These smart home devices saved my sanity as a new dad

There are so many feelings that come with being a new dad. Excitement. Anxiety. Bewilderment from the lack of sleep and, of course, unending amounts of love. One thing that you may not think about, because there’s so much going on in your life all of a sudden, is “How can I make my life easier?”

With an endless amount of tasks to juggle in those early days and months, finding any way to make your day-to-day life more simple is a must. Being a first-time dad over the past year, I looked for ways to simplify my day and that started with finding smart home devices that helped my wife and I on our parenting journey. Here are some of the best smart home devices for new parents.

1 Amazon Echo Show

The smart speaker is the first step

Pocket-Lint / Hillary Grigonis

There are many different Amazon Alexa smart speakers and these smart home devices will be the brain for many of your other devices. We have an Amazon Echo Show and an Amazon Echo Dot in our home and being able to say something like, “Alexa, turn on bedroom lights,” has been incredibly helpful as we have our smart light bulbs connected to the speakers. You never know what you’ll be carrying up the stairs and being able to turn on the lights hands-free is a lifesaver.

But the Amazon smart speakers can do so much more than just turning on devices. They can communicate with one another, which frequently proves helpful. For instance, I’d be downstairs filling up a bottle and my wife would use the Dot to make an announcement to the Show to alert me to bring something else upstairs. Also, those middle-of-the-night feedings and washing of bottles were tough, but when I asked my Echo Show to show me baseball highlights, it would play a montage of clips, making me feel a bit more normal.

The smart speaker can also play music from Amazon Music, Spotify, or other streaming services for spontaneous dance parties with the baby. You can also keep your grocery list to know when you may need to pick up diapers. The Amazon smart speakers are worth it and then some.

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2 Ring cameras

Keep an eye on everything

When we moved into our home, there were Ring Video Doorbells already installed. Once we had a child, we installed a Ring Floodlight in our backyard and then placed two Ring Stick cameras in different locations, including one pointing at the front door. This allowed us to have some peace of mind with a newborn around. While some may feel it isn’t necessary to have cameras inside the house, the ability to check on your phone or tablet if someone is in a certain room with the baby or doing something else provides comfort.

Plus, the alert you get if someone is dropping off a delivery allows you to run to the door if the baby is napping to stop the person from ringing the doorbell and waking them up. Unfortunately, I startled some food delivery drivers by opening the door as they were approaching just to whisper to them that our baby was asleep. But it didn’t wake her up, so we’ll count that as a win.

3 WiZ smart bulbs

Change colors and control them with your voice

Wiz

Initially, we got WiZ smart bulbs to be able to sync them with our Amazon smart speakers. That way, when we were rushing up the stairs to change a diaper, we could just yell out for the light to turn on and the smart speaker would oblige. We have them in our daughter’s room and in our bedroom, and they are so helpful. The app is easy to use and the bulbs sync quickly. We have smart, color-changing WiZ lights in our bedroom.

The color-changing model proved to be useful when we had the baby sleeping in her bassinet in our room in the early months. We would frequently set the light to a red hue to help her sleep during her naps or nighttime, rather than a bright white that might have startled her awake. WiZ not only has an app that allows you to control the bulbs’ brightness and color, but you can also change those settings with voice commands.

4 Nanit Pro baby monitor

Keep an eye on the baby from a lot of devices

The Nanit Pro baby monitor pays for itself every time our baby takes a nap. We tried another baby monitor but found that it was hard to know just how the baby was doing and that it was a hassle to carry around a baby monitor. The Nanit Pro comes with a stand and a wall mount that we were able to put overlooking our baby’s bassinet initially, and then the crib that provides a downward view.

We are able to pull the feed up on our phone, tablet, or smart speaker, eliminating the need to carry around a separate monitor to watch the baby.

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Now that our child is out of her bassinet and in her own room and crib, the Nanit Pro provides us so much peace of mind because it comes with a breathing band that the camera picks up and lets us know how fast the baby is breathing, whether she is moving, and whether there is sound coming from the crib.

It can differentiate sounds and cries as well and sends alerts to our devices. Rather than just having one monitor that you have to fumble around for while we all sleep, one of us has the iPad with the Nanit pulled up on our nightstand and the other has it up on their phone, and we are both able to see what’s going on if the baby makes noise during the night. The Nanit Pro also tells you what the temperature is in your baby’s room, which becomes very helpful when we were setting our thermostat.

5 Nest Thermostat

Set it and forget it

Speaking of thermostats, having the Nest Thermostat allows us to keep the temperature in our home consistent for our new child. If you’re worried, like we were, about having them in a room that’s too cold or too hot, having a smart thermostat makes a lot of sense. You can open up the Nest app and set the schedule and adjust it easily. We found being able to edit the schedule helpful when we started cutting naps as the baby got older.

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It also connects to smart speakers. So, when it is really nice out, and we want to open the windows, being able to turn the thermostat off by opening up the app or using a voice command makes the task simpler. The Nest Thermostat also learns your house and can better adjust the levels to help you save energy and money in the long run.