Dear Reader,

I am asked all the time what made me design a bed like this. My story is similar to so many of you. My beautiful special needs daughter was about to outgrow her crib and we needed to find a safe bed that would fit her for years to come.

We looked all over, we learned a lot about safety but found nothing that was safe, attractive, and wasn’t going to limit her life skill development. We found options, just not good ones.

I’m a dad who was just trying to do what I could to help my daughter. Our daughter has micro-cephaly, low muscle tone especially in the trunk, suffers from night time seizures, and global delays. She displays some aspects of Aspergers or High Functioning Autism but ultimately she was diagnosed with 1p36 Deletion Syndrome.

Unfortunately all that meant that she fell out of bed easily, was really too big for the consumer side rails, would get trapped or tangled in most traditional safety devices, and with her nighttime seizures we needed to be able to get to her quickly. Sleeping safely became a real issue when she started outgrowing her crib. We also had been hearing about the concept of helping your child maximize her abilities while still keeping her safe. In schools they call it “inclusion.” We really needed to find a bed that would keep her safe and secure for the next several years but not limit her development.

As with you, I’m sure, when you have a special needs child you end up not being able to find (or afford) all the adaptive products you need or would like to have. We searched the catalogs and the internet and asked everyone we could think of for a bed that 1) would keep her safe at night, especially during her seizures 2) had addressed the issue of entrapment; and didn’t lock her in. She needed additional safety but we didn’t want her in a cage that she couldn’t get out of without help. Again, we try to assist her development by carefully giving her freedom as well as safety. If I could have found a bed that met those criteria at the time I probably would have bought one and never thought twice about it. But I couldn’t find one and decided to make it myself.

Once I began to think about what I really wanted, I ended up adding a few more features. For my precious little girl, I wanted a bed that looked like it belonged in a little girl’s room. I didn’t want something that looked like a hospital bed nor a cage from a zoo. I wanted it to be regular twin size so she probably wouldn’t outgrow it and so we could use regular sheets.  I also needed it to be strong enough to withstand her pulling on the sides for leverage to get or out of bed as well as a reinforced chassis since she doesn’t just lie still while in bed. I needed a design that was lower to the ground than many typical twin bed sets. I tried lots of designs and invested a lot of time trying ideas that failed. Even my final design had some annoying features that I went back and corrected — improvements that I have incorporated in the current Beds By George models.

But the important thing for you is, the design worked. I make no claims that this bed is for every child. I just know that it has worked fantastically well for mine and hear great reports from other parents of special needs children and therapists about how it meets a heartfelt need.

Let me be clear, some individuals truly need a bed system that offers even more restrictive barriers than ours for their own safety.  Some are lucky enough that they don’t need a bed with this much security.  Even with all the options we offer these beds are not for everyone and you should NOT buy this bed unless this is what you believe your medical care level requires. But I believe that families whose special need son or daughter just needs a little extra security in a bed should be able to be safe AND to get themselves into and out of a bed that looks like it belongs in a home, not an institution.

Thank you for considering Beds by George.

Sincerely,

 

Aaron Clow

Aaron Clow with his daughter Stephanie