Ask HN: Baby Registry, HN Style | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Baby Registry, HN Style

2 pointsetxm4 comments

About to be first time parents, there are so many gadgets on the market not sure what’s good and what’s garbage.

As a parent, what has been impossible to live without?

My youngest is 14yo now, so not a new parent but two things I really liked as reassurance measures personally.

I put a night vision web camera in the babies room and a sleep pad which detected breathing or the lack of breathing as a tool to help prevent SIDS. I've never believed in kids sleeping with the parents or sleeping in the same room beyond the first month or so (but to each their own). I also had other little things like the baby monitor etc, but the two I did that were tech focused were the sleep pad and the web camera (which today would be 1000x better than what I did before).

There are many new designs around the SIDS detectors to fill the need of like the sleep pad I used so you can check those out if you are interested in that at all. Amazon sells a bunch of different ones. One newer option is check out https://owletcare.com/ . I am not affiliated in anyway or have any experience but might be worth checking out.

Outside of tech. Get a good book on sleep training, you will be much happier people understanding how babies work and how sleep changes from infant to toddler and toddler to adolescent and then to teenager. It will save you lots of grief if you understand it and work with it instead of fighting it.

It is awesome to be a parent, good luck you will enjoy it!

Thanks! I’ve heard of SIDS but didn’t know there were detection devices. Also not a fan of the idea of co-sleeping. I’ll check a few out!

My son will be 3 months old in 2 days. There are two things that have made things so much easier for my wife and I. First, a Fisher-Price Rock and Play Sleeper[0]. We never got a bassinet and we were going to borrow one from a family member but they ended up starting to use it. We had a pack & play type thing that had a bassinet that was ok for sleeping. It worked for a bit but he ended up not sleeping well in it. There was no stability and any movement he would make would wake him up as the bassinet would move. My wife and I were frustrated and looked for other options and that's when we found the Rock & Play. You can connect to it through your smartphone and control what it does (rocking, music, light show, vibration) easily. I have a setting that turns everything on and puts it on a timer. It is amazing since I can do that from the bed (he sleeps in our room for the time being) and it will soothe him to sleep (if needed, we don't turn on any of the features if he falls right to sleep).

The other thing that I recommend is a swaddle. You can swaddle your baby in a blanket and that is what I learned when my wife and I took a class on caring for a baby. It was super easy to do, however, that is because we were practicing on a doll. When we got home it was a bit more complicated as my son would be squirming which made getting a good, tight swaddle hard. We ended up getting a SwaddleMe brand swaddle. It makes it super easy to swaddle him tightly and quickly. With the swaddle and rock & play he has been sleeping through the night since 6 weeks.

[0] https://fisher-price.mattel.com/shop/en-us/fp/baby-sleepers/...

Awesome! I appreciate it. It’s nice to hear someone say that have had through the night sleep without tossing a bunch of money at a Snoo.

And congrats!

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