From Concept to Product Development: find out how the ‘Safe Sleep Seat’ idea was born.

I first thought of the idea for the Safe Sleep Seat when my two daughters were babies.

When we would go out in the car they would regularly fall asleep, ending up with their head flopping forwards, down onto their chest. They looked very uncomfortable and would dribble all over their tops! Consequently, I would end up having to stop the car, get out to recline the car seat and move their head into a more comfortable position.

I began to talk about this with some of my friends who also had babies, and discovered I wasn’t the only one who had this problem.

After months of this happening on a regular basis and many wet tops later, I then started to think how this could be resolved. Trying to recline while driving was dangerous and having to stop and recline was inconvenient. This problem was exacerbated if I was on a busy road, the weather was bad or if I was alone at night. That’s when the idea of ‘The Safe Sleep Seat’ was born.

I began working on the Safe Sleep Seat in April 2014, when I conducted a patent search, which revealed that there was nothing on the market that addressed these problems.

I then began designing the workings and functions of the car seat from a practical, parenting point of view and drawing on my experience as a Metropolitan Police Officer in London.

While working with a great company who completed my design boards, I began doing more research into the effects of leaving babies in the ‘Head flopped forward’ position.

What I discovered was shocking and this gave me the drive to further my research and to pursue my goal of developing a safe product, which resolved the dangerous issue of the ‘head flopped forward’ position.

Utilising the results of my thorough research, a prototype of the ‘Safe Sleep Seat’ has now been developed.

You can see the prototype for yourself at: