Keeping children warm at night

Some moments of our lives are quite private; you never have chance of observing how others do at such moments (except novels and movies!). You think that most people do it as you are doing but you never know. I think following dialog is an example of such a moment between me, my wife and my 2 year old son, in the very early hours of the day, approximately 4 a.m., when I’m going back to bed after a short bathroom break, both half sleeping:

My wife, whispering: Did you check him? (Meaning whether I checked my son in his bed if he is covered with his blanket)
Me: Yes.
When I check him, mostly he is sleeping warm in his bad his blanket on, but sometimes he is cold like an ice, squeezed up. No need to say, my wife also checks him frequently during the night if he is fine, covered with his blanket.

We tried many methods for keeping our little son warm at night: sleeping sacks, blankets of different sizes, -rarely though- sleeping in the same bed with our son. As many experienced parents know, each method has advantages and drawbacks. We used all of these options in different periods and circumstances. After about 10 months (which means he is old enough to cope with a blanket) we started using a blanket since it is the most comfortable and flexible solution for the kid. But there is a chance that the blanket gets kicked off. This led me to search for a product that would alarm parents if their child was not covered with the blanket. I expected to find a gadget or an advanced Video Baby Monitor which can do that. But I was wrong; Google could not find any such product! Therefore I decided to develop a Smart Baby Monitor system on my own.

Briefly; the system comprises of a camera, computer (hopefully a smart phone in the future) and alarm pattern. Computer wakes up periodically (as parents do), checks the image of the sleeping kid by means of the camera and if it sees the alarm pattern then raises an alarm. Alarm pattern is a special shape which needs to be placed on the lower part of sleeping pants of the child. If you are interested in the technical details, have a look at my website www.smartbabymonitor.com

Yes, the current implementation is a bit complicated and not the easiest to use. But if you are also worried about this problem and determined to find a solution, please feel free to use my software.

By Ozan