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We get the opportunity to take home a cyber baby and take full responsibility of caring for it overnight.
The baby is a computerised doll, specially designed to mimic the actions and behaviour of a new born baby, and has a light which alerts us when the baby needs changing and also monitors how well the baby is being looked after.
Once we have finished looking after the baby, it gives us an overall score of how well we did.
I was assigned the cyber baby in my lesson at College earlier in the day and turned it on at 6pm once I got home and prepared for the night.
The baby woke up from it's nap and started crying so I gave it a feed until it no longer wanted any more milk.
After feeding the baby, it started to cry again so I rocked it in my arms until it started to settle down.
After gently rocking the baby for nearly 10 minutes, the baby became uncomfortable and the light on the cyber baby indicated that it needed a nappy change. I changed the baby's nappy and made sure it was all cleaned up.
The baby started to cry again and wanted more milk so I gave it another feed.
I burped the baby, making sure I supported the head and neck, and the back and tummy and straight were both straight. I patted the baby's back gently to encourage them to burp, as when a baby swallows when feeding, air bubbles can become trapped in their tummy and cause a lot of discomfort.
After napping for a moment, the baby became unsettled again so I gave it some more milk until it stopped suckling the bottle at 8:37pm.
I was starting to feel tired at this point so I rested my eyes and fell asleep for a while.
I was awoken by the baby crying and gave it another feed until 9:38pm and then settled the baby back down.
The baby seemed uncomfortable so I burped it again to relieve any discomfort. I put the baby back down to sleep and I also napped in between the feeds.
I was woken up again by the baby crying, and checked if the baby wanted the bottle again. It turned out that the baby was still hungry, so I fed it until 11:15pm, and then put it back down to sleep. I also went to sleep after this.
I managed to sleep 4 hours straight without the baby waking up or crying! I was very happy about this as I had been getting very interrupted sleep sessions before this. The baby woke up at 03:15am and wanted another feed so I fed it for around 15 minutes, until it seemed content.
I put the baby back down to sleep and I also settled back to sleep.
The baby slept for another 4 hours which was amazing! I was pleasantly surprised when the baby woke me up and I looked at my phone and it was 7:25am as I was excepting the baby to wake me up a lot earlier for another feed.
When the cyber baby did wake up it was hungry, so I gave the final feed and changed its nappy. I then turned the baby off as it was the end of looking after it for the night. I then got ready for the day and headed off to catch the bus to get to College.
Overall, I really enjoyed the experience of looking after the cyber baby. This is my third time looking after one overnight and I scored 93% which I am really happy with.
I think I have got into more of a feeding regular feeding pattern with it, and have more of a sense of how to tell if the baby is hungry or needs winding after a feed.
The cyber babies have different levels of difficulty and I think the cyber baby I was given this time definitely was one of the more hungrier ones, as it seemed like it couldn't get enough milk!