Someone Had to Think of It! New Juvenile Products and Apparel Brands at ABC Kids Expo


MIRACLE BLANKET

INVENTOR: Michael Gatten

Wholesale prices: Contact manufacturer

If this blanket does what doctors, nurses, and even the "Sleep Lady" Kim West says it does, than it truly is a miracle. The soft cotton knit wrap is shaped so that it can be pulled tight to swaddle a baby. It takes all of 45 seconds to put the infant's arms in the flaps and its feet into the foot pouch, and then roll them snugly like little burritos. The technique comforts the baby by reproducing the tight space they occupied during gestation. Heath Ledger ("Brokeback Mountain") even mentioned the blanket on the Tonight Show. "It's like a straight jacket for babies," he joked, "and it works." Wrapped in the Miracle Blanket, Ledger's daughter Matilda Rose now sleeps for hours without a peep. The company even produces a CD called "Maternal Whispers" with the sound of a mother's double-thump heartbeat. If the two don't work, there's always Ambien (for the parents, of course!)