By Todd C. Frankel
Babies are so bad at sleep.
Infants' slumber is fitful and easily shattered. New parents discover this in those first few months when they are left catatonic and weary.
It's no surprise, then, that the market for products and devices for getting babies to sleep adds up to at least $300-million a year.
Call it the sleep-industrial complex, selling the promise of magical solutions to sleep-hungry parents - not just bassinets and cribs, but $1 500 (about R21 000) self-rocking bassinets designed to imitate the womb; $3 200 cribs with laser-cut air holes in clear acrylic sides; and countless baby loungers, baby pillows and in-bed sleepers.
But the ideal they peddle is something of an illusion: No product, at any price point, is likely to solve the problem of getting babies to sleep. More important, some of the devices that bleary-eyed parents turn to are downright unsafe, often because of the risk of accidental suffocation.
The reality is that the best way for a baby to sleep is probably the most brutal for parents, and despite a booming industry, there's little hope of spending or innovating your way out of it.
As a father of two, I know what it feels like to go through sleepless nights. (My wife knows even better.) I remember tiptoeing out of our son's room in slow motion, like a bomb disposal technician in an action movie, as he lay dozing and swaddled in his crib.
Still, he'd wake up. We would've tried any product that offered the promise of sleep. And we did. Only years later, when as a reporter I covered attempts by federal regulators to police the cornucopia of infant sleep products, did I realise the trade-offs we were unwittingly making.
The problem faced by parents, regulators and industry players is that the safest sleep environment for babies according to experts is also the simplest: a bare and flat surface, free of bedding or stuffed animals, with the baby on her back. But the "bare is best" message is a tough sell (worse for business, it doesn't require selling much of anything at all).
It feels cold. It goes against every parental instinct to build little ones a cozy nest. And many babies don't seem to like it much, either, as they roll and writhe in discomfort before waking themselves up with a jerk and a cry.
"It's a safety message that's not at all intuitive," Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids in Danger, an advocacy group founded by the parents of a baby who died in a portable crib, told me recently.
Safety is not a trivial concern. Sleep is surprisingly risky for a baby - as if parents didn't have enough to worry about. Unexpected death during sleep is the leading cause of accidental fatalities for children younger than 1 in the United States, killing 3 600 infants annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And experts say sleep products play a role.
The tension between what experts say is safe and what parents believe they need plays out every day in homes across the country as moms and dads struggle to get their babies to sleep.
The idea that babies need to be nestled in plush surroundings is stoked by the child-rearing beliefs of older generations and decades of consumer marketing.
Parents want help - and they are willing to pay for it, especially in households where taking time off from work is impossible or parental leave too brief.
So the marketplace pumps out new products. They come from individuals inspired by their experiences at home and from huge corporations staffed by teams of industrial designers.
Sometimes that works out well and results in the $1 500 Snoo bassinet, which was invented by Harvey Karp, a pediatrician who has created a successful empire out of his "Happiest Baby on the Block" books.
The bassinet, which appears to follow safety guidelines, is also available to rent from the company for $139 a month. But expectations are high for something so expensive.
Other times the restless search for sleep solutions results in products like the Nap Nanny, a portable infant recliner invented by a mom whose daughter would fall asleep only in a car seat.
All versions of the Nap Nanny were recalled in 2013 by the Consumer Product Safety Commission after a series of deaths and several reports of babies falling out of the device. The company, which no longer exists, has said the product was safe when used according to directions.
Major companies run into problems, too.
Fisher-Price had a hit on its hands when it introduced the Rock 'n Play inclined infant sleeper in 2009. The baby-products giant sold 4.7 million of them in a decade.
But the design of the Rock 'n Play appeared to conflict with safe-sleep standards. It was inclined, like a beach lounger, not horizontally flat. A few paediatricians complained to the company. But it wasn't until 2019, after reports that more than 30 babies had died in the sleeper that Fisher-Price agreed to recall the product.
Other companies soon recalled their own versions of the Rock 'n Play. Parents were warned to stop using all inclined sleepers. Some refused. They talked on online message boards about not wanting to give up something that seemed to finally work. To them, it was worth the risk.
More than 90 babies are now believed to have died in the Rock 'n Play, according to testimony from Fisher-Price executives at a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing this month. At that hearing, Chief Executive Ynon Kreiz said the company was strengthening its safety guidelines but believed the Rock 'n Play was safe when used properly and instructions were followed.
One thing I heard repeatedly from parents of children who died is that they were stunned to discover they could buy a baby product that had not been proved safe.
There are exceptions. Some products are covered by mandatory safety standards, such as standard cribs, bassinets and strollers. The rules, for example, limit the space between crib slats, to prevent strangulation. They control how steeply bassinets can incline. And they regulate stroller design to avoid pinching fingers.
In-bed sleepers - devices designed to allow babies to share a parent's bed - could go, too, thanks to concerns from regulators that bed-sharing is inherently dangerous and could give parents a false sense of security.
Rachel Weintraub, general counsel at Consumer Federation of America, which has pushed for years for tighter rules on infant products, said she has heard versions of this argument before but is unmoved.
"That's not a reason not to do the right thing," she told me.
Still, it's little comfort to parents struggling with a sleepless baby. They are bombarded with confusing safety messages and tempting marketing that makes it sound like it's possible to find a full night's sleep. They're willing to try anything.
Bare might be best. But it hardly feels like it's enough.