News

4th May 2004

Childminder invents 'caring cot'

A final year design student at Brunel University has invented a cot that acts as a 'virtual nanny' and could help reduce the number of sleeples nights suffered by parents of newborn and young babies.

Garry Cho, 22, from North London, got the idea after working as a childminder to help subsidise his studying. The crib, which he has called the Caring Cot, detects when a baby starts to cry and gently begins to rock the child back to sleep.

In addition to this, the cot also detects signs that the baby could be in danger, alerting parents if baby has not moved or if the room temperature is incorrect.

The cot is based on a standard wooden crib and has built in sensors which are linked to a handheld parent unit. A sensor inside the cot detects when the baby begins to cry and sets off a mechanism which moves the crib up and down rather than rocking side to side. Mr Cho says research has shown that this movement is more beneficial in calming a baby.

The crib rocks for 45 seconds, repeating the sequence twice more if the baby is still crying. After the third attempt an alarm is sent to the parent unit.

An alarm is also sent if the nursery temperature goes above 20ºC or below 16ºC, the correct room temperature for a sleeping baby as recommended by The Foundation for Study of Infant Deaths.

Finally, the cot is equipped with a motion sensor which alerts parents if the baby does not move position for 90 minutes - the time calculated by Mr Cho as to how long infants remain in a deep sleep.

Mr Cho has made a working prototype of the Caring Cot which he estimates will cost about £150 to buy once the idea has been adopted by manufacturers.

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