How celebrities get their babies to sleep

Dr. Harvey Karp's company, Happiest Baby, makes the $1,700 cribs that Serena Williams, Ashton Kutcher, and Beyoncé are snapping up. Sound expensive? Dr. Karp has a plan to fix that.

Dr. Harvey Karp may be the most famous pediatrician practicing today. He pioneered the idea that newborns are actually in the fourth trimester and benefit from a womb-like environment. The New York Times Some have called him “this generation's Dr. Spock,” and Slate magazine called him “the Tom Brady of pediatrics.”

He's also the inventor of a smart crib called Snoo, about which most new parents likely have an opinion. Snoo soothes babies by constantly adjusting white noise and rocking in response to their cries. The company claims that babies strapped to the Snoo sleep two hours longer each night. Apparently, a good night's sleep comes at a price: $1,700. (Parents can also rent a Snoo for about $160 a month, which is about what you pay for your daily cup of coffee, says the good doctor.)

But the Snoo, developed by Dr. Karp with his wife, Nina Montei, a documentary filmmaker and entrepreneur, doesn't just save time. It saves lives. About 3,500 babies die each year from sleep deaths, Dr. Karp says, and the Snoo is designed to keep babies safely asleep on their backs. The device is now in use at more than 75 hospitals (including Boston Children's Hospital and Mount Sinai), and the FDA is due to give the product de novo approval in 2023. It's a long game: If Dr. Karp can get insurance companies to pay for bassinets, investors will get to sleep like babies.

Still, $1,700? Over cereal, Dr. Karp and his daughter, Lexi Montei, the company's vice president of marketing and public relations, talk about price tags, Beyoncé, and epic fights over cribs names.

Mickey Rapkin: Inventors often talk about their eureka moment, the moment when they sketch out their invention on the back of a napkin. Did that actually happen for you?

Dr. Harvey Karp: I wasn't in the garage, but there was a napkin event. (Laughs) I was giving a lecture to pediatricians in San Francisco. I was talking about infant mortality. 3,500 healthy infants die in their sleep every year in the United States from a disease called SIDS. Most of the time, the infant rolls over in a bad position or lands face-first on the mattress. We haven't seen any improvement in the last 20 years. If another country was killing 3,500 infants a year, we would go to war. Why aren't we doing more?

Eric Ryan: Do you still have that napkin doodle? Framed?

Lexi Monte: Yes, I debated whether to show it or not, because it's not pretty, but I have to give him credit. The Snoo today is 90% the same as the napkin doodle.

Ryan: Stick the sketch on the back of the box.

Meet Cute

Lapkin: Harvey, you met your wife at a big Hollywood party. She once said you were such an unassuming person that she thought you were the nanny for this fashionable couple. First of all, is that an accurate description?

Dr. Karp: I had really long hair at the time. I was wearing cloth shoes. She asked me, “What do you do?” I replied, “I look after the kids.”

Lapkin: Was that a pick-up line?

Dr. Karp: No, not at all. I wasn't trying to impress her by saying, “I'm a pediatrician.” That's not a catchphrase in Hollywood.

Lapkin: People have said that using Snoo is like having a robot look after your kids. Lexi, you're a new parent. What do you think? Is it a robot? Or a great second set of hands?

Monte: I happened to be consulting startups on strategic go-to-market strategies, which was my specialty. I was like, “You want me to strap your three-hour-old newborn to your car? That's a PR nightmare.” I then took back what I said. This might hit too close to home, but the first time I was home alone, [with the baby]My parents went back to Los Angeles, my husband went to work, and I thought, okay, okay, I'm okay. Then I had to go to the bathroom, Ah, the living room couch.But she managed to roll off. Then I tried to take her to the bathroom. I thought I could take her pants off with one hand, but it was a lot harder than it looked.

It takes a (robot) village

Ryan: I think my generation was the first where most of us raised our children without the help of a village – without parents, grandparents, or close family.

Dr. Karp: Parents are told, “You should do all this, you should have a job, you should have all these happy Instagram photos, you should have the perfect family,” and that's a big lie. The truth is, hiring a nanny is expensive. But up until 100 years ago, throughout the history of mankind, everybody had five nannies. Nannies were an extended family.

Lapkin: I would also say that a Snoo is expensive to buy. The goal is to get insurance companies to treat it like a breast pump and pay for it. How far along are you in that process?

Dr. Karp: In fact, we're partnering for the first time with two of the largest insurance companies in the U.S. and we're running a project for a very large bank in New York, and we're working on that right now to provide grant funding to 6,000 active duty military members to help support active duty military.

Lapkin: What about Medicaid?

Dr. Karp: We're beginning to work with Medicaid programs to bring this to families who are most at risk. Ohio Medicaid will be the first, and we're also working on plans with Indiana and Wisconsin. Ultimately, we've measured 600 million hours of infant sleep. A typical 3-month-old baby sleeps about 5 hours. With the Snoo, they sleep almost 7 hours straight.

Lapkin: Can I have it?

Dr. Karp: Yes, that's correct, we're working on it.

Quit

Ryan: What is the copycat like now? I'm sure it has been copied.

Dr. Karp: Well, well. Without copycats, you wouldn't have introduced something new, right?

Ryan: That's absolutely true.

Dr. Karp: Listen, for years, rocking swings were off the market because over 100 babies died from them. As a pediatrician, I know that it's exactly that kind of sound, that kind of movement. [needed]The movements and sounds change depending on how agitated your baby is. It's not just about getting louder and louder. It's a lot more nuanced than that. Imitation is flattery, after all. But I think we're on pretty safe ground, especially with rental models.

Lapkin: Who brought Beyonce the Snoo? I heard Beyonce has eight Snoos. Is that true?

Monte: I can't confirm or deny it.

Lapkin: For an entrepreneur, the company is your baby. And you have the baby. And you feel pulled in all sorts of directions. How's that for you, Lexi?

Monte: Real story? (Laughs) I was in Slave from the delivery room. I came home from the hospital and we were on Zoom. And while she was sleeping, I was texting my team on Slave. What are you doing? Can I see a copy? Can I approve it? I think a lot of women entrepreneurs feel the same way, they love both and they don't want to miss out and they want to know what's going on, but they also need to check themselves. [My dad] He came to New York for press, took the baby, closed the door, and forced me to take a nap and get off the phone.

Naming rights

Ryan: Let's talk about names. Naming is very important. Was Snoo always going to be the name?

Monte: We had to pivot and two weeks before launch we didn't have a name. I was trying to think of a name. I brought all the name ideas to my parents and we decided on Eve. [Behar] I circled my name, Snoo, and I thought Harvey's other name was awful.

Ryan: What was that?

Dr. Karp: I was fighting for the name Yawn.

Monte: (laughs) That's terrible.

Dr. Karp: There's no way you'd mistake it for anything else, but it did shoot me down, and I still have the bullet holes in it.

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Click here Previous Episode Serial Entrepreneur, In this episode, Miel Organics founders Monique Rodriguez and Melvin Rodriguez talk about their big sale to P&G Beauty, the backlash, and why you should never bring a laptop into the bedroom.