Denise Stern

Founder and CEO Let Mommy Sleep

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Denise Iacona Stern is the founder of Let Mommy Sleep, a newborn and postpartum overnight care business she started in Washington, DC in 2010 and has since built into a licensed network operating across 26 protected territories, which the company says has supported more than 100,000 families in fifteen years. The model sends vetted newborn care providers and registered nurses into homes overnight so that new parents can sleep, under national standards for newborn safety and evidence-based care. She started it out of her own experience: pre-eclampsia, an emergency delivery of twins in 2009, and a toddler at home. Alongside the commercial business she founded the nonprofit Mission: Sleep, which provides the same care free to military and first-responder families, and she has written a workforce policy paper arguing that newborn care in the United States needs national standardisation.

Career Highlights

• Founded Let Mommy Sleep in Washington, DC in 2010 and built it into a licensed network of locally owned businesses across 26 protected territories.
• Founded the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Mission: Sleep in 2012, delivering free overnight newborn care to military and first-responder families.
• Held a Fairfax County, Virginia government contract to teach newborn care from 2015 to 2021.
• Established an advisory board of registered nurses in 2016, since widened to include International Board Certified Lactation Consultants, public health experts and postpartum mental health advisors.
• Wrote “The State of Newborn Care in the United States”, a workforce policy paper making the case for national standardisation and oversight of newborn care.
• Received the 2025 TITAN Award for Women in Business in the Outstanding Female Entrepreneur category, and a 2025 Mom’s Choice Award.
• Pitched the business on Shark Tank in 2016, seeking $75,000 for 10%, and was later featured by Forbes among “16 Promising Entrepreneurs Rejected by Shark Tank”.

Professional Journey

The business began with a bad year. Stern was caring for a toddler when she developed severe pre-eclampsia while pregnant with twins, delivered by emergency caesarean in 2009, and found that even with extended family around she could not manage two newborns and a one-year-old while recovering. What was missing was not babysitting but trained overnight care - someone who understood newborn feeding, safe sleep and the warning signs, and who could take the night shift so the parents could recover. She opened the first Let Mommy Sleep location in Washington, DC in 2010.

The company grew by licensing rather than by opening company-owned branches. Motivated operators run local businesses under the Let Mommy Sleep brand and to its standards, and the company reports 26 protected territories and more than 100,000 families served over fifteen years. The people doing the work are newborn care providers and registered nurses; clinical governance sits with an advisory board Stern established in 2016, originally of registered nurses and now including lactation consultants, public health experts and postpartum mental health advisors.

Two threads run alongside the commercial business. The first is charitable: in 2012 she founded Mission: Sleep, a 501(c)(3) that provides the same overnight newborn care free to military and first-responder families. The second is policy. From 2015 to 2021 the company held a Fairfax County, Virginia government contract to teach newborn care, and Stern has written “The State of Newborn Care in the United States”, a workforce paper arguing that an industry looking after newborns in private homes needs national standards and oversight rather than the patchwork it has.

She has taken the business onto national platforms with mixed results - a 2016 Shark Tank pitch seeking $75,000 for 10% of the company ended without a deal, and Forbes included her in a piece on promising entrepreneurs the sharks turned down - and the company has been covered by the Washington Post, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, NPR, Business Insider and the Financial Times. In 2025 she received the TITAN Award for Women in Business as Outstanding Female Entrepreneur and a Mom’s Choice Award.

A January 2026 post on the company’s own site describes her as the founder behind its growth and expansion strategy, responsible for business infrastructure, partnerships and strategic direction, working alongside a leadership group that includes a director of recruiting, a director of training and quality, and operators who own individual territories.

Education

No school, college, degree or professional credential was found for Denise Iacona Stern in any source consulted, including Let Mommy Sleep’s own site and franchise site, the Forbes feature and a long-form published interview. The company attributes clinical credentials to its care staff and advisory board rather than to its founder.