I’ve been away from the blog for a while now, and this latest suggestion (the first I’ve decide to post that is unrelated to the automotive industry) provides a big clue as to why. So let me just launch in…

The Problem
It is hard enough to get baby to sleep in the first place. Every parent has struggled with the decision to either check their little one’s diaper, risking waking them up and perhaps needing to spend another chunk of their night settling a crying baby upset they have been woken, or let them lay there with a urine-soaked diaper. I can report from personal experience that at 2AM this decision is very difficult to make!

The Opportunity
Create a way that a parent can determine if a baby has wet their diaper that does not require its removal.

The Insight
Diapers are traditionally made with a white outer layer of plastic, but this need not be the case. Clear plastic would do the job just as well and reveal the inner workings to allow a quick visual check without the need to disturb baby overly much. (PJ’s aside!)

The Execution
Polyacrylamide gel sucks up the pee and traps it, providing a diaper its absorbency. My guess is that product engineers could easily modify it for a diaper application so that it would change colors in the presence of ammonia or some other component of urine.

The Selling Point
Though a see-through crotch panel probably has a place in everyday diapers as well, making a version expressly for bedtime provides the opportunity to dominate a niche market that has yet to be truly defined. A specialized diaper like this could be a virtual given when it came to a parent’s decision making at the grocery store.

The Incidental Benefits
Switching to a clear outer plastic could even allow us to have a better sense of when there is actually lightning to go along with baby’s thunder, if you know what I mean. So daytime diapers could be made more telling as well, which provides a chance to distinguish a product that has reached the point of commodity.