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Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:06 pm  |
I was just reading People magazine (my life is so exciting,no?) and in it there's an article on these moms who out of necessity or aggravation came up with inventions for babies/kids - and who are now making money hand over fist!
One of them was a hands-free device where a baby's bottle is held in a sling type of thing so that you're not holding the bottle to feed your wee one so's you can do other things - like - I don't know, cook dinner? Knit a blanket? prune the garden? So her invention is now doing something like 2.5 mill a year.
Now when my darling daughter was of bottle feeing age, I remember thinking myself so clever as my hubby and I invented the "propper" where we would put this rolled up towel in her little chair and she could suck the bottle without me holding it for her.....grrr...had I known that a slight variation could make me millions, I would have done something about it!!! lol! Then there was the mom who got skeeved when she saw a man sneeze into his hands then put them on a shopping cart handle - so....she has this lady sew her a cover-type quilt to put inside shopping carts so that her baby would not get germs - people start asking her about it...she gets it pattented - and voile! Millionaire Mom! Sigh...
The best baby tool for us, as our little one liked to cry, and cry, and oh yes, cry....was the baby swing - not the crank kind, but the kind with batteries.......that little contraption saved our sanity. She loved to swing in that thing. We used to call it the "Neglect-o-matic" b/c we'd leave her in there just to get some peace. (She did turn out to be a lovely girl, thank goodness!)
Anyone ever see someone else making money off of an idea that you know YOU came up with long before they did? 
Maria |
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Maria, early 50's, post meno, normal to dry skin, more dry in winter, some sun damage... |
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Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:40 am |
nope, but I wanted to let you guys know what I do with my nephew...I stick him in an exersaucer and he bounces up and down til he's pooped out and needs a nap. Only now he's at the age where he keeps trying to get out and I'm scared he'll fall on his face!  |
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Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:56 am |
I used a baby sling to carry my little guy in, but that was invented 100s of years ago! I also really liked my Madden baby backpack, it was sooo expensive but I sold for $200 on eBay when we were done with it.  Sadly, my guy hated his exersaucer, battery swing, the list goes on, all he wanted was to be with me, cooking, etc. We walked A LOT!! I have never been, before or since, in better shape than the first 18 months of his life. |
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V2J 6P7 |
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Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:19 am |
You want to know the one that I invented but unfortunately didn’t think to patent? I don’t know what they call the actual product, but when my son was a baby (20 years ago) he couldn’t live without his pacifier in his mouth at all times although he frequently dropped it or threw it on the ground. I got tired of retrieving it and having to clean it every couple minutes because he thought it was an exciting new “game” to play, so I created a sort of “leash” (I think you call it a “lead” in the UK?) for his pacifier so that when he dropped it, it didn’t fall to the ground by tying a 4 to 5-inch long piece of grosgrain ribbon to the “handle” of his paci and safety-pinning (actually, I used a diaper pin) it to his shirt so when paci fell out of his mouth, it didn’t fall any further than his lap and he could insert and remove his paci from his mouth as he saw fit! Whenever we were out with my son in public, women would come up and tell me how clever my “solution” was for preventing paci from ever hitting the floor again. So imagine my chagrin a few years later when I was browsing the baby-care aisle somewhere for a gift to a friend’s baby shower and saw that someone had stolen my idea and had actually produced and marketed the “paci leash.” God, I was so disgusted!! I could be retired and writing my novel by now.....*Sigh* Oh, and let’s not forget that I “discovered” that taking collagen and hyaluronic acid oral supplements can plump your lips!! 
If you really want to hear a pisser of story about missed opportunities, remind me to tell you the story of my great-grandfather and how he decided not to buy into the family business when they invented a great new product because he believed that “Scotch Tape” (i.e.: clear cellophane tape) would never catch on with the public...I still haven’t gotten over that one! Just think: had dear old great Gramps been more business savvy, I could not only be retired and writing my novel by now, but it would be writing it on my own private island somewhere in the Med or Pacific!!!
Carrie |
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Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:58 am |
OMG - I'll never look at Scotch Tape in the same way now!! Darn, darn, darn eh?!!
Shame about the pacifier lead (or dummy lead I suppose you would call it here??).
It's infuriating though when things happen, i suppose the thing is you do these things to make your own live's easier, but don't give them a second thought that loads of other people could benefit too!
Hmmm, my brain is racking now trying to come up with a new invention!!
T x |
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Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:45 pm |
UGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! CARRRIIIIEEEE!!! I HAD one of those pacifier thingys for my little one - I remember thinking "well, this is cool!" Had I but known that you had invented it! lol!
Also, truly sorry about the scotch tape fiasco. Dang. You could have been an heiress of some sort - maybe have even your own reality T.V. show! Ah, the missed opportunities.
My husband insists he came up with the idea for the weed whacker long before it became a household name. Oh well.
Maria  |
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Maria, early 50's, post meno, normal to dry skin, more dry in winter, some sun damage... |
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Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:33 am |
| Cheeks wrote: |
| Hmmm, my brain is racking now trying to come up with a new invention!! |
I have a suggestion: I’m a “stomach sleeper,” it’s almost impossible for me to be able to sleep flat on my back (which was really inconvenient after I had a lumbar puncture, aka “spinal tap” last month because you have to stay completely supine for 72 hours after the procedure, but I digress...). So in the latter months of my pregnancy all those eons ago, I was absolutely miserable in the final months because I couldn’t find a comfortable position to sleep and I kept thinking, “You know, someone really ought to invent some kind of ‘maternity mattress’ with a hollow ‘scoop’ in the middle where pregnant women can put their bellies so the ones who are stomach sleepers can get a decent night’s rest....”
But then again, with the advent of those “memory foam” mattresses, maybe this invention is no longer needed...? I wonder if there’s anyone on the board who can report on this and satisfy my curiosity: can a pregnant woman in her final trimester safely sleep on her stomach on one of those Tempur-Pedic mattresses without smooshing the fetus??? I’m curious – but not enough to go thru another pregnancy and have another baby just to find out!!!  |
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Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:03 am |
I agree that maybe having a another baby to test the theory is taking things a little too far!!
As for sleeping on your tummy, don't your boobies get squished??!!
I have a really weird sleep position, it's kind of half on my side and half on my front  it's not a good position as I always wake up with a bad back, trouble is I don't know that I am sleeping like it - cos I am asleep when I get into the position!!
T x |
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