Three Ideas that are Better Than this One

New Babyglow garments change color with your baby's temperature, and they've snagged an $18.5M contract for the inventor. At $33/pack of two they'll also snag quite the profit margin if parents buy into this latest paranoia product. This is the Babyglow story:

Mr Ebejer, who had his idea while watching a documentary about babies, began the search for an ink pigment with heat-sensitive molecules.

He spent six years and £700,000 working with scientists to develop-the pigments to embed into cotton babygrows.

The Babyglows come in pink, blue and pastel green, all of which turn white as soon as the baby's temperature rises above 37c/98.6F.

I don't buy it. My boys turn to molten lava when they sleep, at least the part of them sandwiched against the mattress, so they'd be white every night. These outfits basically guarantee you'll be taking your baby's temperature all the time. I'm not thrilled to see yet another product trying to make parents dependent rather than empowering them to trust their instincts. There are products that help, and products that hobble. This is the latter.

Three ideas that could use this functional concept but are much better than this one, because they save you time rather than freak you out:

1. Bath Water Buddy - help parents know if the bath water is in the right temperature range
2. Perfect Sip Bottle - confirm that milk you've heated separately is the right temp before baby takes a sip
3. Safety Spoons - some of these exist, and can warn you if you've nuked the baby food a tad too long