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Engineering school has taught me to 1) monitor potential problems, 2) trouble shoot to identify the root cause and 3) generate a preventative maintenance plan.

But when it comes to parenting, I can’t do this alone. I need technology!

Fortunately I’ve identified a few crucial pieces of tech to help me do just that.

1) Baby Monitor

Back in the days of your parents, and your parents’ parents, they had baby monitors. These were really nothing more than a radio to eavesdrop on children. People, we can do better than that. Give me a full color, high-def, video monitoring system, coupled with Skype connectivity so I can check in on a baby from London to Dubai! Add on a temperature monitor and a two-way communication system and you get the perfect baby observation platform.

I’d suggest snagging the Summer Infant Baby Monitor for all these features.

2) Cry Analyzer

Knowing that there is problem is no good if I can’t tell what it is. Sure, back in the days before we had invented the light bulb I could smell a diaper, try to feed the baby, or see if cradling her in my arms would cease the insistent wailing. Of course, people used to die from saber-tooth tiger attacks before they invented tools to help them with that problem too.

For less than a Benjamin Franklin I can now put a device in my pocket that will analyze my baby’s cry and within twenty seconds, using pitch and frequency, tell me exactly how to cure those wailing woes! Cry analyzers have been around for a while now, but their accuracy has improved to over 90%! We bought the Why Cry Baby Crying Analyzer, have no more sleepless nights trying to figure out how to get both of us peacefully back to bed before sunrise!

3) Baby Care Timers

Do you know how many formulas and numbers I have to keep track of? A whole freaking lot! And that’s just at my day job! If I’m going to raise this child right I’m going to need to keep her on a tight schedule. When it’s the middle of the night and the only thing keeping me going is pawning newbs in Halo, telling my wife the baby last ate “right after I went nuts with a gravity hammer” isn’t really going to cut it.

Insert the new low light readable, multi-time tracker, (like this one from Itzbeen) that I can use to tell how since the last diaper change, feeding, and cry fest (the baby’s not those who fall to my energy sword).

Bonus! Here’s a little math problem for you:

Since Craig stays up all night taking care of the baby, the alarm must be slightly less than the noise produced by a jet engine to wake him. This level will, of course, wake the baby as well. Craig sleeps two feet away from the alarm clock. Baby sleeps eight feet away from the alarm clock. If they are sleeping at sea level, how long does Craig have to wake up and shut of the alarm before baby’s sleep is disturbed?

Trick question!

Craig is wearing a new watch with a silent alarm! This means neither baby,nor Craig’s wife have to enduring the blaring of the alarm, allowing them to continue in peaceful, silent, slumber. Meanwhile Craig can go off to save the day one rocket at a time.

Class dismissed!