There’s a lot to keep track of as a new mom. All of a sudden, you’re scrambling to learn how to care for a tiny person, without sleep and with a lot of new responsibilities. It’s a rough adjustment that takes time, patience and probably at least a few crying jags to get the hang of. If you’re looking for the perfect gift for a new mother, give her time to sleep. If you’re looking for the next best thing, try these helpful gadgets that are designed to make the job at least a little easier.

Hatch Rest+

Having a soft light on during nighttime feeds and diaper changes can be really helpful, especially when you’re sleep deprived. And a lot of experts will recommend using a white noise machine to help babies sleep soundly. Hatch’s Rest line combines both functions into a single device that can be controlled entirely from a smartphone. The Rest, and Rest+, offer 11 colors and sounds that can be combined, favorited, programed and timed to help your baby doze. The Rest+ is more expensive at $90, but adds a clock, battery power and a two-way audio monitor feature. It can also be voice controlled using Alexa. I’ve used it successfully to help sleep train the twins and, when they’re bigger, it can be programmed to help them learn when to wake up. — Amber Bouman, Commerce Writer

Owlet baby monitor and smart sensor

If there is only one piece of tech that makes it into the nursery, it should be a baby monitor. Being able to check on your sleeping infant without waking them is an invaluable gift, and you’ll want one that’s reliable, clear and adds thoughtful features (not just tech for tech’s sake).

Owlet makes a Cam that streams 1080p HD video to an app on your phone. The camera itself can sit on a base or get mounted to a wall. It has a 130-degree wide-angle lens to cover the room, but has to be manually tilted or adjusted so you can’t pan remotely. The video feed has night vision and displays in color during the day. The camera has two-way audio, so you can both hear your little one and speak to them through the device. There’s also background audio so sound from the camera will play over other apps if you have it up and running as well. In addition, it can send you notifications if it senses movement or sound coming from your baby’s crib. The Cam uses AES 128-bit encryption and a TSL connection to WiFi for security, though the feed can be shared with up to five people at a time (assuming you’ve shared your log-in credentials with them).

Lastly, it can be paired with Owlet's wearable sensor, the Smart Sock, which measures an infant’s heart rate and pulse ox. If the baby’s stats take a dive or shoot into irregular levels, you’ll get a very unsubtle alert on your phone — and on the sock’s base station. Because it’s intended to be worn at night and during naps, the Owlet Sock also tracks babies’ sleep habits. All this data is viewable in the app, making it a fairly complete monitoring system. — A.B.

LIFX smart lights

New moms don’t have enough hands to do everything they need to, when it needs to be done. Automating even the smallest task, like turning on and off a light, can be a big help. LIFX’s smart lights make great gifts because they come in all-white or color options, they’re dimmable and they require no connecting bridge or hub. That means your giftee can just screw them into their existing lamps, connect them to WiFi via the mobile app and start using them. They may want to automatically dim the lights in their baby’s room at a certain time, or shift to warmer or cooler light depending on the time of day. They can customize it as much or as little as they want — and if they just can’t be bothered, they can always use Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant voice commands to control these smart lights, too. — Valentina Palladino, Senior Commerce Editor

Kobo Clara 2E

Whether she’s bottle or breast feeding, a new mom has a lot of sitting-around time when the baby’s first born. She could spend time scrolling social media, but “flipping” through a book on an e-reader might be more rewarding. Kobo’s Clara 2E earned the top spot in our guide to e-readers thanks to its eye-friendly warm light, sharp display, intuitive interface and speedy but accurate touch responses. It’s compact and lightweight enough to hold in one hand, which is particularly important for busy new moms, and it can handle getting accidentally drenched. She can buy books through the Kobo store, borrow them from the library or subscribe to Kobo Plus for $10 per month to get unlimited access to a big selection of audio- and e-books. – Amy Skorheim, Commerce Writer

Theragun Mini 2.0

If the new baby has mom feeling knots, a personal massage “gun” like the Theragun Mini 2.0 can provide some temporary relief by gently pummeling away her muscle aches. While not the most forceful device of its kind, this triangular massager is effective enough to ease soreness yet small enough to carry around and outside of the house. We’ve recommended the original Mini in past gift guides; that one has slightly longer battery life and remains a good buy if you’re on a tighter budget, but this model is 20 percent smaller and supports a couple more attachments for targeting different parts of the body. Just be warned neither is exactly quiet. No massage gun is a substitute for proper sleep and nutrition habits, but since those will be in shorter supply for any new mom, it can be a useful tool to have on hand. — Jeff Dunn, Senior Commerce Writer 

Twelve South HoverBar Duo

A tablet might be a new mom’s saving grace when she’s constantly shuffling around the house tending to the needs of a baby. A good stand like the HoverBar Duo can make it easier for her to safely and securely prop up her device without fear of it accidentally being knocked over by a rogue, tiny fist. One of our favorite iPad accessories, the HoverBar Duo has a weighted base, and while it could be knocked over, it would require more force than most infants could muster. It also comes with a clamp attachment so they could hook it to a table or desk if that’s more convenient. Whether they need to use their tablet to read work documents, show off the little bundle of joy to friends and family in a video call, or just binge-watch a show while the kid naps, the HoverBar Duo can give them a stable way to keep their table in view. — V.P.

Baby Brezza Safe + Smart bottle warmer

I’m not sure exactly how many steps I’m earning walking up and downstairs to check on the bottle warmer, but it’s probably a fair percentage of my daily exercise. Baby Brezza makes a Safe + Smart Baby Bottle Warmer that uses Bluetooth to connect the device to your phone. Using the Baby Brezza app you can operate the warmer remotely and get alerts when the bottle is ready. Though the app is pretty minimal, that’s not always a bad thing when you’re bleary-eyed and trying to feed an infant in the early morning hours. Plus, having controls on your phone allows you to turn off the warmer and avoid overheating a bottle. The downside is that the Safe + Smart warmer only holds a single bottle at a time. — A.B.

Smart breast pump

If your giftee is breastfeeding or pumping, a smart breast pump from Elvie or Willow is going to be a huge time saver. These wearable pumps let Mom keep on schedule while keeping her hands free to do any of the 40 other things she’s got on her plate. The pump, power supply and container are all contained in the egg-shaped device, which pairs to an app using Bluetooth. They’re a bit cumbersome to wear, but comfortable to use, and it beats being tethered to a wall unit, though the results are not always as consistent.

Though both products are similar in design and functionality, there are some differences between them. The Willow pump can be used with reusable containers or disposable bags, while the Elvie only has the container option. The Elvie pump is quieter and more discreet, while the Willow pump offers a spill-proof system that can be used even while upside down. (I tested this myself and it works.) They can be purchased in a set or two, or as an individual pump. — A.B.

Wabi Baby 3-in-1 sanitizer

While my children are very cute, they also like to chew on my house slippers, eat post-its and lick the touch-and-feel books. So I spend a lot of time cleaning the things that do belong in their mouths like pacifiers and teethers and plastic toys, which invariably end up on the car floor. While most of these things are easy to throw into boiling water, it can be worth the time saved to let a sanitizer do the job. The Wabi Baby sanitizer is something that I received as a gift, and it’s served me well. It takes up a fair amount of counter space but it’s relatively quiet; it fits a wide variety of bottles, dinnerware and accessories; and it can run a drying cycle after the steam sanitation session.

The display shows how much longer the process will run, it’s fairly simple to operate and it automatically remembers your last session so you can select it again easily. However, you can only use distilled water which can admittedly be a pain. Also, you have to be careful about where you put the Wabi; it requires a drainage mat for excess water. — A.B.

Bose QuietComfort 2 earbuds

Bose’s QuietComfort 2 earbuds have excellent active noise cancellation (ANC), but new moms might not feel comfortable flipping it on when they’re always on alert. Fortunately, Bose’s latest buds also have a good transparency mode, which lets you hear the world around you and your music or podcast. They’ll pair up with Apple or Android devices and their smaller size make them more comfortable than previous generations. We awarded them an 87 in our review and gave them a spot in our wireless earbuds guide, mostly thanks to their ANC. Moms might not get the chance to tune out the world all that often, but when someone else is on baby duty, a little bit of silence may feel like a blessing. – A.S.

Hulu subscription

The new mom in your life will probably appreciate some TV time on your dime when she finally gets the little one to go to sleep – and when the baby inevitably wakes up and needs to be held soon after. Hulu’s app isn’t the cleanest, but the service remains one of the better streaming services for keeping up with recent episodes from primetime TV shows. It has its share of kid-friendly content as well, though you can expand that catalog by pairing the service with Disney+ (and ESPN+) through a Disney Bundle subscription. — J.D.

TikTok is introducing new settings that are meant to reduce how much time teens are spending in the app. In an update, the company says it will automatically default teens under the age of 18 to a daily screen time limit of 60 minutes.

With the change, teens will still be able to bypass the daily limit, but they’ll be required to enter a passcode, “requiring them to make an active decision to extend that time,” the company says. Additionally, if teens opt to turn off the screen time limit altogether, TikTok will further prompt them to set a limit if they spend more than 100 minutes in the app.

The company is also adding new parental control features via the app’s “Family Pairing” feature, which allows parents to monitor their children’s activity on TikTok. Parents will be able to set their own custom screen time limits, and view a dashboard that details stats about their child’s time in the app, like how often they open it and what times of the day they use it most. Parents can also set a schedule for when their children can receive notifications, and choose to filter topics they don’t want to appear in their For You feeds.

The update comes as lawmakers in the United States have renewed their efforts to ban TikTok entirely. In addition to national security concerns, Congress has also criticized the company for not doing enough to protect its youngest users.

Non-parents may not believe it, but pushing a pram around can be a fairly strenuous task, especially when the train gets rough. It’s a full body workout to push two kids under four in my old Uppababy Vista, which weighed the same as an iceberg and had the turning circle of the Titanic. To remedy this, Canadian startup GlüxKind has developed an electrically-assisted stroller that’ll make pushing easier, and can even drive itself, albeit only when your kid isn’t on board.

The GlüxKind Ella is the brainchild of Anne Hunger and Kevin Huang, a couple who were less than whelmed when looking for a stroller for their own daughter. They decided to build their own device by strapping an electric skateboard to a regular stroller, and started developing their product from there. The device has three modes, the first of which is to add electric assist to the wheels as you’re pushing it around.

Trying this in an admittedly limited demo at CES, it feels very much like the sort of power boost you get with an e-bike. You still have to push this thing around, but you only have to make a fairly meager level of effort before the motor kicks in and helps you out. As well as easier forward motion, you’ll also find turning to be a lot snappier than you may expect, useful too when you’re trying to maneuver your rugrat in tight spaces. It’ll also prove useful when going uphill, or if you’re carrying lots of groceries in Ella’s surprisingly large cargo space.

I’m told that the battery will last for around eight hours of mixed use, and you’ll need to charge it at the end of every day, more or les.

You can also set the pram to rock your baby to sleep, moving backwards and forwards by about a foot. This, I’m sure, will be a godsend to parents who are otherwise praying for divine intervention at 3am as their precious child refuses to sleep. I’m aware that there are some safety caveats about using such a feature on a regular basis, but being able to call on the feature in a pinch will surely be an instant-sell to some harangued parents.

The last mode, and the most eye-catching, is self-driving, where the stroller will drive ahead of you by a couple of feet. It’ll maintain power when going up hill, and brake so it stays close to you when you’re going down the other side. But crucially, the system is designed to not work if you put your kid in the seat and expect the pram to do all of the work. A weight sensor in the bassinet and stroller chair will block the function if it detects the presence of a child.

A product like this is, understandably, going to be at the higher end of the price scale, and when it hits Kickstarter this spring, the first 100 units will set you back $3,800. Once that early bird special is done with, the price is likely to climb a little higher, but for that you’ll also get built-in GPS so you can track where your pram is if you’ve asked friends and family to babysit. GlüxKind also has plans to build out a community feature to find and connect like-minded parents — the sort of whom are also prepared to spend north of four grand on a self-driving stroller.

Starting next month, dating app Hinge will begin rolling out a new profile verification feature to combat a surge in fake accounts. Dubbed “Selfie Verification,” the feature will prompt users to upload a video of themselves, which the app, with a combination of machine learning and human oversight, will use to confirm they look like the person pictured in their profile. People who complete the process will get a “Verified” badge on their dating profile.

Hinge parent company Match Group told Wired, the first publication to report on the feature, that Selfie Verification would roll out to all users by December. “As romance scammers find new ways to defraud people, we are committed to investing in new updates and technologies that prevent harm to our daters,” Hinge spokesperson Jarryd Boyd told the outlet.

The feature comes after Wired writer Lauren Goode wrote about her experience with Hinge’s many bots. The app, like many other dating platforms, is rife with fake accounts, and the real people behind them will often attempt to scam their matches out of money. For instance, “pig butchering,” one of the more popular online dating schemes, frequently sees victims tricked into “investing” their money into fake cryptocurrency platforms. As Gizmodo points out, online dating scams aren’t new, but they’ve become more prevalent since the start of the pandemic. In February, the Federal Trade Commission issued a warning to online daters, noting that people reported losing a record $547 million in 2021 from online dating fraud.

How much Selfie Verification will help protect Hinge users from such scams is hard to say. Other Match Group apps, including Tinder, already employ similar features. On those platforms, users aren’t required to verify their identity, and you still see plenty of fake accounts.

Snapchat has launched a parental control portal that allows parents to keep an eye on who their young teenagers have been chatting with. The new in-app feature called Family Center shows parents their kids' friends list, as well as who they've messaged in the last seven days. Take note that parents can only see who their teens have been talking to, but they won't be able to read their chat history. Snap says the center was designed to "reflect the way... parents engage with their teens in the real world" in that they know (for the most part) who their kids have been hanging out with but don't listen in on their conversations.

In addition, parents can confidentially report accounts they think might be violating Snap's rules straight from the Family Center. Back in January, Snapchat changed its friend recommendation feature following calls for increased safety on the app by making it harder for adults to connect with teen users: In particular, it stopped showing accounts owned by 13-to-17-year-old users in Quick Add. Teens also can't have public profiles and have to be mutual friends to be able to communicate with each other. Plus, their accounts will only show up in search results under certain circumstances, such as if the one searching has a mutual friend with them.

Snap promised to launch new parental controls and other features designed to protect underage users on its service last year. The company revealed its plans in a hearing wherein lawmakers put the pressure on social networks and apps that cater to teens, such as Snapchat and TikTok, to do more to protect children on their platforms. 

Family Center is completely voluntary, and teens can always leave the portal if they want — they'll even be given the choice to accept or ignore a parent's invitation to join. And since the feature was made for underage teens, users who turn 18 will automatically be removed from the tool.

The company plans to roll out more features for the Family Center on top of what it already has. It will allow parents to easily see the newest friends their teens have added in the coming weeks. And over the next months, Snap will add content controls for parents, as well as the ability for teens to notify their parents whenever they report an account or a piece of content.

A lawmaker wants to punish people for ghosting, or abruptly cutting off communications with someone without explaining why. Arnolfo Teves Jr., a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, claimed in a note accompanying his bill that ghosting "can be likened to a form of emotional cruelty and should be punished as an emotional offense."

Teves referred to studies that indicate social rejection activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. He argued that “ghosting is a form of spite that develops feelings of rejection and neglect” and claimed the emotional toll can impact productivity. The bill doesn't propose specific penalties, but Teves suggested in an interview that community service would be appropriate.

The proposed legislation doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It defines ghosting as something that happens when a person is "engaged in a dating relationship." The document goes on to define a dating relationship as one where the parties live together without being married or are "romantically involved over time and on a continuing basis." Teves claimed neither casual acquaintances nor "ordinary socialization" constitutes a dating relationship. If you're being ghosted by someone you're in more than a casual relationship with (especially a domestic partner!), then there are bigger problems to worry about.

Importantly, the bill does not account for blocking someone without explanation if they're being creepy or threatening. As The Washington Post notes, the bill isn't likely to pass as it stands. The legislature likely has more pressing concerns anyway.

The bill suggests ghosting occurs "for no apparent justifiable reason but solely to cause emotional distress to the victim." That's not really the case. People are busy! They don't always have time to keep chatting to everyone who messages them on a dating app. Also, folks often feel they lack the communication skills to have open and honest conversations. Maybe the ghoster just thinks you're boring and wants to let you down relatively gently.

Being ghosted sucks. But expecting someone you don't really know to keep chatting with you isn't smart. Proposing to punish people for ghosting after you've been burned too many times instead of going to therapy probably isn't the answer either.

Meta is introducing new parental supervision features for Quest virtual reality headsets and Instagram. The VR safety tools, which were announced in March, are rolling out worldwide. 

The parental supervision process needs to be initiated on a teen's account (the minimum age to have a Facebook account is 13). A Parent Dashboard in the Oculus app will allow parents and guardians to block apps (including web browsers), see a list of apps on the teen's account and view their friends list. A teen can ask to buy an age-restricted app, then their parent can approve or deny the request. Parents can also view headset screen time, receive alerts when an app is purchased and block the Link and Air Link features to stop teens from using PC content on their headset.

On top of that, Meta is debuting a parent education hub, which includes information about the VR supervision options. The company says it worked with industry experts, teens, parents and policymakers on these controls. It will refine the tools over time.

At the start of this year, the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK said it would hold talks with Meta over how Quest 2 complies with a children's code that's designed to protect young users. These new measures could go some way toward addressing the watchdog's concerns.

Meanwhile, Instagram's parental supervision tools, which launched in the US in March, will arrive in the UK, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France and Germany this month with some expanded options. Parents can now invite teens to set up supervision tools (rather than requests solely coming from teen accounts).

Parents and guardians can limit access to Instagram at certain times by scheduling breaks. They can view more details about an account or post their teen reports, including the person in question and the type of report. They can also see which users their teen follows and who follows them. Instagram plans to roll out the tools globally later this year.

In the UK and Ireland, Instagram is testing a nudge feature. Teens will be encouraged to look at different posts if they spend too much time with the same kind of content in the Explore tab. The aim is to prompt them to be more mindful of their Instagram use. As part of a different test, teens in certain countries may see a prompt to turn on the Take a Break feature after watching Reels for a while.

Elsewhere, Instagram is adding more resources to its educational Family Center. There's a new page that provides teens with details about privacy settings for Quest, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. Parents and guardians can access information about how to talk to kids about online safety issues.

Today is National Single Parents Day and Match has unveiled a new app designed to help such folks find love. The aim of Stir is to help single parents meet, chat with and date folks who also have kids.

Match says there are around 20 million single parents in the US who are often underserved by many dating apps. After you answer questions on personality and values, Stir will show you potential matches.

Once you find someone you have a spark with, you'll be able to arrange a date. Match is aware that single parents might find it hard to coordinate their schedules and find a time that works for both of them. The app has a feature called Stir Time, which allows you to display your available "me time." Hopefully, that will line up with your prospective date's calendar. Stir Time schedules can be displayed on your profile.

"Having kids shouldn't be a dealbreaker when dating," Match Group's Dinh Thi Bui said in a statement. "We're dedicated to giving single parents a dating experience where they are celebrated and feel like they can be themselves. With that, our hope is that they can truly focus on having a personal life beyond navigating parenthood."

Stir is available on the App Store and the Google Play Store.

Meta is introducing new “parental supervision” features for Instagram and virtual reality. The update will be available first for Instagram, which has faced a wave of scrutiny for its impact on teens and children, with new parental controls coming to Quest headsets over the next few months.

On Instagram, the controls will be part of a new “Family Center,” where parents can set time limits and access information about their teen’s activity on the app. For now, parents will be able to see a list of accounts their teen is following, as well as which accounts follow them. Parents will also be notified if their teen reports another user.

Notably, the update is for now only available in the United States and parents will only be able to access the parental control features if the teens “initiate supervision” within the app themselves. Teens will also need to approve any parental requests for parental supervision. “Over the next few months we’ll add additional features, including letting parents set the hours during which their teen can use Instagram, and the ability for more than one parent to supervise a teen’s account,” Instagram Head Adam Mosseri writes in a blog post.

Instagram

The new features, which were first promised back in December, arrive after Instagram was forced to “pause” work on a dedicated app for kids younger than 13 after a whistleblower disclosed internal research documenting Instagram’s impact on teens’ mental health. The disclosures prompted lawmakers to push Meta to end work on Instagram Kids entirely. So far, Meta executives have declined to do so.

Mosseri said the company also plans to add similar parental control features to its Quest headsets so parents can also set limits on their children’s activities in virtual reality. Those features, which won’t launch for a few more months, will enable parents to restrict VR content rated for ages 13 and up and set other limits on VR purchases. Meta is also working on a “Parent Dashboard” for the Oculus app so parents can keep tabs on what their children are watching and how much time they are spending in VR.

Senators are still concerned social networks aren't doing enough to protect children. The Washington Postreports Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal have introduced a bill, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), that would give kids more control over their privacy and safety on social media while setting stricter guidelines for the companies in question.

Most notably, social media firms would have to give children under 16 tools to protect their data, turn off "addictive" features and bow out of algorithm-based recommendations. The "strongest settings" would have to be enabled by default, according to the bill. Parents would also get controls to help pinpoint harmful behavior, while both camps would receive a dedicated channel for reporting those harms affecting children.

Social networks, meanwhile, would have to "prevent and mitigate" exposure to inappropriate content, including self-harm, eating disorders, sexual exploitation and alcohol. They would also have to conduct yearly independent audits of their KOSA compliance and the risks to children. Similarly, the social sites would have to turn over "critical datasets" to academic and public interest researchers hoping to study child safety.

The bill is effectively a response to months of inquiries into tech giants' handling of child safety, with a particular focus on the testimony of Facebook (now Meta) whistleblower Frances Haugen. She called on the company to make multiple changes to protect children, including an end to algorithmic ranking, opening up its research and modifying the Communications Decency Act's Section 230 for more accountability. Senators also asked Instagram head Adam Mosseri to testify after concerns Meta might not have told the truth about hiding research into harmful effects on children.

We've asked Meta for comment. It has made changes in response to calls for greater child protections, including offers to share data and teen safety features like screen time tracking, break reminders and bulk content deletion.

There are no guarantees KOSA will pass the Senate, let alone become law. It would join existing legislation that includes COPPA, which protects internet privacy for children under 13. The bipartisan nature of the bill may help, though. Blumenthal is also tenacious in attempts to curb harmful online behavior. This is the second bill tackling Big Tech that Blumenthal has introduced in recent weeks, after reintroducing the controversial EARN IT Act.