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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
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.
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.)
-This sig intentionally left blank
You know what, I'm sick of this crap everytime somebody brings up this subject. Take a look at the whole question. He's talking about monitoring while a babysitter is there, not about ignoring the child while both parents are home. As a parent, I can attest to the fact that you need to get away every once in a while so that you aren't tempted to hand your child over to scientific research or something like that. The problem is that there are very few trustworthy babysitters, and those that we have been able to find are always in high demand. Personally, I share others' sentiments that it is much better to get someone you can trust than it is to monitor, but I also understand the frustration and anxiety of leaving your child with someone else.
"Old fashioned" parents also had to leave their children with babysitters, but you can bet that if the technology to monitor the baby (and babysitter) had been available, they'd have considered using it too.
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
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?
Have you thought about trying good old fashioned parenting? Perhaps "being there" is the best way to monitor your child...
I wonder if anyone who modded this up has any experience in parenthood. "Being there" for 24/7 is the best way to raise a sociopath. Your kid needs to spend some time outside of the maternal/paternal umbrella. Otherwise your kid will never learn how to interact with other human beings and when you're gone, it will turn into someone like Anthony Perkins character in "Psycho". Of course, it is your parental duty to be with your kid most of the time, but you will also hurt your kid if you never leave it with other kids and other adults.
"You know what, I'm sick of this crap everytime somebody brings up this subject. Take a look at the whole question. He's talking about monitoring while a babysitter is there, not about ignoring the child while both parents are home."
The clue is in your own words.
He has a babysitter babysitting.
He does NOT need to be watching the baby while the babysitter is there - that's WHY he has a babysitter.
What an excellent way to show the babysitter just how much they are appreciated - "Watch my baby, but I'll be watching you...".
Besides, if he and his wife are out for the evening to get a break, then watching the babty over the cellphone is not exactly having a break, is it?
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Yes, I wanted to reply to this question in exactly the same way!
Technology is not the ultimate solution for everything. Your baby was carried by it's mum in her belly for 9 months. You should not abandon it once it is born. Instead, read up on Attachment Parenting and keep the baby close, 24/7. It will cry far less, you'll greatly reduce the risks for SIDS, and your baby can continue to get an early start at learning about the world around it; it will pick up far more of the world around it when kept close to you.
Just invest in a good carrying cloth, such as a Slendang (Indonesian sling), or some such. I can heartely recommend the Moby Wrap, for example, it is the best we've tried so far, my wife and I fight over who gets to carry our youngest in it. Beats the price of any baby monitor hands down.
Martijn Pieters, father of 3, tech geek.
"The truth shall make ye fret" -- The Truth, Terry Pratchett
> 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!
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.
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.
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Bush: Borrowing money to give to the rich.
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.