Behind the Brand: The Mum Who Refused to Accept “That’s Just How It’s Done”

Who Founded Meke Baby?

Melbourne mum of three Elysia Krstevski, driven by her own mastitis battle and a COVID lockdown feeding crisis, founded Meke Baby to solve a problem every parent knows: a hungry baby and no way to warm a bottle.

Every generation of parents has its own version of “that’s just part of having a baby.” Sleepless nights, mountains of washing, cold cups of coffee reheated more times than we’d like to admit and the seemingly impossible task of leaving the house with everything you need. If you’ve ever arrived somewhere only to discover you’ve packed the bottles but forgotten the formula, or remembered the snacks but left the dummy sitting on the kitchen bench, you’ll know exactly what we mean. Parenthood has a remarkable way of keeping us humble, and somewhere along the journey we begin accepting certain inconveniences simply because every parent before us has done the same.

Feeding is one of those things. We prepare for the sleepless nights and the nappy changes, but very few of us anticipate just how much mental energy feeding a baby can require. Whether breastfeeding, expressing, formula feeding or doing a combination of all three, every family quickly learns that feeding rarely follows a schedule. Babies have an extraordinary ability to become hungry at the least convenient moment. It might be halfway through the weekly grocery shop, five minutes into a long car trip or just as you’ve finally sat down with a hot coffee that, for once, you were actually hoping to drink while it was still warm.

For Melbourne mum of three Elysia Krstevski, one of those moments became far more than an inconvenient parenting memory. It became the beginning of a business that would go on to challenge an entire category and change the way thousands of Australian families feed their babies while away from home. What started with pain, frustration and one very hungry baby has since grown into Meke Baby, an Australian brand built around one simple belief: parents deserve better than “good enough.”

Like many founders, Elysia didn’t set out to invent a product or build a company. She wasn’t searching for a gap in the market or dreaming of becoming an entrepreneur. Instead, she was simply trying to get through one of the most physically and emotionally demanding stages of early motherhood. Battling mastitis, struggling with fluctuating milk supply and navigating the overwhelming reality that so many new parents quietly experience, every feed had become stressful rather than reassuring.

“I was in the middle of one of the hardest periods of early motherhood,” Elysia recalls. “I had mastitis, my milk supply had dropped, and every feed felt stressful. I was pumping, oversupply, in so much pain, using expressed milk because I was unable to physically feed.”

As difficult as those early weeks were, it was one ordinary trip to the shops during the COVID lockdowns that changed everything.

Many of us have probably pushed those years to the back of our minds, but they were filled with small frustrations that suddenly became enormous obstacles. Parents’ rooms were closed, cafés weren’t allowing customers to use their facilities, and everyday routines we had always relied on disappeared almost overnight. For parents with babies, something as simple as warming a bottle suddenly became incredibly difficult.

Elysia found herself standing in a shopping centre with cold expressed milk, a hungry baby and nowhere to warm it safely.

“In the middle of a COVID lockdown, not allowed to touch anything or use anything, I was in a situation with cold expressed milk and no way to warm it.”

It is one of those situations that every parent can immediately picture. The crying baby who has no idea why they’re waiting. The growing feeling of panic as every possible solution disappears. The overwhelming pressure that arrives when you know exactly what your baby needs but have no practical way of making it happen. Those moments have a way of making the world feel very small.

For many of us, that experience would have become another story we laugh about years later. One of those “remember when…” moments that gets pulled out over coffee with other parents. Elysia couldn’t let it go.

Instead, she kept asking herself the same question.

Why are we still doing it this way?

It wasn’t simply about that one afternoon. It was about a system that hadn’t really evolved despite the extraordinary advances happening everywhere else around us. We can unlock our homes with our phones, order groceries with the tap of a screen and monitor our heart rate from a smartwatch, yet warming expressed milk while away from home still relied on methods that felt surprisingly outdated.

“I remember thinking, ‘Why is this still so hard?’ We have incredible technology in almost every part of our lives, yet feeding a baby still relied on guesswork. That moment wasn’t just frustration. It became an obsession. I knew there had to be a better way, and that was the beginning of Meke Baby.”

There is something wonderfully familiar about that mindset because some of the most meaningful innovations don’t begin inside research laboratories or corporate boardrooms. They begin with someone who is living a problem deeply enough that they simply refuse to accept the existing solution. Every parent has probably muttered the words, “Surely there has to be an easier way,” at some point during those early years. The difference is that most of us eventually move on to the next challenge. Elysia decided to do something about it.

What makes Meke Baby particularly interesting isn’t simply the product itself. It’s the philosophy that sits behind it. Spend even a few minutes talking with Elysia and one phrase continues to surface throughout the conversation: raising the standard. It’s not a catchy marketing slogan created by an advertising agency. It’s the lens through which every decision is made, from product design through to materials, testing and the customer experience.

“For me, raising the standard means refusing to accept that parents should have to compromise on safety, quality or convenience just because ‘that’s how it’s always been,'” she explains. “Putting a plastic milk bag in a bowl of water is not the answer. When you become a parent, every decision matters. If we’re going to innovate, it has to genuinely improve a family’s life, not just look different on a shelf. Every product we create starts with one question: does this genuinely solve a problem and make feeding safer, simpler and more reliable? Are we improving the standard?”

That philosophy feels particularly relevant today because modern parents are asking far more questions than previous generations ever had the opportunity to ask. We read ingredient labels. We research safety standards. We compare materials, manufacturing processes and independent testing. Conversations around microplastics, food safety and product quality have become part of everyday parenting, not because parents are becoming more anxious, but because they’re becoming better informed. Families want to understand not only whether a product works, but why it has been designed the way it has and whether it genuinely makes life easier.

That’s perhaps the biggest difference between products that disappear after a season and brands that quietly build loyal communities. One simply fills shelf space. The other solves a problem parents experience every single day.

Creating a Category That Didn’t Exist

Coming up with an idea is often the easy part. Turning that idea into something people understand, trust and eventually change their habits for is where the real work begins. Every successful innovation reaches a point where someone has to ask people to think differently. That’s exciting, but it’s also incredibly difficult because humans are creatures of habit. We naturally gravitate towards the familiar, particularly when it comes to our children. Parents don’t tend to experiment for the sake of convenience. They need confidence that a new solution is not only easier but genuinely better.

When Elysia began developing Meke Baby, portable milk warmers weren’t an established category in Australia. There wasn’t a shelf full of competing products educating consumers about why they might need one. There wasn’t years of sales data proving demand. There wasn’t even a common understanding that feeding on the go could be done differently. Before anyone could appreciate the product itself, they first needed to understand the problem it was solving.

“You don’t start by selling the product,” Elysia explains. “You start by talking about the problem. To be honest, it wasn’t easy. There was so much education that had to go into it.”

It’s an approach that feels surprisingly refreshing in a world where we’re constantly being sold solutions before we’ve even recognised the problem. Rather than asking parents to buy another gadget for their already overflowing baby bag, Elysia focused on conversations every family could relate to. The baby crying in the back seat on a long drive. The airport delay that stretches well beyond feeding time. The café with no microwave. The late-night bottle that somehow always feels more complicated when everyone is exhausted. These weren’t unusual situations. They were everyday parenting realities.

“Every parent knows what it’s like to have a hungry baby in the back seat, at an airport or in the middle of the night,” she says. “We simply showed people there was another way. Once parents experienced having a bottle ready consistently, wherever they were, they didn’t want to go back.”

Just as importantly, Elysia wasn’t afraid to challenge long-held assumptions around feeding. Parents are becoming increasingly aware of emerging research into safety and materials, and many are asking questions that weren’t part of mainstream parenting conversations even a decade ago. Rather than avoiding those discussions, Meke Baby leaned into education, helping families understand why traditional methods weren’t necessarily the safest or most practical option.

“We also demonstrated and shared the data that the way we have always been told was no longer the safest way,” she explains.

That willingness to educate before selling has become one of the defining characteristics of the brand. It’s also one of the reasons Meke Baby has developed such a loyal community. Parents appreciate being spoken to as informed decision-makers rather than simply consumers, particularly during a stage of life where every choice can feel significant.

Building a Business Between School Drop-Offs and Sleepless Nights

Behind every successful parenting brand is a founder who somehow managed to build a business while living the very challenges they were trying to solve, and the woman who founded Meke Baby is a case study in exactly that. It’s something we often overlook when we see products sitting neatly on retail shelves. We admire the finished result without always appreciating the countless late nights, early mornings and family sacrifices that happened long before anyone else knew the brand existed. For Elysia, Meke Baby wasn’t built after motherhood. It was built during it.

That distinction matters. She wasn’t reflecting on her parenting years from a distance or designing products based on memories. She was living the chaos in real time, navigating newborn life while making business decisions, packing orders and developing new products.

“I’m not going to pretend that this has been easy,” she says candidly. “It’s literally been one of the most challenging stages of my life. The sacrifices, the risk, the emotional toll while you’re in the trenches of a newborn has been hard. I had to push through. I know I’m creating a very special brand.”

There is something deeply reassuring about that honesty. Social media has a way of making entrepreneurship look polished, particularly when women are balancing business and motherhood. We see the product launches, the media coverage and the award nights, but rarely the uncertainty that comes before them. We don’t often see the founder answering customer emails after bedtime, taking work calls during nap time or wondering whether backing themselves was the right decision. Perhaps the most remarkable example of Elysia’s determination came when she launched one of Meke Baby’s products while she was in labour with her third child. It sounds almost unbelievable, yet somehow perfectly captures the reality of building a business around family life. Parenthood rarely waits until the timing is convenient, and neither does entrepreneurship. Sometimes the two collide in spectacular fashion.

Rather than viewing motherhood as something that slowed her down, Elysia believes it has shaped the business for the better because it keeps every decision grounded in lived experience.

“It’s also given me empathy for our customers because I’m living the same challenges they are,” she explains. “Every decision we make is filtered through one question: would this genuinely make life easier for me as a mum?”

That single question probably explains Meke Baby better than any marketing campaign ever could. Parents can usually tell the difference between products designed for them and products designed by someone who truly understands them. The small details matter because they’re born from experience rather than assumption.

From a Post-it Note to Baby Bunting Shelves

For the mum who founded Meke Baby, that milestone came after years most people never saw.

Ask most founders about the highlight of their business journey and they’ll often mention the milestone everyone else sees. Landing a national retailer. Winning an award. Reaching a sales target. Ask them about the story behind that milestone, however, and you’ll usually uncover years of persistence that almost nobody knew about. For Elysia, seeing Meke Baby on the shelves of Baby Bunting wasn’t an overnight success. It was the culmination of years spent showing up, introducing herself, refining her products and patiently earning trust.

“I remember walking into their headquarters hoping someone would give me five minutes,” she recalls. “I wrote my name and number on a Post-it note for the receptionist. Three years later I had a meeting with the buyer and that receptionist remembered me.”

It’s one of those stories that perfectly captures what building a business often looks like behind the scenes. Not glamorous pitches or instant success, but hundreds of small moments that gradually build into something much bigger. A conversation here. A follow-up there. Another improvement to the product. Another lesson learned. Today, Meke Baby sits on Baby Bunting shelves across Australia, but Elysia is quick to point out that the biggest lesson wasn’t about retail at all.

“Seeing Meke Baby on shelves nationally is incredibly surreal. I really had to prove that there was a place for this product. We became their online best seller. The biggest lesson is that opportunities don’t usually arrive when you’re ready. You have to keep showing up, keep improving your product and earn trust one step at a time. Every ‘no’ simply became feedback that made us better. I understand and realise that timing wasn’t right.”

It’s advice that extends far beyond entrepreneurship. Whether you’re raising children, changing careers or chasing a dream you’ve quietly carried for years, there is something powerful about recognising that a “no” isn’t always rejection. Sometimes it’s simply a reminder that the timing, the product or the conversation isn’t quite ready yet. For Elysia, continuing to show up eventually changed everything.

More Than a Founder, A Storyteller

Spend enough time talking with the woman who founded Meke Baby and it becomes obvious the brand hasn’t been built like a traditional baby brand. Yes, the products are thoughtfully engineered and backed by extensive research, but what really sets the company apart is the way it communicates. Rather than focusing purely on features and specifications, Meke Baby tells stories that feel familiar to families because they’re grounded in real life.

That ability to connect emotionally isn’t something Elysia learned after becoming an entrepreneur. Long before Meke Baby, her career was in the performing arts, leading one of Australia’s most respected performing arts organisations. At first glance, theatre and baby products might seem worlds apart, but she believes they’ve always shared something important in common.

“People often think they’re completely different industries, but they’re actually very similar,” she says. “In performing arts, you learn how to tell stories, connect emotionally and create experiences people remember. Building a brand is exactly the same. People don’t buy products because of features alone. They buy because they connect with the story, the purpose and the problem you’re solving. That understanding has shaped everything from our marketing to the way we communicate with parents.”

It’s a philosophy that feels particularly relevant in today’s parenting landscape. Parents are exposed to thousands of advertisements every week, each claiming to be the newest, smartest or most innovative solution. Features blur together. Product names are forgotten. What people remember are stories that make them feel understood.

Perhaps that’s why Meke Baby has resonated so strongly. The brand never begins with technology. It begins with a mum standing in a shopping centre with a hungry baby and no safe way to warm expressed milk. Whether you’ve experienced that exact situation or not, every parent understands the feeling of desperately trying to solve a problem while your child simply needs you to fix it. The product becomes memorable because the story behind it feels real.

That same approach can be seen in the campaigns Elysia continues to create. Rather than chasing trends for the sake of visibility, she focuses on producing work that celebrates family, connection and the everyday moments that shape us. It’s an extension of who she is as both a founder and a mother, recognising that parenting isn’t simply a collection of tasks to complete but a series of memories, challenges and small victories that eventually become our family story.

Raising the Standard for the Next Generation

One of the themes that continued to emerge throughout our conversation was responsibility. While convenience is often what first attracts parents to an innovative product, safety is ultimately what earns their trust. As research continues to evolve around materials, food preparation and what we expose our children to every day, many parents are re-evaluating products they may once have taken for granted. Rather than waiting for those conversations to become mainstream, Elysia wanted Meke Baby to help lead them.

“We’ve tried to lead this conversation because there simply isn’t enough awareness, particularly around the number of cheap, offshore products entering the market,” she explains. “From day one, we’ve invested in premium materials, rigorous testing and thoughtful engineering. While some competitors choose to cut corners to reduce costs, we’ve made a conscious decision not to compromise on quality or safety. Our responsibility isn’t just to create products that work. It’s to give parents complete confidence in what they’re using to feed their babies every single day.”

That commitment reflects a broader shift happening across Australian families. Parents are becoming more informed than ever before, asking questions about ingredients, manufacturing standards, sustainability and long-term safety. They want products that don’t simply solve today’s problem but also reflect the values they hope to pass on to their children. It’s no longer enough for something to be convenient if it comes at the expense of quality or peace of mind.

For Elysia, raising the standard has never been about suggesting previous generations did anything wrong. Every parent has always done the very best they could with the information and products available at the time. Instead, it’s about recognising that innovation should continually improve family life, just as it has in so many other areas of modern living. If we know better today, we have an opportunity to do better tomorrow.

Recognition That Represents Every Parent Building a Dream

As Meke Baby has grown, so too has recognition for Elysia, the woman who founded Meke Baby. Earlier this year, Elysia was selected as the face of Australia Post’s Big Boss Energy campaign, celebrating Australian small business owners making an impact. While many founders might see this as a personal achievement, Elysia views it through a very different lens.

“It was an incredible honour because it wasn’t just recognition for me, it was recognition for every founder building something between school drop-offs, late-night feeds and family life,” she says. “I used to drop my orders in my lunch break while I was working full time. They were literally there for the entire growth, one order at a time.”

It’s an image that perfectly captures the reality of so many Australian small businesses. Before the awards, before the retail partnerships and before the media attention, there are countless ordinary moments that nobody sees. Founders packing orders after bedtime, answering customer emails during lunch breaks and quietly believing in an idea long before anyone else does. Elysia hopes that is the message other women take from her story.

“I hope other mums see that you don’t need permission to back yourself. You don’t have to have all the answers on day one. If you’re solving a real problem and you’re willing to keep showing up, incredible things can happen and you can raise a family and chase your goals at the same time.”

It’s an empowering reminder, particularly for mothers who often place their own ambitions on hold while raising young children. There is no perfect time to begin something meaningful. There is rarely a season when life suddenly becomes less busy or responsibilities disappear. More often than not, dreams are built in the middle of ordinary life, one small step at a time.

The Parenthood360 Take

At Parenthood360, we meet a lot of founders, and while every business has a unique story, the ones that stay with us usually have one thing in common. They weren’t created to chase a trend or fill a gap in the market. They were born from lived experience and a genuine desire to make life a little easier for other families. When people ask us who founded Meke Baby, the honest answer is a mum who refused to accept “that’s just how it is.”

That’s exactly what we found in Elysia. Yes, Meke Baby has created innovative products. Yes, it’s now stocked nationally and earning recognition across Australia. Those are remarkable achievements, but they aren’t what impressed us most. What stayed with us was a mum who experienced one of the hardest moments of early parenthood and refused to accept that future families should simply struggle through the same thing because “that’s how it’s always been.”

Perhaps that’s what innovation really looks like. Not reinventing everything, but paying close enough attention to everyday parenting that you notice the problems everyone else has quietly accepted. When we asked Elysia what success means to her today, her answer had nothing to do with sales, awards or retail partnerships. Instead, she shared a message from a father that continues to remind her why she started Meke Baby in the first place.

“One message that has always stayed with me was from a dad who told me he could now help his wife, and that breastfeeding wasn’t all on her. Something so simple had taken away so much anxiety around feeding, and instead of worrying about how he could help, he knew his times to help. That’s what success looks like to me. Not sales or awards, but hearing we’ve made one family’s day just a little bit easier.”

In many ways, that simple story captures everything Meke Baby stands for. It’s not just about warming milk. It’s about sharing the load, reducing stress and giving families one less thing to worry about during a stage of life that can often feel beautifully chaotic. Looking ahead, Elysia is clear that Meke Baby’s journey is only just beginning.

“What excites me most is that we’re only just getting started. We’ve never wanted to be known as a milk warmer company. We’re building a company that rethinks everyday parenting challenges through thoughtful innovation. If, in ten years, parents look at products that remove guesswork, improve safety and genuinely make family life easier, and Meke Baby helped set that new standard, I’d be incredibly proud. That’s the legacy we’re working towards.”

If her journey tells us anything, it’s that some of the best ideas don’t begin with a business plan. They begin with a parent asking a simple question: “There has to be a better way.” Sometimes, changing the lives of thousands of families starts with changing the experience of just one.

To learn more about Meke Baby and explore their range, visit www.mekebaby.com.