I don’t plan to make this blog a clas­sic prod­uct review plat­form — there are enough good ones out there doing that already. 

But I do plan to share inspi­ra­tional sto­ries of other suc­cess­ful Mumpre­neurs and their prod­uct or ser­vice. First and fore­most, I sim­ply feel tremen­dous respect for what they have accom­plished. I know from my own expe­ri­ence that suc­ceed­ing in prod­uct devel­op­ment, brand­ing, estab­lish­ing an IP port­fo­lio, con­vinc­ing part­ners and poten­tial cus­tomers of your idea, sourc­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers, going to trade fairs and, last but not least, rais­ing the cap­i­tal needed is a daunt­ing and 360 degree chal­lenge. So, these Mumpre­neurs deserve pub­lic­ity and that we help spread the word about them. I also sim­ply feel extremely encour­aged and inspired, as they are liv­ing proof that they can be done! I hope they will inspire you as much.

Today, I would like to put Solvej Bid­dle in the spot­light. She’s a clas­sic Mumpre­neur and has built her busi­ness while rais­ing two chil­dren, now aged 6 and 4. She is the inven­tor behind Content&Calm Cot­Canopy, which already is sell­ing well in the UK mar­ket. The Cot­Canopy is a clever baby sleep solu­tion; con­sist­ing of a light-weight canopy  that you can mount over your baby’s travel cot, to cre­ate an instant night time feel­ing. It will allow your child to stick to its rou­tine and sleep well wher­ever you go. Check out the video where Solvej explains in her own words what the Cot­Canopy is all about. The awards and press cov­er­age has come rolling in dur­ing 2009, the Cot­Canopy is sold online and also stocked at some major UK retail­ers. Solvej is now busy with expand­ing into sis­ter prod­ucts such as a canopy for the car seat, and will expand into a full prod­uct range.

Solvej orig­i­nally had the idea for it in 2003 when she took her first child, Andrea-Anna, with her on trav­els and out­ings as a baby, and found her­self strug­gling to pro­vide a fit­ting and prac­ti­cal sleep­ing envi­ron­ment for her child. I’m sure you recog­nise the sit­u­a­tion: you are away at friends for din­ner on a summer’s evening and strug­gle with hang­ing up blan­kets for the win­dows to black­out the light. Or your baby wakes up at home in at 5 a.m on a summer’s morn­ing when the sun comes up, but nei­ther baby nor you has had any­where near the amount of sleep you need to feel rested. With the Cot­Canopy, this is no longer a chal­lenge, as the lit­tle one can enjoy his or her own per­sonal dark­ened and famil­iar envi­ron­ment, even when the lights are on or the room is light.

Obvi­ously, the Cot­Canopy first and fore­most helps to us as par­ents to pro­tect a lit­tle one’s pre­cious rou­tine and I think a reg­u­lar, good sleep is one of the num­ber one things we as par­ents all aim to pro­vide for our kids.

But impor­tantly, this prod­uct also has ben­e­fits for the rest of the fam­ily. It avoids putting every­one else in the room in the dark when baby needs a nap, and grants us that flex­i­bil­ity to travel or stay­ing with friends. In all hon­esty, at least I find that it does kind of took some of the fun out of the hol­i­day to turn out the lights at 19h30 while on hol­i­day, and spend the rest of the evening your­self fum­bling around a dark hotel room so that baby can sleep.

Now, that is my kind of prod­uct — it meets the needs of both the chil­dren and the adults in the fam­ily. It is use­ful, it has been designed to meet real needs. And it has been cre­ated and brought to mar­ket with pas­sion and perseverance.

That is inspi­ra­tional! Con­grat­u­la­tions and good luck Solvej.

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For a quick pimp of your reg­u­lar brew — sim­ply spice up the ground cof­fee before you actu­ally brew it. 

Not only do you get great flavoured cof­fee, you also fill your kitchen with intense fra­grances while you make it.

You can of course let your imag­i­na­tion run wild or sim­ply add that one favourite spice.

But if you need inspi­ra­tion, one win­ning com­bi­na­tion I can rec­om­mend is a pinch each of sugar, cin­na­mon, cocoa, anise seed and a pinch of dried orange peel.

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When brows­ing through my Google reader today, I stum­bled upon an irre­sistible pic­ture of the Noonie on Baby­gad­get.

The Noonie caught my eye as a smart and styl­ish baby swad­dle; designed and man­u­fac­tured by US Mumpre­neur and cre­ative designer Lalas Pequenos, based in Vir­ginia. It looks so cud­dly I almost feel inspired to try for another baby just to have an excuse to buy one.

Accord­ing to her pro­file, Lalas is the mother of two ‘very busy boys’ aged 7 and 8 and wants to cre­ate keep­sake, envi­ron­men­tally con­scious and entirely hand­crafted items which she sells online. What I was even more impressed by, how­ever, that this Mom not only man­ages her fam­ily as well as her busi­ness and makes gor­geous swad­dles. Along with her fam­ily and busi­ness part­ners, she also owns a 1500 acre pri­mary rain for­est in Costa Rica and a por­tion of all pro­ceeds from the Lala’s Pequeños line go to help pre­serve the Rain­maker Con­ser­va­tion Project.

In other words: she proves that Cor­po­rate Social Resposi­bil­ity is not a lux­ury, but also some­thing small busi­nesses can do. That is a word worth spreading!

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Some peo­ple  are very lucky — their friends have babies more or less at the same time, and they sim­ply con­tinue to social­ize in the same group they always did, only now with kids instead of without.

If that is you — con­grat­u­la­tions, you just got your­self your very own playgroup!

But some­times it is not that easy to find or form a play­group. Your friends might have kids, but they are already in school-age. If you are one of the first in your cir­cle of friends to have a baby, you might find your­self very much alone in the new role as mother or father: by all means, stay in touch with your pre-baby friends and col­leagues, but it is unlikely that they will take a morn­ing off work every week to hang out with you and your baby. And it is even less likely that they will feel the need that you do to dis­cuss feed­ing, dia­pers and how to choose a booster seat.  If you have relo­cated after hav­ing a child and are new to the area you live in, the chal­lenge is of course similar.

In other words: you sim­ply might not know any­one your age in your area who stays at home with kids. As many play­groups are very infor­mal, they don’t exactly post ads in the paper about when they meet. The good news are that if you start look­ing, you will find what you need, because there are many other par­ents out there in the same sit­u­a­tion — and whom you have a lot to offer. You just have to find each other! Here are some online and offline tips that I hope you will find helpful.

1. Think through what would work best for your child. Your child first and fore­most needs play­mates more or less the same age. But even a child who is a year older or younger than your child may be a nice play­mate who can teach your child skills in asso­ci­at­ing with chil­dren out­side their com­fort zone. Your child might also have spe­cial needs, and for exam­ple need to meet chil­dren who also have a sim­i­lar chal­lenge. If you have sev­eral chil­dren, you might either want to find a group where sib­lings are also brought along — or should play­group time per­haps become some­thing you do only with your youngest, while the oth­ers are at school?

2. Think through what would work best for you. Remem­ber — play­group Mums should also be friends mate­r­ial, so that the play­group can become that sup­port group and sister/brotherhood  that YOU need and not only a place where your kid can play. And it should be for the long-term. So, what kind of other Mums or Dads do you want to make friends with? Are you a sin­gle par­ent, and would it feel very impor­tant to team up with oth­ers in the same sit­u­a­tion? Would you like to get to know other stay-at-home Mums ? Or Mums who com­bine a career and kids? Per­haps you speak a sec­ond lan­guage and would like to have a play­group in which you can prac­tice that lan­guage? Or per­haps you would feel most com­fort­able with moth­ers who are active in church or with a par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion? One you know what you are look­ing for, it is eas­ier to find the right group to join or the right peo­ple to form a group with.

3. Start ask­ing around. Word-of-mouth are surely the best ways to find oth­ers in the same sit­u­a­tion, or exist­ing play­groups. So start by ask­ing your friends, neigh­bors and col­leagues if they have peo­ple in their social net­work who recently have had a baby. If you went to a par­ent­ing class dur­ing preg­nancy, and you liked the peo­ple you got to know there, I am sure you already have a few num­bers to call. Are you the par­ent of a school-aged child as well? If so, ask the moms of your child’s class­mates for play­group sug­ges­tions. If your child is in day­care, make an effort to strike up con­ver­sa­tion with other par­ents when bring­ing or pick­ing up your child, and ask if they are inter­ested in meet­ing up or if they are in a fun play­group. Don’t for­get your pedi­a­tri­cian — he or she meets many moth­ers in your area and could help con­nect­ing you to an exist­ing group or to other moth­ers.  And why not get your spouse to ask about play­groups to co-workers in case some have spouses and chil­dren at home?

4. Check out the bul­letin boards at shops in your neigh­bor­hood, par­tic­u­larly those where par­ents may shop. The gro­cery store is an obvi­ous one, but also keep an eye out for fly­ers in for exam­ple mater­nity shops, children’s cloth­ing stores, toy stores,  the post offices and the local library. The library — or the museum — might also organ­ise story-telling time and crafts activ­i­ties for small kids, where you can go and meet other par­ents and kids. If you are a mem­ber of a church, they surely do the same.

5. Check online direc­to­ries. You can of course sim­ply Google for a play­group in your area. There are also great web­sites ded­i­cated to play­groups and includ­ing play­group loca­tors, such as www.mommyandme.com,but you would have to find one that focuses on your coun­try.  If, as me, you live in Europe, you will find that many of these sites cater to the US. A great gen­eral tip is to look at meetup.com — many groups for par­ents and kids are listed there, and you will auto­mat­i­cally be pro­posed a group which is in your area.

6. Don’t just jump in — feel your way first. So if you go for an estab­lished play­group, call up the play­group leader first. Explain openly what kind of play­group you are look­ing for and don’t be shy to ask as many ques­tions on the phone that come to mind before you decide whether or not this seems to be for you. It is also wise to first ask to come once as a guest, and just check it out and see if you feel com­fort­able. Ask a friend to go with you — even if she is not inter­ested in join­ing a play­group, at least you won’t feel all alone dur­ing this first visit, and two pairs of ears and eyes always see more than one.  Once there, lis­ten more than you speak and remem­ber that although I am sure you are a super-nice and socia­ble per­son, adults take a long time to warm up to each other. We feel our lives are already so busy, we don’t have time for more friends! Also be tol­er­ant of the other chil­dren as well as your own child. Your child will likely cling to you dur­ing the first visit — don’t push him to join the other chil­dren if he feels more com­fort­able with you. Sim­ply go with him to the play­room to select a few toys to play with near you.

If you decide to join, great! You and your child are in for a lot of fun. If you decide that this group is not for you, make a polite excuse and get out of there! That next play­group may be just the one you will want to join instead.

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In Swe­den, the Christ­mas sea­son has a very spe­cial begin­ning. Mid-December, we cel­e­brate the feast of Sankta Lucia; a pro­ces­sion and cer­e­mony of light and music. A girl rep­re­sent­ing Santa Lucia wears a crown of can­dles and is dressed in white, accom­pa­nied by her maid­ens, each car­ry­ing one can­dle. They sing to the melody of the Neapoli­tan song Santa Lucia and the cer­e­mony con­cludes with the singing of Christ­mas Carols.Lucia was an Ital­ian saint and the per­for­mance has all sprung from a mix of ancient and more recent Nordic tra­di­tions and cul­tural influ­ences. Noone seems to have kept track of why we do it — but there is no doubt that we love it! And every city, school, com­pany and church with self-respect will run a Swedish-style beauty con­test to select the girl that will have the honor of being the Lucia.

And what could be more fit­ting than a spiced Christ­mas cof­fee to really get into the Lucia mood! 

- Mix a a pinch each of cin­na­mon, sugar, nut­meg and ground cloves with some vanilla syrup in the bot­tom of your mug.

- Add half a cup of freshly brewed coffee

- Top up with hot milk, gen­tly stir .…. then click this link for your very own Lucia expe­ri­ence, and enjoy the moment.

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In many play­groups, the mem­bers sim­ply take turns host­ing the play­group in their own homes. Which is not only an afforable but also very warm and friendly way to organ­ise a suit­able venue. But espe­cially if the play­group is organ­ised in a home envi­ron­ment, it is use­ful to agree on some Ground Rules and take some sim­ple mea­sures, to keep it safe for every­body and avoid unnec­es­sary dam­age to your belong­ings. Because as much as your home prob­a­bly is adapted to the life of one tod­dler or two, it is quite dif­fer­ent to have per­haps as many as ten run­ning around.

- Own­er­ship. Spell it out the obvi­ous: every­one is respon­si­ble for safety. Although you’ll surely want to chat and relax, each Mum must actively keep at least one eye on their own children.

- Overview. Cleary decide in which area of your home the play­group par­tic­i­pants should stay — prefer­ably in an open space where the adults can sit down but always can see the kids. Check the floor care­fully for any small for­got­ten items and toys that tod­dlers could choke on. — Make sure that any gates in front of stairs are securely closed.

Don’t be shy to close off the rest of your home: lock the door to your home office and if pos­si­ble, try to close off the kitchen so that no chil­dren can wan­der in there unsu­per­vised. Also put toys that you know your child for sure does not want to share or would not like to see get bro­ken, in one of the off-limits rooms.

- Pro­tec­tion. In the area you do pro­vide as play space, remove all frag­ile items or at least put them out of tod­dler reach. Cover that white couch with a blan­ket that eas­ily can be thrown in the wash.

- Pro­vide a cen­tral play point. Put a blan­ket on the floor in the mid­dle of the room, and put the toys you would like to share in the group on it. It will  make it an invit­ing place for the kids to sit and play together in a place where you can see them.

- Make it pos­si­ble for them to run around safely. Remove any rugs on which kids who run around play­ing hide-and-seek eas­ily could trip and fall. If you have fur­ni­ture with sharp cor­ners, con­sider plac­ing cor­ner covers.

- Stay healthy. Agree that any child (or Mum) with a fever, stom­ach virus or other trans­mit­table dis­ease stays away from the play­group meet­ing. Agree that all kids wash their hands before they grab the snacks.

-  Keep it spill-free. Serve the kids drinks in small car­tons with straws, and serve tea and cof­fee to the adults in lid­ded cups, such as the Mum­my­Mug, to avoid spillage and scalds. Never ever leave for exam­ple a ket­tle or a teapot on the table, but serve and put it back in the kitchen.

- But just in case… Check in advance where you have your first aid kit and that it is still prop­erly stocked with band aids — so you know where to look should an acci­dent still happen.

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When I was preg­nant, I  joined a ‘Bumps and Babies’ get-together-group for Mums and kids, think­ing it was good to make friends both with expe­ri­enced Mums (whom I of course admired a lot, they were already the experts) and other preg­nant women who would be on mater­nity leave dur­ing the same period as I. Later, the group mor­phed into a weekly Cof­fee Morn­ing meet-up. This became a much-needed push to over­come the fatigue and actu­ally to get out of the house and socialise.

We got to know each other so well that it truly became a sis­ter­hood of women, who just like like me were strug­gling to find their feet again in the entirely new role as ‘Mum’, and made my first months as a mother much hap­pier. Sev­eral of the women I met this way have become true friends.

This was in other words my ini­ti­a­tion to the phe­nom­e­non of play­groups and cof­fee morn­ing meet-ups, that seem to spring like mush­rooms out of the ground wher­ever there are young families.

And rightly so! Play­groups are great for the kids, who get to play with each other — and let’s also not under­es­ti­mate even a small child’s need for change and enter­tain­ment. My daugh­ter is an only child, so for her, our Cof­fee Morn­ings were her first real chance to develop social con­tacts with other lit­tle ones.

And I am sure most Mums agree - the play­group is also very much a play­ground for Mum. To break the iso­la­tion, to find a sup­port net­work and sim­ply relax and have fun together, while the kids (hope­fully, and at least fo 3 min­utes at a time) enter­tain each other. Win-win sit­u­a­tion in other words.

One thing that struck me, though. For a meetup  called a Cof­fee Morn­ing, there really was awfully lit­tle cof­fee involved. It was served, of course, and we would try to outdo each other by serv­ing lattes, mac­chi­atos and — some­times — plain brew.

But as we were so afraid that we would spill the drink while the kids were play­ing around us, we safely placed the cups some­where on the top of a book­shelf — and watched them grow cold. And it kind of took the Cof­fee out of the Cof­fee Morning.

Now that the Mum­my­Mug is on the hori­zon, that can change. Mum­my­Mug will make it pos­si­ble to keep that cof­fee on the table and will safely put the cof­fee in the Cof­fee Morn­ing Play­group. And I am proud that will mean mak­ing a good thing for Mums even better!

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