I am a working mother of two young children: one is 8 months old; the other is a 3 year old. My husband also works full-time and we have no family nearby who can provide extra support. Some days it feels like this is my crowning achievement: managing to feed, clothe, bathe, and maintain people as well as myself, while stringing together coherent sentences and meeting professional deadlines. Before my second child was born, I worried: How would I manage life with more than one child?
Now that I’m in it, I’m still perplexed as to how this happens. Our mornings aren’t total chaos per se, but most days I wolf down my breakfast while standing over the kitchen counter and doing at least two other tasks. My daughter usually runs between two rooms and defeats monsters with her superpowers, while my son squeaks from his activity center and smashes pieces of plastic together like a professional wrestling superfan. It’s not exactly zen. Sometimes I just need an extra hand, and in many cases that helping hand comes in the form of a smart device.
Smart home devices throughout the household are increasingly becoming the norm. A report from market research firm Grand View Research found not only that the smart home market was valued at $79 billion by 2022, but also that it was expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27% through 2030. That is 27% more than the previous year, every year, a pace that Grand View says will be driven by artificial intelligence and more hands-free experiences.
Delegation is the hallmark of any good leader, so I automate my technology as much as possible, and if there’s something I can control remotely, even better. Here are a few ways I use tech products to help manage the household.
Of all my right machines, the Skylight is the one that benefits the whole family. Not only is it beautifully designed so it will look good wherever you put it, it’s also incredibly easy to set up (a must) and offers a variety of organizational features.
My husband and I have seamlessly synced our calendars so everyone is on the same page about work meetings, appointments, pediatrician visits, and more. My kids aren’t old enough to take advantage of the chores feature yet, but I like that this is an option for later. What I’m most excited about, however, is the shopping list feature. Do you know how many times I’ve left the house without the paper shopping list? Or how many times I texted my husband, “Send me a photo of the shopping list“?
Plus, the frame functions as a digital photo album when you’re not using the calendar, so my husband and I can upload photos to play as a slideshow. It should go without saying that this is my three-year-old’s favorite position, and you know what? If it keeps her busy and happy, then we’ve all won.
Now that my 3-year-old is off to school and my 8-month-old is at daycare, there are a lot of bags to pack, dishes to do, and breakfast to make first thing in the morning. If I want to get my daughter to school within the assigned 15-minute drop-off time, we have to boogie.
This is where Baby Brezza has stepped in as the personal bottle-making assistant she is. I still breastfeed my son, but I send him to daycare with bottles of formula. I love that the device has three different temperature settings and can fill a bottle up to 350 ml. The memory function saves the last used setting, which is useful when my husband is the one making the bottles and I’m not. While I’m unloading the dishwasher or packing my son’s bag for the day (diapers, wipes, crib sheet), I press a button on the Baby Brezza and boom: bottle made. It’s a simple solution, but when time is of the essence, every minute counts.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I didn’t think I needed a Snoo. “People have been sleeping without the aid of automated cribs for thousands of years!” I would use the key of childfree pretension. A friend said, “You could get an extra 30 minutes to an hour of sleep!” Since I wasn’t impressed by her enthusiastic statement, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Then I had a baby and realized it was a really big deal. As a parent, an extra 30 or 60 minutes of sleep can be downright intoxicating.
The Snoo responds to your baby and increases in sound and movement when he fusses. However, these settings are somewhat customizable, which is helpful since babies don’t need a one-size-fits-all solution. My daughter responded great to the highest setting, while my son couldn’t handle being rocked at anything above level 2 (it goes up to level 5).
Sure, some babies sleep just fine without the help of an automatic crib. But the Snoo silences and rocks so people don’t have to. This powerful smart sleeper is responsible for saving my sanity and helping me get extra sleep in those early days with both my kids.
I know what you’re thinking: a blender? Real? But this is no ordinary blender. It also boils. I no longer have to use multiple pots or blenders (immersion or standalone) to make my soups. I can use one pot, and it’s a blender, and this, my friends, is a game changer for me.
Although I am very conscious of what I feed my children, I have never been one to make my own baby food. With this blender, however, all I do is throw a bunch of haphazardly chopped sweet potatoes into a blender, set it and forget about it. There’s also a grind setting, perfect for making homemade nut butters. In addition, there are settings to make homemade jams, sauces, smoothies and alternative milks.
A few caveats: It only cooks to 220 degrees, but I haven’t found this to be a problem. The blender bowl is not dishwasher safe, which is normally a drawback for busy parents, but that’s what a heated wash setting is for. Also: just because it cooks doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fast. There’s a certain amount of patience involved, and like most blenders, the blending can be a bit loud, so if you have noise-sensitive kids like me, this may be a consideration for when and where you use it. But overall, I find this new addition extremely useful when I need to multitask (which is always the case).
I loved my daughter’s Hatch Rest so much that my husband bought me the adult version, the Restore, after we moved her into her own room. I can adjust the tone and brightness of the light, the duration of the relaxation time, as well as the volume and sleep sounds, such as white noise or nature. My son also has a Hatch. This means we have three Hatch sound machines in our house, all on the top floor of our house, which sounds like an ocean. It’s great.
Not only have our shutters helped us all get a good night’s sleep, we also use the shutter in my daughter’s room to signal her wake-up time. At 7am it is programmed to turn green, indicating it is okay for her to leave her room. This gives my husband and I plenty of time to wake up, make coffee, and prepare her breakfast (and maybe even read the news!) before we have to put on our parent hats. When her imagination started to run wild and sleeping in the dark was no longer an option, my husband programmed her Hatch in the color of her choice, essentially acting as her custom nightlight. We can control all of this through the app on our phone, and we often have, like when we need that white noise just one to touch louder.
A video security system is great for anyone who wants to keep an eye on their home while they are away, and we like the peace of mind that comes with knowing that if something goes wrong, we will be notified. One of the things I didn’t think I would need, though, was wanting to keep an eye on parts of my house when I was actually in the house. Now that we have a baby, there are times when it’s just me and the kids and I’m not always in the same room of the house as my three-year-old. For example, if she is playing downstairs and I am upstairs feeding the baby, I like to be able to check the camera.
It also offers two-way conversations if I need to call her or my husband. It was easy to install, has a sleek design and also has night vision and monitoring of temperature, humidity and air quality.
Now that we’ve installed GE Cync smart bulbs in some of our lamps, I feel very sophisticated, and maybe a little lazy, dimming my lights via an app from the comfort of my couch. I’m a big lighting person and I believe that 90 percent of the atmosphere in your home is due to the right lighting. The lights connect via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and come in different shapes, with a rainbow of colors to choose from. Plus, my daughter loves that she can paint her room bright pink every night before bed.
What really impresses me, though, are the smart plugs. These, like the smart bulbs, offer hands-free voice control, allow preset schedules so you can turn appliances on or off at a specific time, and offer remote control via the app.
A little smart home technology can go a long way
Becoming a mother of two children means I have lost extra brain cells. And unfortunately, it didn’t magically give me the power to be in two places at once. Leaning on technology offers an unbeatable level of convenience, and it gives me peace of mind, which is invaluable for busy parents.
