It’s a cliché but it happens. I left my career in marketing to look after my lovely daughter. One day, I had an idea for a product that would help make my life as a mum easier and now over a year later, here I am, a mumpreneur with a baby product – SnoozeShade.
My daughter always needed her sleep and I needed to go out. When she was tiny, a walk to the shops in her buggy was easy as she slept deeply and often. As she got older and became more alert, it became harder for her to switch off and snooze in her buggy – or, once asleep, she would be woken by lights, the sun or by whatever activity was going on nearby.
Meeting friends for a coffee or bite to eat involved a lot of time attaching muslins with clothes pegs or draping blankets over buggy hoods and even resorting to hanging coats over the sun canopy – with varying degrees of success. Manoeuvring up and down kerbs could be treacherous too with things sliding off randomly – resulting in a wide-awake and grumpy baby.
How nice it would have been to pop into a shop and try on something new while baby slept peacefully in her pram, undisturbed by mummy twirling in front of the mirror.
Driving along, I’d see other mums frantically trying to stop the wind from blowing their carefully positioned blankets off their prams and I thought there must be something somewhere out there that would help.
A serious internet shopper, I started to hunt around to see if I could find a suitable product somewhere. Not a thing.
Mosquito, cat and insect nets let in too much light. Sun shades were too bulky to carry around constantly and baby could still see out. There didn’t seem to be anything that blocked out the light, was portable and conveniently small enough to keep in the nappy bag, buggy basket or hang off the handles.
One day, I rather foolishly said to a few friends that someone should invent something – so they said ‘go on then’.
So that’s how SnoozeShade was born.
I hope it helps make your life easier too.
Our tester was impressed. She told us: ‘It’s very effective at keeping out the light and screening the baby from interesting distractions.' Her baby slept for twice as long as he usually would when in his buggy. It even helped her baby get to sleep in the middle of a noisy toddler group. Which? review - March 2010
‘We love mum-friendly ideas on Prima Baby – and SnoozeShade fits that brief perfectly. Light, neat, simple to use and effective, it’s the sleeping-on-the-go solution mums and babies have been waiting for!’ Alison Alexander, Consumer Editor, Prima Baby & Pregnancy and www.babyexpert.com
"Snooze Shade is a lovely product which enables babies to get all of the benefits of a day time nap whilst they're on the move. It provides a darkened, cosy environment which will encourage daytime sleep even in babies who won't normally nap in the pram. Babies who are well rested during the day are more likely to sleep better at night." Andrea Grace, sleep expert for Mother & Baby Magazine and author of “Teach Yourself Baby Sleep”