At the Playtime New York trade show on August 3rd, I had the pleasure of interviewing Manasi Gangan, Founder of Nested Bean Zen Swaddle. Watch the video to get a feel for the brand and read a summary of the video interview.
“My name is Manasi Gangan and I’m the owner and founder of Nested Bean. We have a unique swaddle called the Zen Swaddle. It is the only swaddle that mimics touch. The inspiration behind this idea came to me when I was caring for my son when he was a baby. Now he’s three years old. When he was little he wouldn’t sleep without being in my arms. As soon as I would put him down he would wake up, as I’m sure many moms have experienced. What I found was that he craved my touch. He slept only when being in my arms.
When I started mimicking the feeling of being held by putting a beanie baby in the beginning. But later I added to those contraptions and created the first concept model of the Zen Swaddle, and he started sleeping better. It was simply a way to mimic the way I held him.
Later on, I found that there is immense research on how the simulation of touch is used in NICUs to relieve the stress that babies are going through, and how this has been proven to calm babies. It just was a well-kept secret of these hospitals and it just needed a safe and beautiful form to be brought into the consumer market…and that’s exactly what we did. Now that form is called a Zen Swaddle.
So how does the Zen Swaddle work?
This is a Zen Swaddle and the way it works is that it has three weighted parts – one on each side and one in the center. The weights fall on the baby’s body where we hold them, where our arms fall, and instinctively in the center. The rest of the swaddle is like any other. So the weighted blanket is what makes the Zen Swaddle extremely unique.” – Manasi Gangan, owner, and founder of Nested Bean.
