TWO friends who set up business together are about to take their innovative product across the Atlantic and hope to take America by storm.

Annie Heyes, from Bolton Abbey, and Josie Wood, from Addingham, launched their sleep inducing CDs for children back in 2003 and since then the company has gone from strength to strength.

The pair developed the idea after Mrs Wood tried to find stories to help her daughter Isabelle get to sleep. But she soon found that there was nothing available that encouraged children to relax at bedtime.

Mrs Wood said she told her best friend, Annie, about her problem and the pair developed the idea of writing sleep-inducing stories for children which could be played by parents at bedtime. The aim was to help children to get to sleep and also improve the quality of their sleep.

Mrs Heyes explained that all the stories were set at the end of the day or close to bedtime and as they progress the characters themselves become sleepy.

The friends wrote the original stories, poems and songs that are used on the CDs and provided the voices.

However, making the CD was just the start as the product needed to be marketed and sold.

This is where Mrs Heyes's background in marketing came in handy and now the CDs can be found in Waterstones, on the amazon website and in a number of local shops including Bolton Abbey Estate shops and The Craven Clinic, in Skipton.

And now the they look set to be sold in the USA, after an American distributor got in touch. The deal is still being finalised, but the move could see Sounds Dreamy develop into a brand associated with happy sleep for children.

Future plans include a board game and possibly a television programme although both are very much at the planning stage.

One thing that the pair has been able to develop for parents is poems that can be downloaded from their web site. The rhymes, like the stories, have been written using language that will create an atmosphere of relaxation. A collection of 23 poems will shortly be available.

The CDs are priced £9.99 and are available from www.soundsdreamy.com.