For the first few months of your baby’s life, a significant part of parenting revolves around ensuring that your baby receives enough sleep. With time, all parents develop their own unique bedtime routine and a unique ‘recipe’ of how they help their little one fall asleep.

While some parents prefer to keep both bounce and sound OFF while they manually bounce the baby to sleep, others like the crib to match their bounce when they gently transfer the drowsy baby, and then there are some others who simply place the baby inside and let the Smart mode do its job!

This is where ‘Start Recipe‘ comes in — allowing you to customize the crib’s response when the baby is first placed inside. You can literally code how the crib responds when you first place the baby in the crib!

Here’s how it enables you to tailor the crib’s response to suit your little one’s needs.

What does the Start Recipe do?

The ‘Start Recipe‘ customizes how the crib responds when you first place the baby in the crib.

You can configure your crib’s bounce and sound levels to start at a level that you prefer for a chosen period of time ranging from 10 to 30 minutes.

For example, during feeding sessions, babies often doze off in your arms. The usual practice is to then transfer them to the bassinet/crib. In the initial 30 minutes, when the baby is in a deep sleep, the bouncing feature may not be necessary. Instead, some parents prefer the Smart Mode to kick in after 30 minutes, which ensures a gentle transition and safeguards the baby’s nap.

On the other hand, some parents prefer the bouncing to start immediately upon placing the baby in the crib.

Both preferences are valid and depend on the baby’s needs.

For instance, if your baby needs less soothing for the first 30 minutes, your ‘Start Recipe‘ will look like this:

• Bounce: Gentle

• Music: Gentle

• Timer: 20 minutes

With this ‘Start Recipe,’ the crib will use gentle soothing for the first 20 minutes of placing the baby in the crib and then revert back to “Smart Soothing” mode.  

Why did we make this feature?

The best ideas often come from real-life moments, and our ‘Start Recipe‘ feature is no exception. We heard feedback from parents who were looking to make those precious bedtime transitions smoother and tailored to their unique parenting styles.

Those parents who preferred no soothing initially used a workaround of switching the crib to Manual mode and then turning the bounce OFF. And then set a timer for themselves to remind them to toggle the bounce to ‘Auto’ after a certain duration.

No more hacks, you can now code a recipe of your choice and the crib will tailor the soothing for your baby! 

When does the Start Recipe start?

After you place the baby in the crib and move out of the crib’s frame, the crib takes 3 to 5 seconds to detect the baby. Right after this is when the ‘Start Recipe’ will kick in.

How do you navigate to the Start Recipe?

To curate your own ‘Start Recipe,’ navigate to Settings > Soothing > Toggle “ON” Start Recipe. 

The ‘Start Recipe‘ is OFF by default.

How to configure a Start Recipe?

The first step to configure a ‘Start Recipe‘ for your baby is to navigate to ‘Start Recipe’ and toggle it “On.”

Once you’ve toggled it On, you can preset the bounce and sound level at which you want the crib to start using the ‘Start bounce at’ and ‘Start sound at’ options.

For both bounce and sound, you can select any level from Off > Gentle > Level 1 > Level 2 > Level 3 > Level 4.

Once you’ve selected your preferred levels, you can use a timer for 10, 20, or 30 minutes.

The ‘Start Recipe‘ starts 3 to 5 seconds after you place your baby in the crib. After the ‘Start Recipe’ timer ends, the crib goes back to ‘Smart Soothing’ in Auto mode.

You can see the ‘Start Recipe‘ status on the ‘Smart Soothing’ card on the home screen.

Note: If your crib’s Bounce is in Manual mode or OFF, it will be grayed out in the ‘Start Recipe.’ This means that you’ll be disabled from choosing a Bounce level. The same goes for if your Sound is in Manual mode or OFF.

What happens when you override the ‘Start Recipe’?

If you override the ‘Start Recipe‘ or move the bounce or sound levels up or down while it’s On, you will exit the ‘Start Recipe,’ and the crib will resume soothing your baby in Smart Mode.

What happens when the timer stops?

When the timer times out, the crib will automatically resume functioning in Smart Mode.

What if your Start Recipe is OFF in Smart Mode?

In this case, the crib will start in its Smart Mode. 

When you place the baby in, the crib will take 30-40 seconds to determine whether the baby is in light sleep or has dozed off already. Based on this, the crib will start the soothing if they are lightly asleep.

We hope this feature makes your life and parenting journey slightly easier.

More posts you might like:

• Cradlewise’s Gentle bounce mode
• New & improved Smart (formerly auto) mode
• Cradlewise app home screen revamp
• Top 10 Cradlewise reviews of 2023