Sweet Nursing came about from their being such a lack of choice on the high street in the UK. We don't have baby boutiques in every town and when I searched online I was so disappointed with the lack of information about the products too. There was no style and if there was style no one had heard of the product or was recommending it. I like to have things which not everyone else is wearing or has, but I would never compromise the safety of my baby to wear or have just what I wanted. I wanted to go to a shop that made me feel good, made me feel like I had choices, somewhere where I felt pampered. Just because I was buying things for me as a parent, why did I feel that it was all so stressful? Suddenly shopping was no fun, shopping was for necessity. Everything I was buying for necessity was expensive. I felt let down by the retailers.... so I thought well I am sure we can do something about this! I found some products, went back to my roots as a designer, worked on improving them...I reviewed and tested products...and so on.
I have over 10 years experience as a designer, I thought well I can do better than this...so I designed Sweet Nursing, took pictures of the products, took the time to explain the products and give my honest opinion on why I thought they were good..and it was my hobby...my hobby has grown into a business which I share with our fans on facebook and other Mumpreneurs. I hope you love what we do and help us to keep doing what we do (selling great products, offering tons of information and stylish choices for you and your children!). This is an exciting time for us as we are adding more ranges, bringing more parents on board to earn some cash for their families, and we are making a lot of parents very happy! I am so glad that life has taken me down this route and I am so grateful to everyone who is helping spread the word about something that started out as a frustration...wanting to breastfeed in public but being discrete and feeling comfortable!
Marie x
Want to know more about who you are buying from, working with or thinking about working with?...Please feel free to read on..
I had a great career before having my children. I have always been ambitious and thoroughly passionate about whatever I do. I love doing work that inspires me and I have always been lucky enough to find work that inspires me. If it didn't inspire me, I'd find something that did!
I have previously worked and designed or managed the design of websites for some great household brands. I love design.. I love products. I studied 3D design and Interior Design at University. I later discovered the web and found my calling...web design and shopping...or as some like to refer to it as eCommerce. I love the choice it brings for both customers and designers, inventors, retailers, learning, discovering and so on..you get the picture I'm sure.
So I had my first baby. Amazing, couldn't have been happier..the beer money that was maternity pay was about to dry up and I needed to look at helping my husband pay the mortgage. We have always been equals in this department.
After having my daughter, I soon found out that going back to work part time was not possible. Having over six years' experience as a qualified web designer and online marketer, and with increasingly more employers recognizing benefits of having staff working remotely from home, one would think that finding an at-home steady job would be easy! Er, or not...
Finding a well-paid salary position from home is actually extremely challenging! The dilemmas of mums trying to balance career and family are well-known to most conscientious people; the media speaks of this often enough. Yet, only 4% of UK employees telework, or work mainly from home.
After my first child was born, it seemed my best choice was to go back to work full-time when she was six months old. I landed my dream job at Sony, looking after all their rich media and eLearning, and the days of scraping by on maternity pay were over! But my new life quickly turned from dream to nightmare.
While my daughter loved nursery, I still felt guilty dropping her off I knew I was doing too many hours...I had so many deadlines to hit I was working well into the evening too, I missed her. Because her drop off-time was inflexible and so close to my check-in time at Sony, I was usually five minutes late trying to get from nursery to work. Rushing in all flustered, I would skim read my emails, go to my first of many daily meetings, and receive more projects to complete. Meetings would end at about 4pm, where I'd actually start doing what I was paid to do when suddenly I'd have to leave at 5:35 sharp to pick up my daughter.
Evenings comprised of working, bathing the baby, sterilising bottles, and doing the washing. My personal life was taking the hit while my paid labours became the priority; it's very important to me to be dependable and give an honest day's work. Eventually, I could barely string a sentence together without crying! So tired, it took about eight months before I cracked.
My dream job simply came at the wrong time in my life. I could have kept up and not performed my best, but giving less than my best was unthinkable. I got it all wrong, the balance, the effort, I barely saw my husband, I didn't know who I had become. I was so engulfed in responsibilities. So I quit, and stepped into the unknown realm of self-employment as a web designer!
At last I had found what worked for me. Er, or not quite...
After securing my first client, I was still swimming against the current. Preparing tons of quotes, going to networking meetings, giving free advice, and visiting clients while packing my daughter off to her Nan's, turning the telly on to make business calls, I was trying to compete with agencies who have the time for all this. Not only that, I was starting to feel sick about some of the work coming to me.
Perhaps mothering sensitized me, or perhaps I just had a moment to think.
Thankfully, our second child came along and, with him, clarity!
I remembered my values and ideals from before I entered the work force. I had wanted to make a difference in the world, live responsibly, and show my [future] children a good example. Now was my chance to create my own life and a life for my children of which I could be proud. All the time I was looking for a job that fulfilled these ambitions and my hobby site (Sweet Nursing) was growing...only I could not accept that I, me, had come up with something that good. I went through the figures, I went through all the wonderful emails people had sent me thanking me for the service and great products they had received. Telling me what a great website I had built. I just thought, what nice people they were. I worked out my stats and realised that I had designed my most successful website and marketing campaign ever. Why was it so good and popular? Because it was from the heart, honest and I truly, passionately believed in all the products and this showed in the results.
And so, with Sweet Nursing, I am putting my name behind the business and I want our customers to be 150% happy with their purchases and I am endeavoring to work authentically and help people in my position, mainly at-home mums and dads, do the same. I want to lend my talents to those businesses and individuals striving to operate ethically.
We work better when we work honestly, with people we enjoy and stories to which we relate!
That's my dream.