Hey SlumberFam,

We have some hard news to share. And honestly, we've been trying to find the words for a while now.

We don't know if Slumberkins will exist as you know it in 2027.

That is a sentence we never imagined we'd have to write, and sharing it with you is one of the hardest things we've had to do.

Eleven years ago, we were two moms, educators, and therapists on maternity leave with a big idea. What if we could take what we knew about child development, emotional well-being, and the power of connection and make it accessible to every family? What if we could put meaningful stories into the hands of parents and lovable creatures into the arms of children, empowering grown-ups to be their child's first teachers of emotional wellness?

We wanted to help kids grow up knowing that all their feelings are welcome, that they are loved just as they are, and that they have what they need inside them to navigate life's challenges, with support from the people who love them. And we wanted to make it simple enough that any grown-up could do it, not just families with access to therapists, parenting experts, or expensive resources.

We believed then, and still believe today, that emotional well-being isn't a nice-to-have. It's foundational to how we learn, connect, grow, and show up in the world.

So we dreamed big. We wanted Slumberkins to reach as many children as possible, not because we wanted to build a big company for the sake of it, but because we believed the impact could be enormous.

And then you showed up.

You brought our stories and creatures into your homes. You shared pictures of your little ones carrying their favorite Slumberkins everywhere they went. You told us about the big feelings, the hard conversations, the grief, and the milestones. About the moments when your child reached for their Slumberkins because they didn't quite have the words for what they were feeling. And about your own inner child finding healing in words you wished someone had said to you when you were little.

You let us become part of your family's story, and that is something we will never take for granted.

What started with two moms, some fabric, and a belief that we could do something meaningful grew beyond anything we imagined. And with that growth came investors, expansion, bigger goals, and bigger expectations. We said yes because we believed those opportunities would help us reach more families. And in many ways, they did.

But somewhere along the way, the pressure to sustain that growth began pulling us away from the simplicity of why we started. Revenue goals, financial obligations, and the constant need to produce more and do more. We found ourselves spending more energy trying to sustain the business we had built than focusing on the mission we created it for.

The world has also changed. The way families shop has changed, and the economics of running a product-based business have changed. The reality is that Slumberkins, as it operates today, is no longer sustainable.

That's an incredibly hard thing to come to terms with when you believe so deeply in what you've created.

We talk a lot at Slumberkins about how two things can be true at the same time. And that's exactly where we find ourselves.

The business model we built may no longer work, and at the same time, we believe the work we created Slumberkins to do has never been more important.

We're raising children in a world that's changing faster than any of us can fully understand. AI is changing how we work, learn, and interact with the world. And while we don't know exactly what the future will look like, we believe the skills that make us human are going to matter more than ever.

Empathy, emotional awareness, connection, creativity, resilience, and the ability to navigate uncertainty and care for one another. These are the things we've spent 11 years creating stories and tools around, and our belief in their importance has only grown stronger.

So how do we hold onto a mission we believe in so deeply when the business we've built around it is no longer working?

We wish we had a clear answer.

Over the last 11 years, we've poured so much of ourselves into Slumberkins. We've raised our children alongside this business, navigated divorces, health challenges, major life transitions, and more moments of uncertainty than we can count. There's been so much joy, but also a lot of heartache.

Through it all, we've kept pushing forward because we believe in this work. But we've also spent 11 years teaching children and families that growth doesn't mean pushing through at all costs. That it's okay to feel disappointed, ask for help, recognize when something isn't working, and make changes when you need to.

And we've had to take a hard look at whether we've been extending that same compassion to ourselves.

We're trying to do that now, even though it feels really scary.

We're facing some incredibly difficult decisions about the future of Slumberkins, including the possibility that we may need to wind down the business as it exists today.

Our hope is that we can find another way forward. A simpler, more focused Slumberkins that gets back to the heart of why we started. Maybe that means fewer creatures and collections, or finding different ways to get our stories and tools into the hands of families. We're trying to figure out what it would look like to build a business that can actually sustain the mission for the long term.

There's something hopeful about the possibility of starting fresh, taking everything we've learned, and letting go of what isn't working. We'd love for this to be a chance for Slumberkins to be reborn in a way that's more sustainable and true to why we started.

But we don't know if we'll be able to make that happen. And we don't want to promise something we can't deliver.

Which brings us to something important we need to share.

This may be your last holiday season with Slumberkins as you've always known it.

As we work through this transition, we need to sell through our existing inventory, and we can't guarantee that many of our current creatures, books, and collections will return once they're gone.

We know what these products mean to your families. There are little ones who have slept with the same Slumberkins every night for years. Families who have turned our stories into rituals. Younger siblings waiting for their own creatures. Grown-ups who have found the words they needed through a book or affirmation during some of the hardest seasons of parenting.

We know these creatures hold memories and meaning, and that's why we wanted you to hear this directly from us.

If there's a creature your child has been hoping for, a book you've been meaning to add to your collection, or a gift you've been saving for someone you love, we want you to have the opportunity to bring it home while it's still available.

We're not sharing this to pressure anyone into buying something. We just believe in being transparent with the community that has supported us for so long, and you deserve to know what's happening.

There's so much about this moment that feels sad. We're grieving parts of a dream we've spent more than a decade building, and what we thought this journey would look like.

But we're also incredibly proud. Proud of the stories we've created, our team who helped bring them to life, and the families we've reached. Proud that two moms with a sewing machine and a big idea created something that has meant so much to so many people.

We still hope there's a future for Slumberkins. We hope we can find a way to continue this work with a more focused, sustainable business. We haven't lost our belief in this mission or in the importance of helping children grow up with empathy, resilience, emotional awareness, and connection.

But the truth is, we don't know what Slumberkins will look like a year from now. We don't know which creatures or stories we'll be able to bring back, or whether we'll be able to bring them back at all.

And that's heartbreaking to say, because we know how much they mean to your families. They mean that much to us, too.

We've spent 11 years helping families understand that we can hold more than one feeling at a time. And right now, we're experiencing that ourselves. We're incredibly grateful for everything we've built together, scared about what comes next, and still holding onto hope that there's a way forward.

We know this news may be disappointing, especially for families who have made Slumberkins part of their lives. We wish we could tell you that everything will be okay and that your favorite creatures will be here for years to come. But we can't make that promise right now.

What we can tell you is that we haven't given up on finding a way to continue this work. We just know that if Slumberkins does come back, it may look very different from the one you know today.

Thank you for believing in us, welcoming our creatures into your homes, and sharing so much of your lives with us. We never imagined how many families would become part of this story, and we'll always be grateful that you did.

We hope this isn't goodbye. But we also don't want to pretend that things aren't changing, because they are.

And we felt you deserved to hear that from us.

With so much love and gratitude,

Callie & Kelly ❤️

Co-founders, Slumberkins