Cradle Care: Intelligent Baby Monitoring System

Abstract

The proposed work presents an IoT?based intelligent baby cradle that continuously monitors an infant’s condition and surrounding environment using a NodeMCU/ESP8266 controller including cry, temperature–humidity, and diaper?wetness sensors. Sensor data are periodically processed by embedded firmware following a decision?flow in which crying, abnormal environmental conditions, or wetness and automatically cradle swings and generate real?time SMS or mobile?app alerts to caregivers, as shown in the system flowchart. The hardware implementation integrates a DC motor driver, regulated DC power supply, and Wi?Fi connectivity on a cradle prototype, enables remote supervision and automation of infant care while reducing the workload and stress of busy or working parents.

Introduction

The text describes “Cradle Care – Intelligent Baby Monitoring System,” an IoT-based solution designed to assist modern parents by automating baby care and monitoring. The system integrates sensors, a NodeMCU controller, and remote alerts to respond to a baby’s needs efficiently.

Key Points:

1. Objective:
   Reduce parental burden by automatically monitoring and responding to a baby’s discomfort through cradle rocking, audio soothing, and notifications.

2. System Architecture:

   • Controller: NodeMCU serves as the central processing unit.

   • Sensors: Temperature, moisture, and sound sensors detect crying, wet diapers, or temperature changes.

   • Actuators & Outputs: DC motor swings the cradle, DF Player MP3 provides soothing audio, and Wi-Fi module sends alerts to parents’ mobile apps.

   • Display: 16x2 LCD shows system status.

   • Camera: ESP32-CAM enables remote visual monitoring.

3. Methodology:

   • Input Stage: Sensors capture environmental and baby signals.

   • Processing Stage: NodeMCU compares sensor readings to thresholds and decides on actions.

   • Output Stage: Cradle swings, audio plays, and notifications are sent in real time.

   • Testing: Prototype tested under simulated baby cries, wetness, and temperature changes to ensure reliable responses.

4. Results:

   • The system successfully detects crying, temperature changes, and diaper wetness.

   • It responds automatically by rocking the cradle, playing soothing sounds, and sending alerts to caregivers.

   • Sensor data is transmitted to the IoT platform for monitoring, ensuring continuous operation.

Conclusion

The proposed Cradle Care system offers automatic rocking and continuous monitoring of the baby’s cry, temperature, and diaper wetness, giving parents greater comfort and peace of mind. Experimental results show that the NodeMCU?based design detects abnormal conditions, sends timely alerts through and mobile app, and operates stably over long durations, proving it to be a low?cost and practical solution for smart baby care in homes and hospitals.

References

[1] Marie R. Harper, La Mirada, Maxine R. Blea, “Automatically rocking baby crdle\", US3769641, Date of Patent: Nov. 6, 1973 [2] Yang Hu, Weihua Gui; “Adaptive sway control for baby bassinet based on Artificial Metabolic Algorithm\", School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, China. [3] M. P. Joshi and D. C. Mehetre, \"IoT Based Smart Cradle System with an Android App for Baby Monitoring,\" 2017 International Conference on Computing, Communication, Control and Automation (ICCUBEA), 2017. [4] S. Joseph, A. Gautham.J, A. Kumar and M. K. Harish Babu, \"IOT Based Baby Monitoring System Smart Cradle,\" 2021 7th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS), 2021. [5] S. Kavitha, R. R. Neela, M. Sowndarya, Madhuchandra and K. Harshitha, \"Analysis on IoT Based Smart Cradle System with an Android Application for Baby Monitoring,\" 2019 1st International Conference on Advanced Technologies in Intelligent Control, Environment, Computing & Communication Engineering (ICATIECE), 2019.

Copyright

Copyright © 2025 Khushi T., Meghana D., Monika P., Navishta Aiman, Prof. Manaji A. Gajare. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.