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High Tech Baby Monitoring?
MrGibbage writes "I'm a long time geek and about to be a first time father. I'm setting up the baby room now, and I'm looking for a high-tech (and low cost of course) baby monitoring system. I'm already running a linux web server over DSL and I'd love to push the video to that in order to see the video on my cell phone when we are out and the babysitter is home....uhh....babysitting. How will I watch the video while in our house? What about on my iPaq? Laptop? Something else? What about audio? Any systems that integrate both? The Baby-R-Us systems are ridiculously low quality and not expandable at all and therefore not really an option. The last slashdot article about video surveillance is a few years old."
If you start watching the baby on your video-phone, you'll get unhealthily paranoid. Select a baby-sitter you trust, and relax a bit. You'll have enough stress with a new kid as it is - you'll need to learn to let go when it's sleeping.
Human infants are quite good (admittedly not perfect) at not dying when left alone when sleeping.
Ydco co
Have you thought about trying good old fashioned parenting? Perhaps "being there" is the best way to monitor your child...
Honestly, your biggest problem at this point will be getting enough sleep. everything else will be likely be lovely.
As far as I'm concerned baby monitoring is pointless, it merely increases paranoia and stress.
Each time the baby isn't coughing/crying/breathing heavily, it induces fear there is something wrong.
Each time the baby is coughing/crying/breathing heavily, it induces fear there is something wrong.
Surprisingly, babies are fairly dependable to continue existing without constant monitoring. Rather unsurprisingly, it takes a huge amount of energy for constant monitoring by adults.
Hey, most likely if you're a 'hands-on' type of daddy, you'll want to spend the miniscule amounts of spare time that you'll have on your digital baby videos, rather than worrying about baby monitoring. After a couple of months, it's a full time job.
Have fun!
First off I will preface this with the disclaimer that I don't have kids, nor do my wife (of many years) and I ever intend to have kids...
I say skip the geek-tools baby raising. Everyone I know who *has* had kids and taken some obsessive-compulsive child-rearing tactic has ended up in a near nervous breakdown with no life of their own.
If you can't find a reputale local babysitter with references, then leave the kid in the care of a familiy member when you go out. I don't think that staring at 2" square grainy image of the kid in a crib is going to make your evening out all that enjoyable.
If you must have video surveilance, go to http://www.supercircuits.com for the video cameras. Then go to http://www.worthdist.com and get a ChannelPlus channel modulator. This allows you to put the video camera feed(s) on TV channels, so for example you tune any TV to channel 84 and there is the crib (at my house channel 84 is the driveway camera, but I digress.)
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A lot of people are making a lot of money off parents with exaggerated fears for their children's safety. Bike helmets are a reasonable precaution, but stab-resistant jackets? As the father of a one-year old, I would suggest you spend your limited free time checking the batteries on the fire alarms and ensuring you and your wife still have fun now and then rather than tinkering around with baby monitors. Both will serve your child better in the long run.
Please, what happened? Whats this obsession with monitoring these days? When i was a baby, there were no baby alarms or no cameras (?!?). Please do not monitor your babies with cameras feeding a stream over the internet for the love of all that is sacred. The idea alone makes me sick. It will not make you more safe, it will make you more nervous. Get a good babysitter you can trust, and go out, relax. You need it from time to time, after having a baby. Dont keep yourself at a constant level of stress monitoring your child 24/7. Whats next? Giving your baby a GPS tag? RFID chip? Its all an excuse nowadays. Just bring up your child like you was. You turned out alright i suppose?
I pity you. Children are an incredible joy, but they aren't for the selfish. You need to give a lot of yourself to your family but the rewards are awesome!
I have 3, two boys and a girl 5, 3 and almost 1.
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
I have heard of at least one person who was convicted of assaulting a baby based on evidence from a hidden camera. I wasn't sure how often that kind of things happened so I did a google search on "baby 'video camera' conviction assault". I got only about 700 hits and there were way more stories about pedophiles video taping children than there were about catching nannies beating their charges.
:-)
The bottom line is: unless you have evidence that something is going on, just hire someone you trust and relax.
ps. I am a father of two grown children and I assure you that you have a lot more to worry about than the babysitter.
> our own ears sufficed just as well
I have to second this-- you do _not_ want electronic monitoring. You _have_ to develop "parental radar". Which really means 'hearing'.
By the time your kids are age 2, you should be able to tell where your kids are in the house or yard, regardless of your own location, instantly and subconsciously. Developing 'eyes in the back of your head' is mostly just sensory awareness of the normal kid noise level and position.
If you go with electronic monitoring (sound or video), you'll have trouble later.
You'll have trouble telling where your toddler drifted to if you go to a house not rigged up like yours, since your own hearing won't be trained.
You'll never be able to handle nightmares at age 2 if you used a baby monitor and didn't develop good child-hearing.
You'll never be able to yell to your 4-year old, "stop doing that!" two rooms away (because you heard silence, and silence=mischief) if you're used to direct feeds.
Your six year old will rule your life once he/she realizes you lack the basic totally sensory awareness parents need to develop.
You'll have a harder time finding them when lost in shopping malls, parks, et cetera, if you didn't develop your parental hearing/radar.
Seriously, my hearing is incredibly sensitive, I feel like Daredevil when my kids are involved. Sure, I might still walk into a truck I didn't hear coming like anyone-- but if my kids are driving it, I'll know!
That said, I did run a video camera out the window so I could be in my study and be sure they were okay out back. It was sometimes handy, but you know, I still relied on my own hearing and parental spider-sense to know when trouble was happening.
If you do video, for $40 you can get a camera plus battery that's smaller than a pack of cards, wireless, color, and runs into a TV. So consider setting up a TV _when they are past age 3_ for outside, but really, don't do in-house monitoring, you'll just kill the natural development of your own senses and instincts.
And don't monitor the babysitter. If you can't trust her to watch the kids sans monitoring, you shouldn't hire her at all. If you trust her, enjoy the time you're paying her for by having a child-free excusion!
A.
If you are going to have outsiders work in your home, get fvcking COMFORTABLE with watching them.
Security does not mean paranoia, but monitoring is perfectly legitimate.
Except when it is your boss monitoring you at work. I understand that a baby is different than a computer or a 3 million dollar digimahookey that you work on.
But really where can anybody draw the line between "security" and "privacy".
If you are going to monitor your baby make sure the babysitter knows. They may be offended and not watch the baby, but I think it is their right to decide whether they want to be watched also.
Can you ping me now?... Good!
Start now to schedule your kids into your life.
I am childless by choice and have always puzzled at statements that having a child is a selfless act (not to pick on you directly, but you did mention selfishness in your post). The reason is this. A few years ago, I started challenging those who insisted that I should have children (and they do. at great length.) to give me the reasons THEY had children. However, in those reasons, they need to avoid using the first person. No "I", "me", "us", etc. MANY parents have a really hard time coming up with any.
While taking care of the child once it arrives may be selfless, the reasons for choosing to have them in the first place are almost always centered around the parent rather than the child.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
When your wife says "We need to check on the kids before we go to bed..." she actually means "You need to go check on the kids...". Don't get it wrong like I did, you will never hear the end if, especially if she breast feed the babies.
Skip the gadgets, you won't use them. A good quality audio monitor is all you will need and that will be overkill most of the time.
A low quality audio monitor may provide with entertainment from neighbor hood. Ours picked up the guy next doors phone conversation with his lover. Nice guy but more info than I ever wanted to know about him and his friend.
Agreed.
It is totally YOUR business to have kids or not. I was replying to the parent who sounded very disturbed at the thought of raising kids. I feel for him and his spouse. (That's where the selfishness came in.) If he "got her pregnant", IMHO, be a man and step up. Be the best husband you can be and support your wife. Once he see's his child his views may very well change. It's one of those things that's impossible to decribe without actually doing it. To hear a baby call you daddy or come over and give you a hug can be pretty special.
It is a big committment to raise kids and not all people want to or are up to it. I repect that and people shouldn't be giving you a hard time. God knows there are enough unwanted kids out there as it is.
It's often sad to see how many people "think they know best" and try and meddle in other peoples lives. You have your life, I have mine, and we are free to do whatever we want with it. It's really nobody else's business.. (though I do understand an eager grand-parent to be) ;-)
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
Congratulations, I think the MOST selfless thing is to recognize that you don't want children and then not have them. Having a child "just because there was nothing else to do" is incredibly selfish. However, if by accident, you do become a parent, you HAVE to give as much as possible to your child, or risk life-long problems for them (and for you, too).
There is too much stupid joking lately. Look at the beginning of most stories. Maybe 5 or 10 people are making adolescent jokes. Not only do they join every story to act like adolescents, they act like socially-challenged adolescents.
High-tech security is a valuable subject, no matter what is being monitored. Someone asks an interesting question, and a few immature people attack the author of the question!
I came here hoping that someone else had already done the engineering, and I could learn from that, and a few people waste my time.
--
Bush: Borrowing money to give to the rich.
Maybe we should just tell him he can't do that with a linux system.
It seems like everybody wants to tell him how to raise the kid instead of how to solve the technical problem
I was really interested in some answers to this.
It seems the whole reason for the posting was either the author doesn't trust the babysitter or is worried about the baby. If you watch enough abusive babysitters on tv or with personal experience, you would be anxious too. Additionally...don't come down on parents that want to get out once in a while. It is necessary for the health of the relationship to let your spouse know that you are more than parents to each other. Sitting on the couch gets old...
I also didn't specify, but my challenge to the interrogation came from numerous comments that people not only thought I was doing the wrong thing, but that my (and my wife's) decision to enjoy our life together was wickedly selfish. This led me to ask, if NOT having kids is selfish (as asserted by my challengers), and that's a bad thing, while having kids is a good thing, do these people think that having kids is selfless? That questioning led to my little experiment.
I'm definitely not criticizing anyone for thoughtfully becoming a parent. I agree with your general approach. If, by some failure of modern medicine, we do end up with a child, I will not hesitate to love that child, provide for and parent that child.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
i think a good audio monitor by itself's fine: one with a noise gate on it so you don't hear every rustle - just when (s)he's crying or trying to attract your attention.
i've had a play with wireless cameras and there's two problems: if they don't work in the dark, they're of zero use (you won't be putting them to sleep in a well lit room: or if you are, you won't be doing it for long!) and you *will* be freaked out by the lack of movement.
if you fancy playing, get an old machine and hook up a cheap webcam and run apache on it. network it to your lan and you can try it out and probably learn a bit. you'll probably find you don't need it - although this approach would have the benefit that you could stream it to the web during the day and get baby and childminder/mum to wave at you whilst you're at work.
First of all even though it is your house you do not have the legal right to tape you babysitter without her explisit content. If she catches you she can sue you and there is no judge who is going to rule in your favour. The second thing is that in order for you be able to receive video and sound on your cell you will need quite a bit more upload speed than your current dsl connection provides and then your phone would need to be able to download a lot faster than current technology in the US allows. Sorry bud but you're out of luck in this venture. You might want to think about some therapy though. That should help with the trust problem.
My wife and I have been married for 8 years, and we were enjoying a CF (Child Free for the uninitiated) lifestyle for 6 of those, until the goalie was asleep in the goal and let one in. ;)
We always knew we wanted to be parents "when the time was right," and it took a hiccup of nature to convince us this was the right time. My son is 18 months old, an absolute gem, and my wife is expecting out second (and likely last) child.
I preface with this background because during the time before having children, my wife fell in with some very angry, selfish people that populate Internet message boards. These people's sole purpose was to rant about filthy, dirty "crotch fruits" and how society's child fetish causes them so much grief.
To some degree, I agree with them. Having children is not for everyone in the same way that going to college is not for everyone, being a computer geek is not for everyone, etc. My brother never wants children. My friend and his wife never want children (though she had to spend 5 years shopping OBs until she found one who would do a tubal ligation on a woman under 30). This is a prefectly reasonable point of view, and I definitely recommend enjoying your "selfish" time with your spouse. I doubt my wife and I would have as strong a relationship as we do if we would have had children immediately after getting married at 20.
What I do have a beef with is the scare tactics and rants coming up from the know-it-alls on the Brats Rant page, et al who think their point of view is the only one. Yeah it's freaking stupid for people to bring their child to Dave and Buster's at 12:30 am, or bring a toddler to see a 9:00pm PG-rated movie. Sensible people know that. But what you do is take all of the caring, nurturing parents who rear their children appropriately and lump them all is as "st00pid breeders."
I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell warn you about this mindset, and publicly ask the ranters to STFU. The reason you can't handle children is likely that you haven't stopped being children yourselves. I'm not trying to excuse the bad behavior of bad parents... most of the miserable people who should not have had children... but I do want to stop hearing about my choices are hurting your enjoyment of the planet. Your enjoyment of the planet ain't gonna last, but respectable children brought up to be respectable adults are the only hope we have to improve society over time.
Unless you've prefer us to all be "decanted" from our "bottles," raised to wait in line for our SOMA rations. *smirk*
Getting my wife pregnant is the WORST mistake I ever made.
:)
I don't suppose you ever took the effort to consider your point of view, and both your wishes, before getting married? Or are you one of those idiots who "gave in" so your wife would quit whining about kids?
You didn't make a mistake, you're just an idiot.
Sounds like your first one, congratuations.
Okay Rookey, some words of advice. Check with your mom, and or dad on the following:
The first child can come at any time, all the others take nine months.
Heavly consider a Epideral for child bearing, its liquid La Mosss. Other wise, your wife will never let you forget what she went through.
If your wife comments on her looking fat. LEAVE THE AREA IMMEDIATLY!!! Life is to short for what's going to happen next.
Raising children is not a spectator sport. Its hands on 7/24. You're are already Biometrically equiped. A cheap audio feed back device is more than enough for the job you have to do.
There is no 1-800 number for user manuals, complaints, or refunds.
If your child cries, check diapers, bottle, formula. Repeat for the next 18 years.
Beating your child is a waste of time, and could give you meta-carpel. A little swat on the bottom seems to be a decent attention getter. A 60 second timeout in total continual silence helps the child to stop and think, and you to calm down too. Just about every criminal was beaten/abused as a child.
Bring pictures to the work place, these will be worth more than gold.
When you talk to others who have not brought a child into the world; They will have no idea what you're talking about, or why.
The first 2 weeks of raising a newborn child will be hell for you. Then, after that; It won't get much better.
Once again, congrats.
>>While taking care of the child once it arrives may be selfless, the reasons for choosing to have them in the first place are almost always centered around the parent rather than the child.
That seems to be an impossible challenge. You're asking for a general imperative that is specific to the individual, but isn't itself subjective?
So you're ruling out arguments like "I want to pass on my genes" (a poor argument, but just an example) as well as "well, that's why we have _reproductive_ organs" as well as "Given all the poverty and unhappiness in the world, I would like to give a child the chance that I had".
OK, how about this one? As a species, we have a biological imperative to breed. That's a universal truth, common to all life. However, that urge is instantiated in the individual. It is a selfish act, because humans are driven by individual impulses, not the collective will of the majority (unless we subsume it, as in a democracy).
We have to make the choice, because we're individuals, driven by a genetic imperative. Why is sex pleasurable? We didn't invent it. It's there to encourage us to breed. We've just begun to learn how to fool it, that's all.