seeking breast milk and all of that. So I guess, I guess setting yourself up, getting to know yourself during pregnancy as much as you can, and really asking for support from your community, from your family, from your partner, before hints that you have these sort of guardrails up to protect yourself of what you know you're going to need, and even if you aren't sure, just plan, plan ahead, just in case,

Kaile Hunt 24:09
most definitely. And I love like podcasts like yours, like this one, where we're literally just telling people our experiences, keeping it real, giving tips. I wish I listened to this when I was pregnant, right? That way I can prepare myself, but if you are in maternity leave, absolutely agree. I also think it's really smart to just give yourself some time too. And what I was told, which was really helpful, and I returned to work part time and gradually, and I worked from home too. So it would start with, you know, let me work two hours a week, right? Let me just block out this time from like 6pm to 8pm which was my daughter's witching hour. So I got a little break in the early days. But then, you know, it gradually grew to like, Okay, let me get four hours. Let me get, you know, four hours two days a week, you know. And so my husband would take over. If my mom was visiting us, she would help out and. I think for me, it worked to gradually start, you know, taking on more projects and working more often, because what I hear a lot of moms do, especially moms who work from home or have their own businesses, is they literally burn themselves out because they're doing everything during the kid's nap time or when, you know, baby goes to bed, but then, you know, most kids wake up throughout the night, especially in the first year. You know, sleep training and sleep for infants is a whole different topic, you know. And so, you know, I just, I hear a lot of new moms burn themselves out, especially when they do work from home and they have to take on, you know, extra projects, and they're, you know, doing it during that time, doing it when the baby falls asleep, and it's like, you don't have any me time, and that's also really important exactly gradually increasing what projects you do. So let's say you have to return back at eight weeks, start doing some stuff at six weeks, seven weeks, test it out. I think that is so so important. Next question really is, where can our listeners find you? So where is your podcast? Is it on all podcast platforms? Apple, Spotify. And then, do you have any social media that you can shout out, that maybe our listeners can follow you?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 26:08
Yeah, so we're cozy. Cozy podcast is anywhere you can find a podcast for sure. And then our Instagram handle is cozy, cozy mama, and it's spelled K, o z, E, K, O, z, E, Mama, my handle is Garrett N wood, which is my maiden name, N for Nicole. And we've been, I'm so sad. We're we've really been growing on tick tock, which is cozy, cozy. Mama. I've been documenting all my fertility journey there. And you know, we're recording this before we know what happens with the band, so CBD, but we do have a Tiktok account where we're posting a lot. How interesting

Kaile Hunt 26:45
this will be dated. We'll see when it comes out, whether our listeners can prove us wrong or right. Well, any other helpful tips you want to bring out for parents? This has been a great episode. I love talking to moms, working moms, because I know when I at least was in maternity leave, and like, waiting to return, I just was stressed about it. I was irrationally stressed, and I didn't even put my kid in daycare. So I know that's a whole another issue, um, that moms go through with the stress of, like, you know, dropping their kid off. But I just remember being so stressed about returning to work and not putting myself first, but then also not putting my daughter first. So any last little tips you have for moms to kind of wrap this episode up?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz 27:25
Yeah, I mean, I think that it's very fair to be anxious whether you're going back to work full time or you're worried about how working for yourself is going to work with the baby at home. But if there's anything I've learned about postpartum, it's that babies are like literal grounding tools. They can feel when we're anxious. They will cry louder until we come into the present moment. And so trying to stay present. They're such a they're such a gift of the present moment, because they need you now, like when they need you. And so sort of understanding that dynamic of how much they need you, and trying to be present for that, because time is so fleeting. I know it's cheesy to say, like soak it up, but it's not only to soak it up, but to realize that, like literally being present solves everything, because nothing else exists in that moment. And so carving out time to be present will keep you feeling more grounded. And the more grounded we are, the more level headed we are for anything we have to tackle. And so instead of seeing your baby as something that's like distracting, it's like, maybe they're distracting you from your anxiety or something you feel like you have to do or worrying about the future, but they're just a call to be in the present before you, you know, get taken out of the present in work. So I always just look at it as my toddler, my baby, my infant, all the different phases. He's my personal grounding tool. He keeps me grounded. It keeps me level headed, and it's actually made me better at everything else I do in life, because I get so many moments and pure presence with

Kaile Hunt 28:49
I love that. I could talk to you forever. This is awesome. We definitely will. I want to have you back on the show and we can dive into other fun moth topics. But thank you so much for joining us today. This has been great, and that wraps up our show for today. Thanks for listening. If you love newbies as much as we do, please consider checking out the amazing businesses that sponsor our show week after week. And we'd also love for you to tell another new momma about this resource, which, of course, is absolutely free. And if you want to check out some of our other podcasts we produce, such as preggy pals, parent savers, boob group and twin talks, then visit our website at New mommy media.com and don't forget to follow us on Instagram for more information, giveaways and more. Our handle is at New Mommy Media thanks for listening to newbies.

Disclaimer 29:49
This has been a New Mommy Media production. The information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. So. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media, and should not be considered facts while such information and materials are believed to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional medical advice or care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating healthcare problem or disease or prescribing any medication. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider you.