Amazon's Alexa Is Basically Your Own Personal Mary Poppins With These Products

For new parents, trying to get any sleep at all can feel like a fool's errand. The late nights followed by pre-dawn mornings and never-ending worry seem to float on to infinity as you are slowly drained of whatever energy you have. The scientists at Hatch Baby have been there, and that's why they developed a pair of intuitively designed smart products that can not only help you get some rest, but also offer peace of mind. And now, they've teamed up with Amazon to provide Alexa-directed capabilities, and it's proving that Amazon's Hatch Baby is every parent's personal assistant — and Mr. Sandman.

Hatch Baby Rest and Hatch Baby Grow are the genius creations of Ann and Dave Weiss, parents and internet entrepreneurs who felt the keen struggles of those first breaths of new parenthood, and wanted to design products to calm both baby and parent. Hatch Baby Rest is both ambient light and sound machine that grows with your child — it eventually work as a "time to rise" alarm for toddlers and older children. Hatch Baby Grow is also the first of its kind smart changing pad that weighs your child and connects to an app on your phone, wherein you can input your baby's feedings to chart their growth and watch their progress. The whole system is accessible via the Alexa to track sleeping and naps, feedings, weights, and growth.

The Hatch Baby Rest is of a particular genius in that it not only serves as both a nightlight and white noise machine, but it also tracks when it is used so you can evaluate your child's sleep patterns. The white noise element of the device is critical. Researchers from Research and Nursing Health reported that white noise serves to mask other environmental sounds that may stir your little one awake. And better yet, it's fully customizable via the connected Hatch Baby app on your phone. They also sell adorable coverlets for your Hatch Baby Rest in fun patterns to match your decor.

Everyone in my family has a white noise machine. It's so critical to our sleep that we've even downloaded multiple white noise apps on our phones to use when we travel. When I am home working, I have to have white noise playing in the background or I cannot focus. This machine would definitely be a workhorse in our house.

As for the "OK to rise" function — it changes color and lights up when it's OK for your child to get out of bed — how I wish I had that when my littlest was a toddler. She was and still is an early riser, and there were days when I had to bite back my growl seeing her shuffling into my room in her footy pajamas.

The Hatch Baby Grow is an easy-to-clean smart changing table that weighs your baby and sends the information to your phone. That reassurance is a godsend for moms like me who had children on the smaller end of the scale. I breastfed my children exclusively, and often I worried they weren't eating enough or growing properly. It would have been such a tremendous relief to know that they were growing just fine, and not to worry about them wanting to nurse so much — they're just hungry little humans.

To have it all charted, and to be able to do something as simple as ask Alexa how much my baby weighs or how much she's slept, is remarkable. It does almost everything but rock your baby back to sleep. (Although I'm fairly sure that Jeff Bezos has someone working on that.) So while Amazon's Hatch Baby is every parent's personal assistant, we're not at the point where we can just say "Alexa, can you put my baby back to sleep?"