Strollerderby : baby monitor

Babble Talk: Is Ditching the Baby Monitor Child Abuse?

JeanneSager — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:27:00 GMT

If parents want to get really hard core, they always pull out the word "abuse." As in, "I can't believe you'd do that to your child, that's child abuse!"

Elizabeth Blackwell's recent Babble essay, Bad Parent: Out of Sight, elicited some shock and awe for her refusal to use a baby monitor. But can not using a baby monitor to track your child's every whimper and wheeze really be considered child abuse? I mean, folks, we do have to sleep, shower . . . poop.

If you have all five senses attuned to your child at every moment of every day, I commend you. I don't.

Neither did my parents or their parents. Heck, my grandmothers didn't have baby monitors - and no one would dare tell Grandma that the seven children she raised were anything but well-behaved, well-mannered and in perfectly good health.

Baby monitors are little more than a modern convenience. Useful for some families - including some of the parents who commented about their big houses where it's hard to hear from room to room or kids with medical conditions. For others, well, we used ours a handfull of times, and she's managed to weather the storm.

In truth, although it was dubbed a piece about the electronic monitoring devices, the heart of readers' pique is how Blackwell keeps track of her kids throughout the day and how she responds to them. When they start to cry in the morning, Blackwell says she doesn't hop right to it. And when the bedroom is quiet, she likes to let sleeping babies lie.

Letting a child cry for hours on end might be child abuse (although Dr. Ferber might disagree). But letting a child know that the minute they wake up, Mommy might be on the potty or washing dishes or yes, lolling in bed after a long night of feedings and diaper changes, isn't. As one nurse practitioner told me, shortly after I gave birth, sometimes, kids just cry. Make sure they are fed, they have been changed, they are dressed appropriately for the temperature and they are safe. If you have done everything in your power to make them stop crying, and they won't, it's OK to put them down and walk away.

We are our kids' biggest comfort, but they need to learn to self-soothe and to develop their own interests. Smushed up against Mom's chest all day where she's making them feel better, they hardly get to see the world. They also need to learn that not every moment of your day can be devoted to them. Sometimes, you have to eat, sleep, poop - just like babies.

Parents Wait a Decade to Report Missing Child

Having a Kid Alone? Don't Tell Me Why I Have it Better

Babble Talk: Points For Honesty

AccuCrib: Monitor Watches Baby Via Radar

Amy Kuras — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:06:00 GMT

Every new parent has experienced this – waking up in a panic from the practically comatose sleep you fall into from the exhaustion of parenting a newborn; then, in one swift motion, rushing to your baby’s bedside to check their breathing.

I have been through it, with both babies, and wished I had one of those fancy motion-detecting monitors. Now, researchers at the University of Florida have come up with a protype for a baby monitor that uses radar –that’s right, radar – to remotely track the baby’s breathing.

It works wirelessly, as well. A small, book-sized device hooks to the side of the crib and tracks the rising and falling of the baby's chest. If the baby’s breathing falls below a certain threshold or stops entirely, an alarm sounds on the remote unit kept by the parents.

The monitoring unit has a series of lights that indicate the baby’s breathing status, the battery life of the remote unit and the connection to the base unit in the crib.

A future iteration might be able to track the baby’s heartbeat.

The iPhone: Making Parenting Easier (and Techier)

Jen Chaney — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:28:00 GMT

There are plenty of iPhone applications to occupy our kids' time and attention. But what about the apps that make parenting easier?

Brett mentioned three not too long ago, but a recent post on ParentDish -- which I discovered via Wired's Geekdad blog -- provides an extensive overview of iPhone applications that are particularly helpful to parents. So far, no one has figured out a way to make the iPhone raise our children for us. But many of these make our parenting responsibilities easier. You should definitely check out the full post, but these are the four I think new moms and dads may find most useful:

Baby Monitor: This one turns your iPhone into a baby monitor, which is such a great idea, especially for parents who frequently travel or don't want to spend extra money on another device. Word of caution: Yes, the phone will call you when the infant stirs, but that doesn't mean it's safe to leave the kid in his crib while you hit a "Quantum of Solace" matinee.

Nursing Tracker: Most moms find it challenging to keep track of how long they last nursed, which side the child fed on, etc., especially when they're operating on very little sleep. This app helps make that process easier. Sure, you could just write down the information. But this way, that feeding log can't get lost or inadvertently thrown away by a spouse who think he's being helpful by cleaning up in the nursery. Not that, like, I am speaking from experience.

Food Additives: This application is perfect for parents of children with food sensitivities and allergies. It allows you to look up information about 450-plus additives, ideal for those times in the grocery store when you're trying to make a quick decision about whether to buy or not to buy. Pretty useful for grown-ups with allergies, too.

Diaper Tracker: This is one that Brett mentioned and is perhaps the most useful of them all. My husband and I spent a ludicrous amount of time tracking our son's, um, defecation progress in those early days because he wasn't gaining enough weight. This app allows you to record all of the relevant information, right down to the description of the b.m. (Appetizing, I know.) Now, will you look like kind of an a-hole when the pediatrician asks for details about your child's bowel movements and you whip out your iPhone? Kinda. But you'll also have the most precise poop information of any parent around.

Image: codegoo.com via ParentDish.

Delicious Droolicious: Huggy Sluggys Are Saving the Earth and Sending Kids to Therapy

Kelly Mills — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:28:00 GMT

Posted by Mir

I really want to like these. I do. The concept is brilliant -- each Huggy Sluggy has a pet environmental cause, and they're cuddly plushes made with organic cotton, shipped in a reusable bag along with a book made of recycled paper. Plus, they're made here in the USA. Each pack retails for $34.95. It sounds great, right?

In reality, the "reusable bag" is a burlap sack; no sane person wants to cuddle with a slug, much less a disturbingly anthropomorphized slug who cares about the environment but is wearing lipstick (or, if you check out the other drawings on the site, a bra top); and the kicker, of course, is the Huggy Sluggys' notable similarity to something most of us would rather not have our toddlers wandering around clutching. They may as well revise the website to read, "Save our trees," "Protect our animals," and "Always wear a condom."

Other yeas and nays at Droolicious:

NASA Baffled, Kid Still Sleeping: Mom Sees Space Station on Video Baby Monitor

Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:27:00 GMT

In a feat far better than the rumors of parents over-hearing mob deals go down and indiscretions being discussed by neighbors over their baby monitors, a new mother recently got great shots of the space station on the video monitor that was supposed to be focused on her 3-1/2-month old son Jack.

Natalie Meilinger of suburban Chicago was understandably confused when she tuned in, probably expecting to see sweet baby Jack wriggling out of his swaddle blanket or groping around for his paci, and instead saw the shuttle Atlantis docked at (where else?) the International Space Station. The mother says people thought she was crazy when she tried to discuss it with friends, contact the manufacturer and even report it to police. NASA -- an organization, let us be reminded, of very smart people responsible for sending large vehicles full of more very smart people to discover stuff and build technology in space -- can't figure out why the family's monitor is tuned into their station.

In the meantime, these new parents have probably totally forgotten a miracle of human life is cooing in his crib since they've viewed astronauts on a space walk, the planet and mission control on their tiny monitor screen. Whatever is "wrong," I hope it doesn't get fixed. I am totally jealous of the non-drooling entertainment they're getting for their monitor upgrade. And I consider my one late-night eavesdropping session -- the one where my neighbor checked on the totals and put in the passwords for all of her bank accounts that was broadcast over all three of our monitors -- to be officially topped.

[photo credit: Paul Beaty/AP]