Regardless of experience, having a new baby brought in the world (whether yours or someone else’s) is enough to give everyone parenting jitters. You never really know what you need until you needed it five minutes ago. However, with advancements in all kinds of technology being made every day, there is no shortage of gadgets to make caring for baby easier and while no one can say that they really need them, they rank pretty high on the wish list.
When it comes to cool tech for your baby, there is nothing g quite as extravagant or as indispensable as a formula maker or preparation machine. If you aren’t quite sure what a formula maker is, think of an espresso machine or your favourite Keurig but specifically for your baby. These nifty little devices take a lot of the guesswork out of prepping your baby’s formula –they boil the water in advance to remove any impurities before cooling it to a drinkable temperature, mixing it with the correct amount of your preferred brand of powdered formula. Most machines, like the Baby Brezza® Formula Pro and the Born Free® Bottle Genius, have reservoirs for the unprepared powder as well as the water so that at the push of a button, your bottle will be concocted and ready for baby’s dinnertime.
If your little one is moving away from bottle-feeding towards a more solid diet, meal prep becomes a bit different but don’t worry, there are plenty of gadgets for this stage of your child’s development as well. The notorious Baby Bullet® and the Baby Brezza® One Step Baby Food Maker are just a couple of the options for making your own baby food at home. Not only do they help with the actual food prep, but they provide systems for storage and keeping track of food expiration dates to make mealtimes just a little bit easier.
Feeding, however, is just one aspect of childcare. Making sure your little one is meeting all your sleep needs is a huge challenge for most parents. Devices such as the Sleep Sheep, which produces soothing sounds to help lull your baby off to dreamland, are excellent as a first step in regulating sleep patterns. It has a soft, fuzzy exterior for cuddling and plays four different sounds –white noise, ocean, mother’s heartbeat, and whale song –which can be set to automatically shut off after 23 or 45 minutes. Getting to sleep is only half the challenge; the other half is staying asleep. Although no one can force a child to sleep more than their body will allow, the Gro Clock can help you teach your child to stay in bed until it’s time to get up. Its face changes from blue to yellow and will light up to let your little one know that they can get out of bed, preventing them from waking you up early.
If you’re looking for something that can do a little bit of everything, the adan + anais® serenity star is a system that’s meant to aid in both sleeping and feeding. It acts as a sound machine, a nightlight, a room thermometer, and it can record when you last fed your baby (and from what side, if you’re nursing).