The child’s technology that a parent has found helped more

Last spring, when my wife and I were preparing to welcome our first child, we started a list of children’s equipment – A rite of passage for parents. The difference with our list, or at least so, I thought, was that it would only contain the best things because it was controlled by me, a technological publishing with 20 years of experience of testing products.

After our baby arrived in the summer, I learned that I was wrong.

It turns out that there is no better children’s equipment, because what has worked for other parents often did not work for us. Even if I had chosen a more voted stroller, his wheels were inadequate on the roads left in the tank of our neighborhood. THE Saldula for electronic bottles Listed as an indispensable by many income was too slow in heating the milk for our vocal newborn. THE RingiThe $ 1,700 robotic bass with a cult of worship, did nothing to cradle our little one to sleep.

Now beyond the sleepless nights of the newborn phase, my wife and I have finished with a well -placed and happy child. What helped, in part, was to shoot a different approach with Baby Gear, analyzing our particular problems like new parents and looking for ways to solve them.

My maxims and low with child’s technology may not be the experience of all parents. But the lessons I learned from my misadventures, from the night lights controlled by the internet to the tates’ camses, should be universally applicable.

Here’s what to know.

Knowledge triumphs on thin Gizmos, including Snoo

When our daughter was born for the first time, she had effortlessly sonorned in a cot without frills that I bought from another parent through the Facebook market. But when he made about 3 months, he started protesting aloud to the Pisolini. This made me consider the Snoo, the white bassina designed chicly that automatically sway and sounds sounds to soothe a demanding child.

Among the parents, Snoo is a polarizing product not only for its price ($ 1,700 or $ 160 per month for rental). Many of my friends with the privilege of possessing one called device a manna from the sky that saved them from the edge of madness. Others said their child hated him. I had read the Book relaxing babies Written by the creator of Snoo, Harvey Karp, so I wanted to try it.

Fortunately, a friend lent me a snnoo. I downloaded an accompanying app and paid a $ 20 subscription for access to some of its extra advantages, including a rocking movement that imitated the bumps and the thrusts of riding in the car.

Initially my baby was not crazy when we tied it. But when she started crying and the cradle reacted by swaying and playing white noise, she cried even stronger. After a few weeks of experimentation, we returned to his old school cradle.

A happier baby spokesman, the company behind Snoo, said that it was ideal to acclimatize children to the product as soon as they were born because the movements simulate and play a child experiences inside the cervier of a mother. However, the company advertises Snoo as suitable for children up to 6 months and my daughter adapts to this criterion.

The technology that in the end helped helped? E-book.

A late night, I downloaded $ 14 e-book of a pediatrician on child psychology and sleep. I started understanding why my 3 -month -old boy was fighting sleep and how to anticipate when he needed a nap. We tried the method methods and in a few weeks my baby started to do it regularly and sleep all night.

Knowledge is more powerful and cheaper to access – of a cradle of fantasy.

The best technology helped parents with a broken brain

My wife and I found the most useful children’s technology as a smartphone app that helped us to process information in our private sleep status. The free app HuckleberryA tool for parents to record the feeds of bottles, the diaper changes and the duration of sleep for their children, was crucial for me and my wife to communicate the needs of the child with each other when we did the work shifts in turn. He also provided useful data for our pediatrician.

Even useful was the App centers for the control of diseases and the prevention of free milestonesWhich shows a list of control of the milestones of the expected development of a child at all ages, such as learning to roll at 6 months.

When she was about 7 months old, our daughter started crawling. We could no longer divert our gaze from her, so we moved to consume more parental literature through a different means: audiobooks.

Single -command children’s technology is not necessary

Many popular children’s technologies are gadgets that serve as a single purpose.

I $ 60 Rest of hatchingA night light that plays white noise, is a product on the must -have lists of many parents to help children sleep. THE $ 250 Nanite forA webcam that can warn you of a child’s movements and cries, is another. So it’s $ 50 Philips Avent Electronic Bottle WarderWhich warm a bottle of refrigerated milk with the printing of a button in a few minutes.

I received all those products as gifts through our register. Even if I liked to use them, in the end I realized other products that I already owned could carry out the same tasks.

• THE Nanit webcam He had an impressive series of features for monitoring our child, including a tool that automatically detected what time I put it in bed and what time he woke up. But that feature required that the camera was mounted on a high tripod against a wall to have a bird’s flight cotthat it was not possible with the layout of our bedroom.

  We used Nanit just like any webcam to periodically check our son’s feed video in his crib. This could also be done with any security camera for generic purposes, such as $ 100 indoor Nest Cam.

• Our child has slept better in the dark field, so the Night light of the PortelloWhose colors can be changed through a smartphone app, they proved useless. (Perhaps when our daughter is older, it will appreciate that the light can be set to a timer, so it lights up when it is time to wake up.) We only used the function to play the white noise. When we traveled, we used a tablet or smartphone to play white noise in the hotel room, making a dedicated audio machine superfluous.

• THE Philips Avent Bottle Walder Initially it seemed useful, but every caregiver for our daughter, including relatives, my wife, myself and now our nanny, stopped using it. Each of us realized independently that a cup of metal coffee partly filled with hot water from the sink was faster.

This does not mean that none of the aforementioned products will not work well for another parent. But the problem with the premise of the best equipment for children is that it requires that two children are the same, which is rarely the case.

It is better to start knowing your child before starting a list rather than vice versa.