For parents of children with special needs, bedtime can be a stressful, uncertain ordeal. Down Syndrome, Angelman Syndrome, Smith-Magenis Syndrome, and other diagnoses can make calming down to fall asleep at the end of the day a serious challenge. To create a truly safe place and calming bedtime environment, we developed The Safety Sleeper®, an enclosed safety bed perfect for soothing special needs children.
Unlike other safety bed options like the Posey Bed or the Pedicraft, The Safety Sleeper® was designed to be child-friendly for at-home and on-the-road use. Plus, with its durable yet soft construction and options for medical ports and multiple doors, The Safety Sleeper® is also conveniently designed for medical use. And since it’s fully enclosed, it can stop nighttime wandering while gently encouraging good sleep!
More importantly, though, is the way children respond to The Safety Sleeper®. Time and time again, we’ve seen kids gravitate toward The Safety Sleeper® as their safe place, somewhere they can retreat to even when they’re not tired or sleeping.
The Safety Sleeper: A Safe Place for Sleep (And More)
Thanks to its soft materials and fully enclosed design, The Safety Sleeper® can provide a safe place for a variety of uses in a variety of locations.
A Safe Place For Waking Up
For one family, their daughter has found security in her Safety Sleeper. As she wakes up in the morning, she throws her stuffed hippo out of the bed to see if the room—and the rest of the world—is safe. If she senses any kind of uncertainty, she’ll retreat back under the covers in the safety of her fully enclosed bed!
Here’s how her mom sums it up:
“We started with short naps and built up to it. Now she loves it and it’s her safe place. Every morning she’ll throw her hippo out first. I guess he tells her if the world is safe or not because sometimes she’ll follow him and other times she’ll pull him back in and crawl back under the covers.”
A Safe Place At Night
Raising a child with a chromosome deletion that causes epilepsy and hydrocephalus isn’t easy, but Bennett’s parents have found The Safety Sleeper® makes some elements much easier. The Safety Sleeper® is big enough that Bennett’s mom can cuddle him at night, helping him fall into a deep, restful sleep.
Here’s what his mother says:
“Bennett is a six-and-a-half-year-old happy and explorative little boy. He loves being outdoors, swinging, bouncing around, things that spin (like wheels)... We have our Safety Sleeper to keep him safe and allows me to cuddle him to sleep and knows he will be safe when I sneak back to my bed in the middle of the night.”
A Safe Place For Travel
Despite the bed’s size, Bennett’s parents have learned what so many other parents have realized: The Safety Sleeper® is great for travel! This sleeping safe place can be easily packed up and taken on planes or long car rides, and Bennett and his family have traveled up and down the east coast with their Safety Sleeper in tow!
How his parents describe traveling with The Safety Sleeper®:
"The Safety Sleeper® is also used for travel. Bennet loves road trips. We often drive from our home in St. Petersburg, FL, to Richmond, VA, and the Outer Banks, NC, and we have even gone to Shenandoah and Washington, D.C. We're so thankful we never have to worry about an appropriate sleeping situation when we need one."
A Safe Place for Play
As many families have found, The Safety Sleeper® isn’t only a safe place to sleep, it’s also a safe environment for playing!
Part of that safety comes from the soft, padded interior that protects children if they fall, but it also comes from the enclosed interior that provides an even greater sense of security. For children who are uncomfortable in unfamiliar surroundings or near unfamiliar people, The Safety Sleeper® provides a secure and familiar environment for playtime.
How Charlotte’s parents describe it:
“Charlotte absolutely ADORES her purple Safety Sleeper. She loves reading in it and setting up her blankets, toys, books, and more in her space. This is an amazing tool for our family in keeping her safe and teaching good routines in spite of impulses!"
A Safe Place Outside the Bedroom
The Safety Sleeper® is travel-friendly, but that doesn’t mean it should be limited to car rides and plane trips. Some families have found it works well around the house, using it outside of the bedroom to provide a safe place in more communal settings.
One family of a child with Smith-Magenis Syndrome found The Safety Sleeper® provides a safe and secure place to hang out with the rest of the family during quarantine—and it even helped their child bond with the family cat!
Here’s how they described its benefits for their son, Max:
“The Safety Sleeper® allowed us to travel safely with our son, Max, when he was younger. We didn't realize it would have an additional purpose last year. Max loves his Safety Sleeper and so does our cat, Lily. During the quarantine time of the pandemic, we set up The Safety Sleeper® in our living room to give Max a place for just him to hang out. Lily had other plans and spent lots of time cuddled up to Max in The Safety Sleeper®.”
A Safe Place for Medical Intervention
Families of children with special needs are well aware of medical challenges. A child with special needs could require a pulse oximeter or IV drip, but excessive movement or an inability to lie still could cause the child physical harm in a standard bed.
Fully enclosed beds like The Safety Sleeper® provide medical intervention access points that help to prevent entanglements, regardless of how much treatment a child needs. Here’s how one family describes it:
“The Safety Sleeper® allows him to be safe from falls while also allowing us to give him his g-tube feeds and make sure he is wearing his pulse ox without getting tangled up. He loves to sleep and even play in his bed. Here he is just two weeks after epilepsy brain surgery resting comfortably in a real bed, but safe and sound. It also allows us to sleep better because we know asleep or awake, he is safe all through the night.”
Find Your Child’s Sleeping Safe Place
The Safety Sleeper offers a variety of fully enclosed safety bed models and special needs bed accessories to keep your child safe and comfortable all through the night! Be sure to review all of them to customize the perfect safe place for your child!
