GIBSONIA, Pa. — When your child has special needs, sleep isn’t always something you can take for granted.
Rose Morris’ son Abram was diagnosed with autism at a young age. As a toddler, he would climb out of bed, wander the house, and put himself in dangerous situations.
During a vacation with friends, Morris said she got an idea that would eventually grow into a product now used by families dealing with a wide range of medical and safety challenges — the Safety Sleeper, a bed that could help keep Abram safe while giving her peace of mind.
She said she quickly realized other families could benefit from the same kind of support.
With no business background, Rose created a simple website, attached her phone number, and started attending autism conferences to inform people about the Safety Sleeper.
“I thought that if anybody needs it as much as I did, what a God send, it would be to them would help,” Rose said.
Calls began to pour in.
“When people would call, I would listen, and I would absorb everything. They talked about their child and their diagnosis and their challenges and I would just take copious notes,” Rose said.
Over time, the Safety Sleeper evolved. It now includes features for feeding tubes, monitoring wires, incontinence needs and lift access. The enclosed bed is made with medical-grade materials, is FDA registered and comes in different colors and sizes. It also includes a blow-up mattress and suitcase for travel.
“Even if you’re not somebody who wants to go on vacation, a lot of our families have to travel for medical needs. They have to go to the Cleveland Clinic, they have to go to their damn doctors in different states. A lot of her families travel to Florida or California for specialized doctors. You’ve got to be able to travel and keep your child safe when you are traveling,” Morris said.
The beds are used by individuals with autism, epilepsy, dementia, Parkinson’s disease and other conditions where safety is a concern.
Julian D’Angelo was diagnosed with autism and has elopement behaviors. His mother, Ariel Ford, said Julian would escape his bed and put himself in dangerous situations from a young age.
“He is medically diagnosed with Pica, so that means he eats non-food items and actually does swallow them. So, we had many instances where we were finding things that he was eating and actually going through his entire system that we were very nervous that if it had not gone through system, we would’ve had a medical emergency,” Ford said.
Kiersten MacLaughlin said her son, Decklan, was diagnosed at 2 years old with Dup15Q syndrome, and she and her husband took turns staying up at night to watch over him.
“The biggest fear is that he would leave the house and get injured or worse. Big safety fears for sure,” MacLaughlin said.
Audrey Mackie said her fear was that her son would climb out of a window.
“He was pretty much up for 24 hours at a time and we were exhausted,” Mackie said. “How are we gonna handle this? Because we’re human, our bodies are exhausted. Our brains are exhausted.”
Other parents shared similar stories — children leaving their rooms, getting into unsafe items, self-injuring or putting themselves in danger during the night.
Erica Fortune said her son’s sleep challenges have been constant.
“He has never slept through the night. Not as a baby, not as a toddler,” Fortune said.
Brycen Ruppert is non-speaking with autism and an intellectual disability and was adopted at age 7, his mother said. She said fecal smearing and self-injury were major issues, and that the Safety Sleeper made cleanup easier.
“It’s something that’s really hard and really hard to clean up the next day, and really hard to catch. So, when he does do it — the bed, I can clean it super easily, whereas other beds, I literally would have to have a mop out, take it outside and hose it down with the hose. But this has a special cover that just unzipped and you throw it in the washing machine,” Brycen’s mom said.
Again and again, these parents described the same result after getting the Safety Sleeper: Peace of mind.
“It’s the single most beneficial piece of equipment we have for him. It gave us a little bit of our life back,” MacLaughlin said.
“This entirely changed our lives. We were up all hours of the night, multiple times in the night,” Ford said.
For some families, the Safety Sleeper has become more than a bed.
“It also doubles as a sensory space for him now. So, when he gets overstimulated at home, he will go upstairs to his Safety Sleeper, zip himself in, ask Alexa to turn on Taylor Swift, and sit there and just relax and his quiet sensory space,” she said.
Seventeen years after building the first Safety Sleeper for her own son, Morris’ company now sells about 50 beds a week and helps families across the United States and around the world.
“Rose is genuinely my hero,” Ford said.
And that’s why Rose Morris is this week’s Hannah’s Hero.
