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A few of us Gemini Crickets twin mommies, Linda, Akemi and Linsey, write for Silicon Valley Moms Blog, a collaborative blog of, well….sort of what the name implies - Moms in the Silicon Valley. You can read our stuff here, here, and here. It is a fun and challening enterprise, and every now and then, we get treated to a little pampering.
Yesterday, we were invited, along with the other Silicon Valley Moms, to the Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto by Graco, who showed us their new product, the SweetPeace “soothing center”. While our husbands and babysitters (Linda’s husband was traveling on business) handled the kids, we chatted poolside with our fellow bloggers (there were 5 of us there who have twins- pictured in the photo are, from bottom left, Linda, Linsey, Ana, Akemi and Beth - Alix, we missed you!), enjoyed hand massages, drank wine and ate yummy sushi appetizers (this party was NOT for expectant mothers, apparently). And we got an education on soothing from Graco.
The sweetpeace is really a fantastic product (although pricey at $169…especially when you have mutliples - maybe it is an item for the shower registry or for the grandparents to buy?). We all wished we’d had one or two when our twins were babies (they are all 3 now). After all, it is quite physically impossible to hold multiple babies ALL DAY LONG and what the sweetpeace tries to do is to imitate being held and soothed by the best (mommy, of course).
Akemi’s view is that its too bad Graco doesn’t make one for twins, but realistically, you don’t really need to have both babies doing the same thing at the same time. She would have just used it in her baby circuit (bouncy chair to swing to sweet peace). Linda pitched a concept to the Graco people there that the base of the product lends itself easily (maybe?) to the addition of a second chair for a second baby. Another twin mommy bloogger, Bonggamom, actually came up with this same concept for a twin version and has a nice photo on her blog. Aha - it can be done! Linsey liked the MP3 connection and the built in swaddling blanket (although, she was personally addicted to the Miracle Blanket for swaddling). Also, the fact that the Graco car seat fits in the base of this soothing contraption is very cool, so that if baby falls asleep in the car you can just transfer them right into the sweetpeace soothing so they will stay asleep for hours (I’m pretty sure Graco does not guarantee this sleeping part). And, no, it does not work the other way around. That is, the sweetpeace cradler thing does not fit into the Graco car seat base - it is NOT a car seat!
All in all, it was a truly lovely way to spend the afternoon - we were soothed ourselves and could have used a nice 4-hour newborn stretch of that action.
Posted by Linsey K (Novemberr 13, 2007)
