gadgets can help monitor baby's sleep

For years, parents have spied on their sleeping infants with grainy video images from baby monitors.

Now a new generation of wearable devices promises to track your newborn's sleeping habits, gathering data like whether babies are on their backs or stomachs, their breathing rates and even, in some cases, blood-oxygen levels and heart rates.

It's an interesting concept, though it's not entirely clear what a parent who isn't a doctor would do with all that information.

But there's a more immediate issue to be resolved: These first-generation devices simply don't work very well.

One example is the Mimo, a sleep-tracking device that connects to a customized bodysuit that a baby wears while sleeping. A Mimo kit costs $200 and includes three "kimonos," or button-up bodysuits.

Mimo's technology includes a low-power Bluetooth wireless base station that must be plugged in inside the baby's room, and a small plastic device (the "turtle") that magnetically attaches to a sleeping baby's clothing.

The turtle tracks the infant's skin temperature, breathing, sleep position, movement and whether the baby is awake or asleep. But it also presents immediate impracticalities for new parents.

First, the baby has to be dressed in one of the little kimonos for any nap or nighttime sleep you want to track. And in a test, the monitoring was interesting but inconsistent.

Gadgets like the MonBaby, which is a button that you snap on to the front of a baby or toddler's clothing during sleep, or the Sproutling, a data-tracking anklet, will also track sleep, breathing and motion. The Sproutling even promises to let you know if your baby is fussy upon waking.

But these devices also have room for improvement. A prototype of the MonBaby invariably confused sleeping on stomach with sleeping on back, and the alert it uses to let you know your baby has rolled onto his stomach is a terrifying klaxon that sounds like a smoke alarm.

Most new parents obsess over their babies, especially over whether, how much and how well they are sleeping. But until these tools are more accurate and less complex, they are no substitute for a decent video monitor and an old-fashioned hand on the forehead.

NEW YORK TIMES