Husband and wife Michael and Miriam Feigenson were in an antenatal class learning how to calm a crying baby when they came up with the idea for their business, Parents2Parents Apps.
“One of the things that calms babies is loud monotonic noises like a vacuum cleaner or hairdryer, and Michael decided he’d build us an app to do all the things we’d learned about,” Miriam told BusinessCloud.
That was in 2011 and Moscow-born physicist Michael decided to stop looking for a new job and focus all his efforts on their venture from the family’s home in Jerusalem.
Today the UK is the second biggest user of the Sound Sleeper app, which has had two million downloads and plays a variety of sounds to soothe a restless baby. These range from hairdryer and womb noises for newborns to a car ride and rain for infants, and the sounds of a bustling market and the seashore for toddlers.
Adults are also catered for, with the bubbling brook and thunderstorm settings proven to bring on sleep.
While parents can manually play the sounds and set a timer, there is also a listening mode, where your chosen noise kicks in when the app detects a cry during the night – yet it is clever enough to not react to passing cars or a dog barking.
Sleep patterns can be tracked, with a graph produced the following morning to reveal how many times the baby has woken.
Now expecting their fourth child, the Feigensons have had the perfect test bed for their product, which has allowed them to regularly add new sounds to the repertoire.
“Some weren’t obvious,” says Miriam. “We have a feature where users can record their own sound, like a lullaby, and we found quite a lot were recording a fan noise, so we added an industrial fan to the list.”