Julia Holden can relate to the struggle of getting your baby to fall asleep.
In February 2024, she and her husband noticed that their newborn son Maxime fell asleep more quickly when his eyes were gently covered with a burp cloth or small towel, she says. As a new mom “in survival mode,” Holden quickly looked for a purchasable product — a comfortable eye covering that’d stay on his tiny face if he moved — but couldn’t find one she liked, she says.
As a younger adult, Holden had dreamed of entrepreneurship, so her near-instant thought was to make this product herself and sell it, she says. She designed a baby hat with an attached eye covering, named her side hustle Sleepy Hat and, over the course of the next year, spent nearly $16,000 from her personal savings to bootstrap the business, she says.
Since June 2025, the business has brought in five figures in revenue each month, including over $90,000 in December and more than $69,000 in January, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The company is profitable, says Holden, who initially launched it while working full-time as a senior relationship manager for an advertising company and taking care of her baby.
She found time for Sleepy Hat in 20-minute windows between breast-feedings at her home in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, she says. “I had no outside funding, no team and no child care beyond family help,” says Holden, 34.
