Your New Parents Are Exhausted.
That Is Costing You.
I have sat across from hundreds of parents who are doing everything right and still drowning. I have also gotten the other call — from the manager who doesn’t know how to help, the HR director watching a star employee quietly slip away, the company that built a generous parental leave policy and still lost her anyway. The gap between leave and thriving is not a personal failure. It is a systems failure. And it is fixable.
The pattern is consistent. Structured support keeps new parents employed. Most organizations still are not providing it.
of new mothers leave their careers after having a child, despite the majority intending to return to work.
Maven Clinic, Maternal Workforce Attrition White Paperreduction in new-mother attrition at Google after extending paid maternity leave from 12 to 18 weeks in 2007.
Susan Wojcicki, Wall Street Journal, December 2014drop in maternal attrition at Accenture after doubling paid maternity leave from 8 to 16 weeks.
New America Foundation, "Paid Family Leave: How Much Time Is Enough?"increase in the share of new mothers returning to work at Aetna after expanding maternity leave benefits.
New America FoundationMost programs approach the return-to-work gap as an HR problem. The Return was built from the other side of the table. As a certified pediatric sleep consultant, postpartum doula, and early parenting coach, I have spent years in the room with the parents these programs are designed to serve — at 3am, at six weeks postpartum, on the morning of the first day back. I know what it looks like when someone is holding it together at work and falling apart at home. I know what it costs them to get on that train. The Return exists because no one else was building this from that vantage point.
This Is Not a Parenting Problem.
It Is an Organizational One.
The return-to-work window is one of the highest-leverage moments in your talent cycle and one of the least supported. This is about building your business case, not just your benefits package.
Economic drain on the American workforce attributable to sleep insufficiency, with new parents disproportionately represented.
RAND Corporation, 2016Annual productivity loss per employee with insomnia, equivalent to more than two work weeks of diminished output each year.
Kessler et al., Harvard Medical School / SLEEP Journal, 2011Comprehensive employee wellness programs return $3.27 in medical cost savings and $2.73 in absenteeism reductions for every dollar spent.
Baicker, Cutler & Song, Health Affairs / Harvard, 2010What The Return Addresses
The Return covers the full arc of early parenting so employees are supported at every stage of their journey back to full performance — not just through leave, but through the transition that follows it.
Prenatal Education
On-demand video courses available to expecting employees from the third trimester onward. Employees arrive at parenthood informed, not blindsided.
- → Infant sleep science: wake windows, sleep cycles, and safe sleep foundations
- → Infant care fundamentals: feeding cues, soothing, and newborn behavior
- → Lactation preparation: what to expect, how to set up for success before delivery
Postpartum Support
Structured support for the weeks after birth, when employees are most vulnerable to disengagement and most underserved by their organizations.
- → MOMally Vault: on-demand videos and articles covering sleep shaping, recovery, feeding, and early parenting
- → Weekly and monthly virtual support groups for new parents, facilitated by Andrea
- → Optional MOMally Concierge: private 1:1 support for employees navigating acute challenges
Return-to-Work Reentry
This is the window I care about most. Not because the others don’t matter — they do — but because this is where I have watched the most capable, committed employees quietly start to disappear. Not dramatically. Just incrementally. A meeting rescheduled. A project handed off. A promotion quietly declined. The Return was built to interrupt that pattern before it becomes a decision. We meet employees here with practical, logistics-level support so the transition back feels manageable, not like a cliff.
- → MOMally Vault: guides on milk storage and handling, daycare preparation, and nanny training
- → Return-to-work planning: schedule building, sleep-to-work alignment, and managing the transition
- → Optional group workshops or Concierge 1:1 support for employees who need more hands-on guidance
Ongoing Sleep Support
Sleep disruption does not end at twelve months, and neither does its impact on performance. This phase covers the long tail of early parenting sleep challenges.
- → Nap transitions, bedtime regressions, and early waking in the toddler years
- → Big life transitions: moving homes, starting school, dropping the crib
- → Adding a sibling: managing sleep disruption for the whole family when a new baby arrives
We Do Not Just Support the Parents.
We Equip the People Managing Them.
Most managers want to be supportive. They simply lack the vocabulary or tools to navigate the return-to-work transition without overstepping, underdelivering, or making assumptions about an employee’s capacity that turn out to be wrong. The Return addresses that gap directly.
A manager who knows what to say and what not to say is one of the most protective factors a returning employee can have. That skill does not come naturally. It can be taught.
Manager resources are available as a workshop, a one-page reference guide, or a facilitated leadership briefing, structured to fit your organization’s existing training cadence.
How The Return Works
This is not a one-time workshop. It is an ongoing support relationship, customized to your organization and available to your employees month after month. High-performing teams are built during every phase of the employee journey, including the return from parental leave.
Discovery Call
We assess your workforce demographics, parental leave policies, and existing benefits to design the right scope and cadence for your team.
Custom Proposal
You receive a tailored retainer package — formats, delivery methods, and depth of support chosen to fit your culture and budget.
Ongoing Support
Monthly deliverables keep new and expecting parents supported through every phase, from pregnancy through the toddler years.
Measurable Impact
We track engagement and outcomes and give you the data to demonstrate return on investment to leadership.
Retainer Components, Tailored to You
Every retainer draws from the full scope of The Return in a combination built around your team. Base components are included in all retainer tiers. Premium add-ons are available separately or as part of an expanded package.
Live Virtual Workshops
Recurring sessions on postpartum recovery, infant and toddler sleep, and return-to-work transitions, delivered to the whole workforce or segmented by parenting stage.
New Parent Cohorts
Facilitated small groups organized by child age, building community and accountability among employees navigating the same phase at the same time.
Digital Resource Library
24/7 employee access to age-specific sleep guides, wake window references, postpartum tools, and early parenting resources, updated monthly as part of the retainer.
Manager Resources
Scripts, frameworks, and briefing materials for the managers of returning employees. Available as a workshop, a facilitated leadership session, or a one-page reference guide, structured to fit your existing training cadence.
Prenatal Video Course Library
Self-paced courses made available to expecting employees during pregnancy, covering infant sleep science, newborn care, and lactation preparation. Accessed on their own schedule, at no cost to them — as part of their benefits package.
The single highest-leverage intervention is the one that happens before the crisis. An employee who understands their newborn’s sleep biology at week 28 of pregnancy is not the employee calling in exhausted at week 8 postpartum.
Expert Access, On Demand.
The MOMally Concierge brings dedicated, real-time expert support directly to your employees — not a help desk, not a chatbot. A certified pediatric sleep consultant and postpartum doula, available when it matters.
Offered as a premium benefit tier, with access windows, response times, and session allotments structured for organizational deployment.
- Direct text-based access to Andrea for time-sensitive questions during defined support windows
- Private 1:1 video consultations for employees navigating acute sleep challenges or postpartum concerns
- Personalized guidance grounded in the employee’s specific child, schedule, and home environment
- Available as a set session bank per retainer period, or as an unlimited-access tier for organizations with high need
- Structured for confidentiality — employee conversations are private, not reported back to HR
The Case for Sustained Support
- Retention of your highest-risk employees. New parents are among the most likely to leave or disengage in the first year postpartum. Sustained support changes that.
- Beyond parental leave. Most organizations invest in leave itself but nothing after. The return-to-work window is where the real attrition happens, and where The Return focuses.
- Compounding productivity. Sleep improvement compounds. An employee who gets their baby sleeping through the night in month two performs measurably better in month six.
- Reduced absenteeism. Workers with insomnia lose 11.3 days of productivity per year and are significantly more likely to miss work than their well-rested peers.
- A benefit that stands out. Pediatric sleep support as an employer benefit is rare. For recruiting and retention, it signals genuine investment in working families.
Ready to Support Your Working Parents?
Here is what I know after years of this work: the parents on your team are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for someone to help them figure it out.
That is all The Return is. Expert support, structured for the workplace, available before the crisis and sustained through the recovery. If that sounds like something your employees need, twenty minutes is enough time to know if we are the right fit. I would love to have that conversation.
Custom pricing based on organization size and scope.
Request a Discovery CallEvery working parent who gets their baby sleeping is not just surviving the night — they are showing up the next morning as a better employee, a clearer thinker, and a more present colleague. That is something an organization can invest in.
Andrea Scannell — Founder, MOMally — Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant & Postpartum Doula
MOMally provides pediatric sleep consulting and postpartum support for educational purposes and is not a substitute for medical advice. Andrea Scannell is a certified pediatric sleep consultant and postpartum doula, not a physician.
Statistics sourced from: RAND Corporation, "Why Sleep Matters — The Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep" (2016) • Kessler et al., Harvard Medical School, journal SLEEP (2011) • Susan Wojcicki, "Paid Maternity Leave Is Good for Business," Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2014 • New America Foundation, "Paid Family Leave: How Much Time Is Enough?" • Maven Clinic, Maternal Workforce Attrition White Paper • Baicker, Cutler & Song, "Workplace Wellness Programs Can Generate Savings," Health Affairs (2010).