My Geek Notes

10 months ago, as my wife and newly-born son prepared for release from the hospital, I sat with them through several new-parent orientatons.

Apparently, you’re supposed to feed a baby on a schedule and if they haven’t pooped for a week, you’re supposed to call the pedatrician. Aside from the terror I experienced upon learning that a human being could actually go for a week with no new poop, I was overwhelmed by the strictly engineered regiment being perscribed to us.

All along, I’d thought that you just played with the baby. If it ever cried, you checked to see if it needed a diaper or if it was cold, and if it was neither of those things, you fed it because it must be hungry. Apparently, I was wrong.

We left the hospital and the clock started . . . “Honey, what time are we supposed to feed him? How much time is supposed to pass between each nap?” The panic set in.

Fortunately, we all survived the first week of his life. He pooped on schedule, slept on schedule, ate on schedule. Everything was much better than it had seemed.

I found a product online this morning, however, that would have helped tremendously with keeping to baby’s schedule. It’s called an ITZBEEN™ (pronounced “it’s been”- as in it’s been two hours since a diaper change). This thing was invented by a guy named Greg Sheldon, an engineer-turned-father who must’ve felt the same way I did when he had his first baby.

When Sheldon’s son was three months old, he decided to put his engineering career on hold to be more involved with the baby. Apparently, it wasn’t long before his inventive nature had him looking for ways to make the job of parenting a little easier.

Sheldon created a simple, cell phone size device with timers that allowed he and his wife to recall how long ago they changed a diaper, fed the baby, put the baby down to sleep, or gave the baby medication. Whenever they performed a task, like changing a diaper, they simply pressed the appropriate button; that timer would reset to zero and start counting up again.

Anyhow, he felt his timer was useful, so he filed for a patent and turned it into a real product. Now he’s got it in over 65 stores across the U.S., Canada, Australia, Panama, and the Internet.

Add the ITZBEEN™ to your list of baby gifts for first-time parents. They have no idea how much they need it.