The Baby Category as Consumer Health Microcosm: Sleep, Performance and Self-Care

I returned to work last week after nearly 5 months of parental leave. In addition to a new baby in the house, we also now have a huge array of technology, health care and entertainment products that fit well within the consumer health category; an industry I’ve worked in for 10+ years.

It’s not often that a consumer (me!) has the opportunity to engage with a new category. Pregnancy and new parenthood were the catalyst for me to enter the market as a consumer of relevant products for the first time. Armed with my experience and passion for consumer health, I observed that the trends that are influencing pregnancy, baby and child care products and experiences closely align with the broader market trends we observe in the industry.

The first and most obvious example of alignment between the baby products space and overall consumer healthcare is sleep. I am asked about sleep more than anything else related to baby, and I similarly ask other new parents and pregnant people about their sleep constantly, too. We know that sleep has profound effects on mental and physical health for all of us and is a crucial driver for growth and development in young children.

In pursuit of a great night’s sleep, there are devices, trackers, and consumer products galore that claim to help a baby sleep. Perhaps the clearest example is the SNOO Smart Sleeper, a $1700 robot bassinet that responds to the baby’s cry with movement and white noise. We rented a SNOO and it worked well for us, delivering as promised the additional hours of sleep for parents and baby, though apparently that is not everyone’s experience. The FDA recently granted the SNOO de novo approval as a device to keep babies asleep on their back, known to be the safest way for babies to sleep, making it the first product in the category to be granted such approval.

Beyond the SNOO, there are the swaddles enhanced with zippers and Velcro to reduce the burden of the fold and tuck, pacifiers, sound machines, blackout curtains, pajamas that close with magnets, and a huge array of apps and tech to track baby’s sleep and solicit advice from experts to make sleep better.

While baby sleep is an evergreen topic, it’s not just babies who are trying to sleep better. A 2021 study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that “the number of search queries for insomnia has increased over the past decade,” and reports of insomnia or other sleep disturbances have increased in frequency, perhaps due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Adults know we feel better after a good night’s sleep, which is why it is perhaps so shocking to learn that about a third of us suffer from insufficient sleep, and so unsurprising that the product category of “sleep disorder” was valued at $22.5 billion USD in 2022.

To combat poor sleep and its effects in adults, as in babies, there is no shortage of consumer health products and devices, including dietary supplements that support good sleep quality, blue light-blocking glasses, and cooling mattress toppers. In my research for this blog, I also came upon Therabody’s SmartGoggles, billed as “an intelligent wearable that combines vibration, massage and heat to help relax your eyes and face to ease mental stress and reduce/ease discomfort related to headaches and migraines,” further claiming that the technology “help[s] you relax and fall asleep faster.”

Maybe our desire to get that sometimes-elusive great night of sleep is rubbing off on our babies. I think the strong consumer interest in sleep across consumer segments points to the need in our culture to be “on” all the time, always performing at the highest level. The complementary consumer trend of self-care – taking time and space to care for one’s own wellbeing – runs counter to optimum performance in some ways, which is particularly striking in the baby care category.

Brands that can support new parents and consumers across segments to balance performance with self-care are likely to succeed in this category. Starting with sleep as a core value driver can have a significant impact for brands looking to strike that balance.