Products that Helped Me Sleep at Night as a First Time Mom

Being a first-time parent is so scary. You have no idea what you are in for the words parent sleep seem like mutually exclusive terms. It is so hard to keep yourself from going into the baby’s room to touch them and feel that they are breathing every 5 minutes. I also work in the public health field so I know more than I ever wish to about SIDS and how everything can be dangerous for a baby. So having a little peace of mind was seriously priceless and the follow products helped me stay sane and actually sleep (a little bit) for the first 6 months.

My number one item is the Owlet Sock Baby Monitor. I wish I had billions of dollars to be able to buy one of these for every newborn!

This is a little sock that the baby wears while they sleep that tracks the baby’s oxygen level and heart rate. If their heart rate gets too high/low or if the oxygen level gets too low the sock will alert you so you can address the issue. It has a base that always connects with the sock even if the internet is down. It also has an app for your phone that will alert you but that needs the internet to work.

The sock alerted us about 6 times total for our son and 5 of those times it was no big deal. We gently woke our son up and his stats would go back to normal then he would go back to sleep. One of the times that it alerted is to a low oxygen/HR we tried to gently wake him up and he wouldn’t wake up. So we had to be a bit more aggressive and it took a lot to wake him up. I truly believe that if we didn’t have the Owlet on my son we would have lost him that night to SIDS. So if you possibly can get one of these socks get one. They are pretty pricey and we couldn’t have afforded it if my sister hadn’t given it to us as a shower gift. So, now anyone I know having a baby I try to get a couple people to go in on it with me to give the soon-to-be parents an Owlett for their baby.

My number two item is the Motorola Video Monitoring system

I didn’t feel comfortable with a baby monitor that took video and needed a wifi connection to work. I was afraid it would get hacked or something and anyone could look at my little angel. So, I wanted a closed network baby monitor system. The Motorola system is amazing. I can’t say enough good things about it. It came with two cameras. So,we can see all angles in our son’s room, it has video and sound, it plays music (from wind-chimes to nighttime noises), it lets you zoom in to 2x, you can record (if you have an SD card), it displays the temp, the time and it alerts you when the battery is low. I seriously love this monitoring system so much. The only thing I don’t like about it is you can’t dim the screen very much. Now, you can turn the screen off and leave the sound on but I can’t sleep when the screen is off I don’t know why. But, for my less neurotic parents out there this is a great option for overnight monitoring.

My number 3 item is brand new smoke and Carbon Monoxide detectors

We remodeled our home right before our son was born so we got all new detectors throughout our entire house. Like I said my public health background has me extra concerned about the dangers that await helpless little babies. I am so happy that we did because I am not worried about the detectors not working. Even if you don’t want to/can’t replace your current detectors please check all of the monitors throughout your home. The safety campaign is when you change your clocks for daylight savings you also check your detectors. These detectors are a huge step in making your home safe. Yeah, I am looking at you This Is Us fans… (also This Is Us fans you can replace your Crockpot here… I’m not crying you’re crying… I’m totally ugly crying)

My final product is the Nest Thermostat

Now, this may seem totally out of nowhere but hear me out. The ideal temperature for a newborn baby to sleep in is between 68-72 degrees. (check out What to Expect for tons of tips to help prevent SIDS https://www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/sids.aspx ). My home has windows that face east and west. So, when the sun is rising, half of the house is boiling and when the sun is setting the other half of the house is boiling. All of our bedrooms are upstairs and our thermostat is downstairs. So, we can set our thermostat to 68 degrees but upstairs the temp could be more like 76 degrees. So, we monitor the temperature in the nursery through our baby monitor and adjust the Nest accordingly.

The nest can be controlled through your phone so when I wake up at 2 am and see it is over 72 degrees in the nursery I can just adjust the temp on the Nest and go back to sleep. I don’t have to walk downstairs to do it. Which I know sounds like “ok lazy just walk down a flight of stairs” but when you are living on 45-minute chunks of sleep I promise you not having to completely wake yourself up by walking downstairs is amazing. Also, pregnancy and postpartum hormones are crazy. You will be happy you can control the temperature from your bed.

If you have any products that help you sleep at night leave me a comment or send me a message!