Gadgetory

this is been popper he's an editor at the verge which means he's pretty dialed in to the cutting edge of tech but when he gets home from work he's a dad and as far as parenting goes he thinks of himself as a Luddite except when it comes to occupying his kids with an iPad I feel embarrassed to be a tech writer who has barely any baby edges I mean I guess I think that for the most part I assume technology can add a lot of pleasure value to my life but also a lot of work my oldest is now almost 10 and so when she was first born it was like whoa video monitors so we've come a huge way and I think absolutely it's making parenting easier this is Liz gum burner when it comes to combining technology and parenting she's pretty much an expert I'm the publisher of cool mom pics Network which includes cool mom tech which is a site that we design specifically need to present tack tech tips helpful resource for parents from a parenting point of view cool mom tech pegs itself is a site that gives parents common-sense information about tech you can go there for information about educational toys calendar apps that keep your family organized and private social networks that let you share pictures of your kids with family it's technology applied to parenting in every way imaginable moms really want things and dads that are practical that have a purpose in their lives that will keep them organized that will make their life easier that will make them feel cooler that will keep their kids entertained they're very purposeful I think with their technology choices are there like certain tasks that you wish were just easier changing diapers making bottles giving baths I could I probably go on for yeah last night I had to get up at 3:00 in the morning in the dark and try to warm up a bottle without making any noise and that was pretty tough if I had a bottle that I could just like shake to activate right a couple minutes later would be warm that would be amazing so Oliver is opening the yeah Mogo self warming baby bottle the bottle uses pods filled with a salt and water solution that with a shake can warm up a bottle in about four minutes my kids need milk all the time when they wake up before they go to bed sometimes in the middle of the night I spend a lot of time filling bottles cleaning bottles heating up milk and doling it out this would be great because I can just put the milk in shake it up and there's a little chemical reaction with salt and water a couple minutes later the bottle is ready to go I could also see it being really great for road trip when I'm flying solo without my wife and I don't have a stove handy the only thing that really bothers me is having to use these bulky plastic pods and throwing them out after every use that that feels pretty wasteful to me we use a baby monitor but we're definitely set apart from people who have much more intense baby monitoring setups the with a smart baby monitor gives you a high-definition view of your baby while she's sleeping the app can send you automatic alerts when your kid is crying and you even have the option of talking to her a huge part of parenting especially in the early days is training yourself not to rush into your kids room you know the second you hear them cry so for me not having tons and tons of data about them was actually a good thing but I just used this withing smart baby monitor and now that I've tried one I could see how it would sometimes save me like in the middle of the night I hear him cry okay or it's like stuck in the crib I need to go in is he about to fall back asleep great I'm not getting out of bed it feels like the kind of thing you don't need but once you have it you could never go back to living without it we've always done like baby lead feeding where whatever we're eating they eat but I think there are definitely lots of times when we're eating something that isn't quite right for them so if we had some that we're eating and then you could just like steam it or blend it up and it would be a lot easier for them that would be that would be great but Beata baby cook pro is what happens when you combine a steamer with a food processor it's designed to help you make baby food quickly all while minimizing mess I'm a pretty terrible cook but to me this seems like kind of an ideal way to go about it a lot of the time I'm looking through the fridge thinking okay what in here can my baby eat with this you pour in the water you do a little chopping and voila you've got mush that baby could ingest this is easy to clean it's kind of like a one-pot meal honestly if I was still a bachelor I might use this now when I first said Oliver and I would take him out for a walk by myself like in the carrier I would stop at the end of every block and like check to make sure he was breathing which is totally crazy like there's no reason to do that but you do do that like you feel you know neurotic about all this stuff yeah no that's true the MIMO smart onesie sends information about your child's breathing patterns body position and body temperature right to your smartphone to me it epitomizes the conflict that I have around baby tech would it be awesome to know when my son is getting a fever in the middle of the night absolutely but I've also gotten a lot of alerts while I've been testing this saying he's awake when he's actually asleep that he has an abnormally low temperature when he's fine and then just the app disconnecting at random and now he's stopped breathing if I relied on it and took every warning at face value I feel like it would end up adding a lot of stress to my life the hard thing is that there's more out there to sort through you know there's not like the one baby book from dr. Spock or like the one highchair that everyone gets there's so many options that the hard part is wading through all of it and that's what I found - I would go on Amazon and there would be hundreds of options it was overwhelming and I wasn't sure which one to pick so a lot of times I would just fall back on my iPhone you know it could be a gaming device if the kids are bored it's a white noise machine if we need to sleep at somebody else's house it's a baby monitor and a pinch I mean there's just an app for everything at this point I feel like screens are just a part of people's lives Glenn Whitney is the president of the National Museum of math in New York City he spends a lot of time thinking about what it takes to keep kids engaged when broaching complicated concepts this means that he knows a lot about how children and parents interact with technology there's a lot of different ways that people learn people are visual learners people are tactile learners people are auditory learners so we try to use touch and sound and sight you know the more ways of experiencing something the more engaging it is you can create a similar environment on an iPad and a good piece of software can really get you engaged and and and get you wanting to explore it's that it's creating that drive and that curiosity that I think is really at the key of getting kids to to learn more I have an iPad one we spent a lot of time researching which apps to get him when we spend a lot of money on some very fancy apps in the end it's kind of like a kid with a cardboard box he prefers the free ones that we think are junk but I do see him really learning about letters and shapes and colors all kinds of concepts while he's playing on there you know the flip side of that is I go into his room in the morning and before he says daddy I love you it's want my iPad want YouTube and you know then I'm pretty sure I failed as a parent the tablet can be a great parenting tool for videos for the car you know it takes the place of a lot of other devices but as long as it's not be expensive your kid also interacting in the real world you have to look at it with a critical eye and say you know what's what is my child or what am i you know really doing or giving it out of this particular program if you're looking for that active learning it's the question of how does it get you involved I think sometimes the technology can be the substitute for parenting and iPods not a parent like parents are parents so while technology can do some things that make your life easier I think it's a matter of finding the balance between all these amazing tools that can be educational and support us as parents and support our kids growth and then using the old school stuff like kids still like to play with the cardboard box more than whatever can do that that will never change