Sharon Mullen was the mom of a baby who would only nap in a moving car. Their baby was born early and wee-giving them plenty of time to become accustomed to the covers for infant carriers. When he finally hit 20 pounds, they were shocked to learn that there were no attachable blankets for one-year-olds!

Mullen's family liked to take walks in Harvard Square, but were constantly fighting blankets that would fall off, drag on the ground or blow in the wind.   T he concept for The Original Car Seat Cozy was born, followed, after considerable work, by the blanket itself. It was wonderful to have blankets stay in place on a car seat, in a jogger or bike seat.

Soon friends and strangers were asking for their own Cozy.   Mullen had wanted to start a business for years, and finally found herself in the perfect position to tackle that dream.

Mullen attended an international showcase of juvenile products to learn more about the industry . At the show she saw many other products invented by parents. Believing that products invented by parents out of necessity were inherently better than those dreamed up in a corporate laboratory, she decided to open an on-line shop carrying other high quality products invented by parents for their children.

Within months Mullen added The Original Cozy To Go! and the Cozy Head Hat as well as four other manufacturers' products to my store. The small shop was called "Sharon's Solutions."

Inventive Parent is Born

With the addition of several more parent-invented products, Mullen was focusing on the retail establishment as much as manufacturing.  It was time for a new identity.  The Inventive Parent web site was launched in June, 2000.

For Fall 2000 they created The Original Cozy For Two and added several other parent-invented products to the store. By Spring 2001 the product line had grown again, forcing our move to new, larger offices. The line continues to grow, as does our number of happy customers.

In 2002 Mullen won the Balance Oasis Extraordinary Entrepreneurial Woman Grant, helping to shoot Inventive Parent farther and faster than she could have hoped.  The product line expanded to over 90 wonderful parent-invented items that year.

5th Anniversary Brings Big Changes

And Today

We work hard to keep our prices and shipping rates fair , and our service personal . We have a "No Peanuts" packing policy that saves you clean-up and helps to keep our costs down. We publish an Opt-In Newsletter to announce new products, special offers and tell the stories of our inventive parents.   We publish a listing of the current car seat laws for the United States and Canada.  To aid other parents with an idea, we offer a collection of links and some advice to get them started.  Along this line, Mullen has given lectures for 2nd graders, professional inventors and others in between.

Our incredible success story is entirely due to our customers--parents and grandparents, expectant parents and their friends--coming back time and again to purchase these great products from us.

Most customers continue to find our web site through search engines and from links on other sites, but fully 20% are referred by friends. We am very proud of that, and will continue to work to earn your trust and confidence in the quality of the products we carry and our customer service.

We thank you for our success. Please visit our web site, and tell your friends!