ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Owlet Dream Sock is an FDA-cleared child sleep tracker for $299 and is FSA/HSA-eligible.
- It goes past your normal child monitor by monitoring your kid’s coronary heart price, blood oxygen, and sleep patterns. It has three alarms: a yellow incorrect match alarm, a purple irregular studying alarm, and a blue alarm when the sock is out of vary or low battery.
- Whereas false low oxygen and irregular coronary heart price alarms are exceedingly uncommon (I’ve solely had a handful in our 7+ years utilizing Owlet merchandise), I want there have been a separate low battery alarm as a substitute of the identical out-of-range alarm.
Is it secure to say that every one new mother and father want extra sleep? That is partly why child screens have been invented within the first place. I nonetheless keep in mind when video screens for infants grew to become mainstream, which meant I not wanted to haul round a walkie-talkie-looking machine round my home and now carried a display as a substitute.
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Now, trackers just like the Owlet Dream Sock have grow to be so refined that they’ll measure your child’s blood oxygen ranges, coronary heart price, and sleep cycles and warn you if something reads unusually.
The Owlet Dream Sock permits you to simply observe your child’s or toddler’s sleep as a wearable that goes in your kid’s foot. It tracks sleep patterns, oxygen ranges, and coronary heart price.
Such wearables have been a family important for me, significantly as a result of my household has a historical past of febrile seizures, which might trigger a way of unease when my kids are sleeping. In hopes of serving to different new mother and father who could expertise comparable discomfort, let me share why a sleep-tracking child sock is very beneficial.
How the Owlet tracks sleep and different measures
Just like an Apple Watch or Fitbit, the Dream Sock, is worn by your child whereas they sleep. It tracks their coronary heart price and oxygen ranges to map their sleep levels. It additionally alerts your smartphone in case your child is awake or exhibits any indicators of irregularity.
The field has the sensor, a base station, and 4 material socks in two sizes to suit infants from beginning by way of 18 months. For the years after, Owlet presents a Plus choice that features two extra toddler-sized socks to suit children from 30 to 55 lbs.
The sock holds a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor that the newborn wears on their foot, much like what you put on within the ER to trace your coronary heart price. By way of the Dream Sock, the Owlet app can observe coronary heart price, common oxygen ranges, noise, wakings, and actions to be taught your child’s baseline behaviors and measurements.
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As soon as that baseline is measured, the bottom station will ship an alert to your cellphone, suggesting that your child wants your consideration, each time the sensor on the sock detects a deviation from these numbers.
Sleep regressions and monitoring
As a millennial mum or dad, I’ve at all times sought steering from instructional apps and the occasional discussion board group for folks to get me by way of the preliminary challenges of parenthood. These sources helped me navigate sleep regressions, for instance, and the Owlet Dream Sock has been equally useful.
As my children bought older, I made a decision to get the Owlet Dream Sock Plus to develop with them.
Maria Diaz/ZDNET
With sufficient utilization, the Owlet app builds a schedule for when you must the newborn’s subsequent sleep or nap ought to begin. A part of this will depend on the measured baseline and their age, which you’ll enter manually. For instances when your child is not sleeping with the sock — there are days after I drop my one-year-old off on the daycare, for instance — you possibly can enter their sleep cadence for the Owlet app to work from.
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The app additionally options historic sleep knowledge, so you possibly can view your child’s sleep patterns and see how they alter as they undergo sleep regressions, development spurts, or diseases.
Why I purchased a sleep-tracking child sock
I first purchased a sensible child sock for my firstborn six years in the past, hoping it might assist me hold observe of my child’s respiration and provides me sufficient tranquility to sleep with out fear.
As first-time mother and father, my husband and I have been anxious about sudden toddler loss of life syndrome (SIDS), so we would have our new child put on the Owlet extra for peace of thoughts than anything, and we knew that we weren’t the one ones who thought that. In line with a medical research carried out from 2015 to 2017, the Owlet Sensible Sock helped 94% of fogeys sleep higher at night time.
As soon as our firstborn bought previous six months previous, we not often used the Owlet Sensible Sock — till she began having advanced febrile seizures. I do not know should you’ve ever held a small little one throughout a seizure, however I can inform you it is the scariest factor that has ever occurred in my life, particularly since I did not know what was taking place to her the primary time.
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My household has a big historical past of febrile seizures, so we have been informed after the primary one which it probably would not be the final, and it wasn’t: My daughter had three extra earlier than she naturally outgrew them by the point she turned 5.
The Owlet Dream Sock costs wirelessly with its Base Station.
Owlet Care
At that time, the Owlet sleep sock served a good larger function for us as mother and father: It may alert us each time there have been indicators of a seizure whereas our child slept, like elevated coronary heart price or low oxygen, serving to us relaxation a little bit simpler at night time.
Happily, our second little one by no means had any febrile seizures, although she bought her personal Owlet sock to put on. By the point child quantity three arrived, the usual sock had simply sufficient battery left for us to go it on to her. She wore her Owlet religiously for the primary yr of her life till we felt that the chance of SIDS was behind us — however then she began having febrile seizures too.
My third child’s first febrile seizure got here on when she was 17 months previous, so we sprung for a brand new Owlet Dream Sock Plus, which Owlet says ought to final you as much as 5 years. This variant comes with an extension pack so it has socks in sizes from beginning to 5 years of age, as a substitute of the usual Dream Sock, which works as much as about 18 months previous. With our vital household historical past of febrile seizures, I felt that purchasing a brand new Owlet machine made essentially the most sense, even when she was our final child.
A word on child sock screens
Not all child socks in the marketplace have the FDA’s approval. Owlet used to market its sleep sock as a coronary heart price and oxygen monitor till the FDA pressured the corporate to take away this language from its product descriptions by way of a warning letter in 2021. After that, Owlet put its child sock by way of the FDA’s necessities and was granted FDA approval in 2023.
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Whereas awaiting its approval, Owlet shifted its focus to sleep monitoring on advertising supplies as a substitute of oxygen and coronary heart price monitoring. The FDA-approved Dream Sock nonetheless tracks coronary heart price, however blood oxygen monitoring is now obtainable in real-time for 1-18-month-olds, which is extra helpful than the earlier ten-minute common the Dream Sock provided. The metrics are translated into sleep high quality indicators within the Owlet Dream cellular app. When the corporate’s algorithm detects these measures shifting from the common baseline, you get an alert to verify in on the newborn.
Backside line
The Owlet Dream Sock retails for $299, which isn’t low-cost, nevertheless it helps that you should use HSA or FSA funds to buy it. Seasonal offers additionally assist. Fortunately, there are not any extra month-to-month charges or subscriptions to trace your child’s sleep after you buy the Dream Sock.
Price apart, the Owlet Dream Sock is an revolutionary sensible machine that has genuinely helped me mentally, emotionally, and, to a delicate extent, bodily. I’ve at all times liked seeing knowledge in black and white, and I usually use my Apple Watch and Fitbit to trace my sleep. I feel extending these capabilities to my children is a no brainer.
