Babysitters-on-demand

Product name: Sitters Babysitting Service (http://www.sitters.co.uk/)

What is it?This service is a ‘broker’ for babysitters – connecting families in need of babysitting with local individuals with various degrees of childcare experience. The customer interface is very similar to the way we are used to booking meeting rooms at work – you just insert your booking into a calendar and the system starts processing it for you. Families have the opportunity to create a ‘wish-list’ of babysitters and it is also possible to block babysitters who you don’t like

Why did it catch my attention?Far away from our family and with a limited support network in London, we were looking for a way of finding reliable people to look after our little one so that we could get some ‘own time’. Because my husband travels a lot with his work I also sometimes need babysitters for very short timeslots during daytime to be able to do things like going to the dentist or the hairdresser

How old was my baby when I bought it?The first time we tried Sitters was for my birthday party when my son was 3,5 months old

What value does it add for us?It gives us flexibility and because Sitters take on the responsibility for staffing your timeslot it saves the time that I see many other parents around me spending on calling around to or getting last-minute cancellations from their babysitters

What does it replace?- Staying at home instead of getting out and/or bringing a baby along to places where it gets increasingly difficult to bring him the older he gets
- Creating and managing your own network of family, friends, friends’ nannies etc.

How did my baby respond to it?We have had mixed experiences: one great lady who had children herself, one professional nanny with limited experience of small babies who did not respond very well to my son and one lovely young student who quickly became my son’s favorite playmate!

How much does it cost?£13,85 per quarter for being registered in their database, a £4 fee per booking and £7 per hour that you pay directly to the babysitter

Can I see any drawbacks?Not being able to meet the person before they come to your house to look after the most valuable you have. It is furthermore important to be aware that Sitters is a national call center service and that the people you talk to don’t personally know the sitters they book for you. They unfortunately don’t have a reliable overview of which sitters that have experience with your children’s age band – hence why we got a person without experience with babies to look after our 3 month old son (and we had to leave the restaurant before we had finished the main course)

How to sterilise a whole load of stuff in 6 minutes only

Product name: Philips Avent 24-Hour Steam Steriliser (Philips AVENT iQ24 Steam Sterilizer)

What is it?A digital steriliser for bottles, dummies, teething rings and other things that are in contact with your baby’s food or designed for him/her to put in the mouth, and that you want to make sure do not have any harmful bacteria on them. It is only a little bit bigger than an average electric water boiler and just as easy to operate

Why did it catch my attention?This was something that my husband found before our little one was born and it turned out to be one of our most important investments we made

How old was my baby when I bought it?We bought it before he was born and started using it the first night after we came home from the hospital

What value does it add for us?With a minimum of hassle (not any more complicated to operate than an electric water boiler) it keeps bottles, dummies and teething rings safe for our son to use. Because of its size it can typically steam 4 bottles (including all its parts) and 10-15 dummies in one go. By starting the steriliser before we leave it helps us make sure that his babysitters use clean bottles when they feed him

What does it replace?Boiling items in a pot on the stove as our little one’s grandparents do, which is more time-consuming, or giving your baby food from an unclean bottle and make him/her sick – a classical cause of infant deaths among uninformed populations in developing countries

How did my baby respond to it?He does not know that it exists, but his parents and babysitters use it all the time – although the frequency has decreased since the early days when we sterilised his dummies as soon as they fell on the floor

How much does it cost?£45 at Boots

Can I see any drawbacks?It does take up space in our tiny kitchen and it is not the most practical item to bring along when travelling, even if we did when we went on holiday to Spain in Octobre

How we play mummy's voice for baby when she is somewhere else

Product name: Philips SBCSC150 Baby Cradle Player (www.p4c.philips.com/files/s/sbcsc150_86/sbcsc150_86_pss_eng.pdf)

What is it?A device that plays a range of soothing sounds (lullabies, heartbeat and running water) and provides the opportunity to record your own sounds to play for the baby, for example his/her mother’s voice, which can be handy when left with a babysitter. It has an adjustable rubber band that gives the flexibility to attach it to for example buggy handles, cots and other furniture

Why did it catch my attention?This was one of the many gadgets I bought during the first few weeks when I desperately looked for something that played sounds that would make my baby sleep without involving too much physical effort from the parents

How old was my baby when I bought it?A few weeks, but this product is suitable from birth

What value does it add for us?There are two features of this device that have proven to be useful for us
a) the running water sound, which has a soothing effect on our son
b) the self-recorded sound, which I have used to record myself singing his favourite lullaby in order to (i) help babysitters settling him and (ii) sometimes make life easier for his tired mother in the middle of the night when he needs some singing to fall back asleep

What does it replace?a) Other gadgets with soothing sounds
b) Phone calls home to help babysitters calm an unsettled baby by hearing his mother’s voice
c) His mother singing for real

How did my baby respond to it?He did not like the heartbeat and the lullabies, responded well to the water sound after a while and seems to be unable to distinguish my recorded voice from the real thing. Unlike other gadgets designed to help babies sleep, this one does not have a design that is especially appealing to babies – he does not find the round, plastic box interesting at all

How much does it cost?£10 on Amazon UK

Can I see any drawbacks?My impression is that this product was developed without any target group consultation, otherwise the following drawbacks would have been addressed in the product design:
a) This item is too big to fit smoothly in a carrycot or a cot and therefore has to be placed outside of where the baby is
b) There is no off-button and the shortest play interval is 2 minutes – which is super-annoying when you happen to start it by accident
c) The design of the start-button makes it extremely easy to start by accident, for example when carrying it in a changing bag or packing it in the luggage for travelling
d) It is not especially intuitive what you need to do to actually record something, and in my experience approximately ¾ of all attempts to record something result in failure (an annoying scratching noise instead of what you wanted)
e) A baby can accidentally strangle him/herself with the rubber band