Stop Worrying

Word around the house is that little miss you-know-who will be
sawing logs in her crib for the first time tonight, making the transition from
bassinet to crib (impermanent? Perhaps.). And while we were rearranging
the furniture this morning (it’s okay; it’s ritual; often it all ends up back
where it started), I was reminded of just how comforting this
Bebe
Care Angel Sounds Monitor
has been.


Basically, it’s a combination sound monitor and movement sensor.
A thin motion-sensing sheet lays flat under the baby’s foam mattress, and every
slight movement (breathing, stirring) signals to the pad that everything is
a-okay, keeping the alarm quiet. Should the baby (or the motion-sensing sheet)
become perfectly still for 20 seconds, an alarm sounds, alerting the parents to
the worrisome stillness. The downside is that the motionlessness! alarm
screams (after 20 seconds) when one of us lifts Is. from the bassinet and
forgets to flip the base to off. Yet another downside is that the sound monitor
is one-directional, so when Is. wakes from a nap (telecasting her fuss into the
office), I can’t simply mash a button and radio back to her with instructions
for returning to sleep.

Really, the Angel Care Movement Sensor with Sound Monitor (holy
crap, can they come up with a shorter name for this product?) is a gem.
Certainly, it is worth the price (even if ours was a gift), just in the nerves
it calms during the first few weeks at home. Plus, way I see it, with a gizmo such as this baby
is assured to be a cyborg (cybernetic organism) from day one.

Added: Controversy?: D. read that some technophobes are claiming
devices like this fundamentally alter the relation of the child to her surrounds
and renders parents less naturally monitorial. We’d probably say it
merely augments our watch.

2 Comments

  1. I put Gilly down in his bassinet tonight and realized that he’s almost too big for it. Yikes! We’ll have to make that same transition to the crib in the next week or so…only, to do so, we either have to kick Mac out of his crib or buy a new crib.
    Can they both be ready at the same time for that big transition?

  2. Yeah, I bet Gilly is at about the same size as Is (or bigger). We need to get them together sometime, maybe during break. The few times she’s been around other babies, she’s been really interested in what they’re doing, what they’re crying about, and so on.

    Good luck with the transition. Isabel has taken to the crib alright so far; only a few more wake-ups than usual in the first couple of nights.

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