Why I Invented a Modular Cot

It didn’t start as a product idea.
It started as a small act of personalisation.

About a year into having our first child, Betty, we were using an old hand-me-down cot. It did its job, but it didn’t feel like hers. So I changed it. I replaced the ends of the cot with some plywood I got from Bunnings and painted one end with a daytime scene and the other with a night-time one. Nothing clever. Just something personal, made for her.

That small change did something unexpected.
It made the cot feel meaningful.

It wasn’t about decoration. It was about making it ours. Turning something generic into something that belonged to one child, in one family, at one moment in time.

What interested me wasn’t colour or pattern alone, but the possibility of movement. The sense that something so dominant didn’t have to remain static for years.

And it got me thinking.

At some point, becoming a parent comes with a quiet welcome to the club moment.

It’s rarely spoken out loud, but you feel it. Subtle signals. Advice that assumes a certain path. A narrowing of what’s considered normal. Practical, well-meaning guidance that carries an unspoken message. This is how it’s done now.

I’ve always struggled with that idea. Not just in parenting, but in life. The sense that there’s a predetermined sequence we’re all meant to follow. That individuality is something you’re allowed to enjoy, right up until the moment you’re expected to grow out of it.

Marriage. Kids. Sensible car. Sensible choices.

Becoming a parent was one of the moments where that pressure felt strongest. You’re suddenly categorised. “Dad.” A label that arrives fully formed, complete with assumptions about who you are, what you value, and how you should behave.

At the same time, we tell children to be themselves. To be original. To express who they are. And yet, often without realising it, we model the opposite. Conformity. Safety. Blending in.

That contradiction stayed with me.

Creativity has always been how I orient myself. Not as a statement or a performance, but as a way of understanding where I fit. Making things has never felt optional to me. It’s how I stay connected to who I am.

At the time, I was working in advertising. Pouring months, sometimes years, into campaigns that disappeared as quickly as they arrived. There’s something exhilarating about that work, but also something fleeting. I felt a growing need to make something tangible. Something that lived in the real world. Something that stayed.

That’s when I began to notice where creativity quietly disappears when you become a parent. Not in the big decisions, but in the spaces you’re told not to question.

When I looked at nursery furniture through that lens, the cot stood out.

Walls can change. Art can change. Linen can change. But the cot, the largest and most dominant object in the room, stays fixed. Often unchanged for years. In many designs, it completely surrounds the child.

If that’s the case, I felt it should carry more meaning than just function.

I started thinking about the difference between a cot and a bed. A bed opens out into a room. You move freely. You refresh it with linen and pillows. You wake up and see the world around you.

A cot is different.

It’s enclosed. It becomes a child’s entire environment.

When something surrounds you like that, especially in your earliest years, it matters.

I remember my own childhood room vividly. The floral wallpaper. The dodgy floorboard. The heavy duvet my mum made. The crack in the ceiling that was painted over. Those details weren’t decorative. They were familiar. They made the space feel safe. They made it mine.

The idea for this cot didn’t arrive all at once.
It narrowed slowly.

Over time, what began as a personal frustration took on more shape. Through countless conversations, questions, and pushback, it became something Megan and I could see clearly together. Something that felt worth taking seriously.

From there, it no longer felt like a product. It felt like something that needed to be made with care.

A cot isn’t just a piece of furniture.
It’s a child’s first environment.

When you see it that way, it becomes clear that it deserves more thought than a blank plank of wood. It deserves intention. And it deserves the ability to change, not because of trends, but because children, families, and lives change.

That’s why I didn’t want to design just another cot.
I wanted to design a cot that could evolve, adapt, and remain meaningful over time.

The fact that nothing like it seemed to exist could have been reason enough to stop.
I took it as a reason to keep going.

– Jim Walsh
Founder, Bold Baby