On Twitter I mentioned that being a parent of a newborn has shown me how many iOS devices I actually need in my life, and that the answer is “3-4”.

In this entry I’m going to (quickly) explain what I mean.

My current “happy baby” make up, hardware wise is:

• 4 iOS devices (2 iPhone 3GSes, 1 iPad, 1 iPod Touch 2nd Gen)
• 1 iHome radio/speaker set. The iPod Touch is (as of last night) plugged into this full time.
• Moleskine notebook, hardcover (for nursing/diaper log, doctor questions and comments)

As far as “software”, the landscape looks like:

• “Best Baby Monitor App” - this works like an audio and video baby monitor. One iOS device is left with the baby, and turned to “baby mode” (aka: “transmit noises from this room on the WiFi network”). One iOS device goes with the parent, and turned to “parent mode” (aka: receive “baby mode” transmissions)
• Clock.app - nursing timer. Built-in, but not on the iPad
• Camera.app and Facebook.app (for obvious reasons)
• “Baby” playlist composed on relaxing nature sounds music plus “99 most essential Beethoven Masterpieces” (a few years ago this was super cheap on the Amazon MP3 store).
• (i)Message.app - for Mom and Dad to communicate with each other if we’re in separate rooms and don’t want to wake baby.

A note: The Best Baby Monitor app requires iOS 5, which only Mommy’s iPhone and the iPad are running. (Dad’s iPhone currently runs iOS 4). This makes logistics slightly harder (we need to look at which iPhone we’re grabbing).

In a normal night we’re just using two iOS devices (the iPod Touch for music, and an iPhone to be a timer). During the day, if baby is sleeping in her crib, we’ll use the iPod Touch to play music, or the Baby Monitor app to play music and act as a monitor. Note: using the iHome+iPod Touch and the Best Baby Monitor was a bad experience (very stuttery and staticy.)

The Baby playlist has 12 hours of music on it. Last night we played in all night, and it went really well. Our current thinking is that some background noise is what baby was used to in the womb and makes her fussy when there’s silence. Your Milage May Vary, we’re not professionals here, etc etc.

In Summary

• 1 iPod Touch, which stays planted in the room (with the iHome)
• 2 iPhones, which we’ve started calling timers. As in: “Is there a timer around here?”. Also communication devices for Mommy to Daddy, and Mommy and Daddy to the rest of the world.
• 1 iPad, most often used as the Parent Unit for Best Baby Monitor.app, but also emergency timer.