Hey baby! The York Dream Machine, which excited money moguls on television, has become a reality.

The contraption, which is fitted to pushchairs and prams to gently rock their occupants to sleep, has now rolled off the production lines at a plant in Hungary and is up for sale.

Graham Whitby, one of three directors of Wigginton-based Baby Dream Machine Limited, today announced that he had set up a website as the first outlet in the UK for the £130 device at www.babydreammachine.com

He said: "It's a really exciting time. We've been shelling out for the past two years and now comes the reaping."

The device is expected to yield £400 million in world sales over the next three years - the kind of projection that impressed producers of the BBC2 series Dragon's Den, in which business ideas are pitched to a team of sceptical investors.

Graham and its inventor and major shareholder, Barry Haigh, were both invited to make a presentation on the first of the Dragon's Den programmes on January 6 after their product was "talent spotted" at the York Venturefest event at York Racecourse last year, which brought good ideas in contact with investors.

All five of the series' multi-millionaire business "angels" praised the device and wanted a piece of the action, offering them £150,000 for 15 per cent of the business. Graham and Barry were prepared to offer ten per cent, but when the panel refused this, they pulled out, asking why they should give away a large slice of their action merely to quicken the pace to production and eventual sale.

Graham, a former managing director of GSPK Design Ltd of Knaresborough, said: "We were prepared to be patient and now we will reap the rewards."

Barry, 55, a retired builder from Bridlington, invented and patented the Dream Machine after the birth of his grandson, Quinn.

The idea had formed after his son, Ian, was born 31 years ago, but his attempts to create an oscillating motion for his pushchair failed.

Years later, at a gym, he noticed an old-style bike track rolling road on two rollers he decided that he could offset one of the rollers to get the effect he was looking for, and a working prototype emerged from his workshop.

It evolved into a mains-powered machine equipped with 15 minute timer with a push button to toggle between low and high speeds, recreating a gentle womb-like motion.

Graham said: "So far, we have had terrific feedback from mums and dads in Yorkshire who co-operated in trials."

Updated: 10:18 Monday, March 28, 2005