It’s Thursday and that means I get to tell you about something I like. Since my little guy turned one a few days ago, I’ve had babies on my mind and it made me think of a little gadget that’s not really that techie but which made my life so much easier. I didn’t know I would want a gadget for a baby but this one is fantastic. Stock up for shower gifts. It’s called the itzbeen.
With my first child I had a notebook where I would try to write down when he’d been changed, when he’d been fed, how long he’d slept, and to keep track of how many wet and/or dirty diapers he had (a must for a breastfeeding mom). Of course, this whole note-taking thing was hit and miss since most of the time you are doing things in a sleep deprived haze or in the middle of the night or…who can find that notepad AND a pen anyway. Shortly after my second child was born my friend Christine gave me an itzbeen and it made life so much easier, I could never thank her enough. The itzbeen (as in itzbeen 2 hours since the last feeding) includes four timers with buttons labelled for diapers, feeding, sleeping, and a fourth that is for anything you need. It can attach to your belt (or, let’s face it, the elastic on your pyjama bottoms, with the attached belt clip), has a little flashlight built in for those many times in the night when you just want to make sure the little one is breathing, and a backlight you can turn on briefly so you can see all those timers at night. I used the timers religiously for feeding and also used it to record diaper changes early on but soon got out of that. Also, I used the miscellaneous timer for medicine. I still use that because even when I make a note of it in my head, I always forget when I gave medicine. You can use any of the timers for anything too so even when the baby gets older, it’s still a handy thing to have around. There’s a lock on the device which allows you to lock the timer so older children can’t reset it when they play with the itzbeen (because they will play with the itzbeen).
Besides the timers, there is a simple little switch that any breastfeeding mother will grow to love. It simply has R on one side and L on the other. No more clothespins on the shirt to try and remember which breast you started them feeding on last time and no more racking your brain trying to remember because you forgot to use the clothespin. I used this switch for every single feeding. Sometimes the itzbeen would get misplaced and the household had to stop until the itzbeen could be found so I would know what letter that switch was set at.
Gadgets and technology are not required for babies, of course, but they sure can make caring for them easier. The itzbeen does that without being too complicated and without trying to do too much with one device (although I would have loved it if there was a simple counter on it so I could have counted those dirty/wet diapers).
