by Nicole Johnson

Are you ready for Halloween? That’s one fun thing about October, but October is also an important month because it’s SIDS Awareness Month. In 2005, 2,230 babies died of SIDS and while it’s not preventable, there are things you can do as a new parent to reduce the risk. Here are some SIDS facts:

What is SIDS?

SIDS is the diagnosis given when an infant under one year of age dies suddenly and there is no other medical explanation for the death after a complete examination.

SIDS is most likely to occur in infants between one month and 12 months of age with the majority of deaths occurring between 2 and 4 months of age.  The risk of SIDS diminishes significantly after the first year.

How to Reduce the SIDS risk:

• Place babies on their backs to sleep. If baby falls asleep on his tummy, gently roll baby onto his back.

• Baby should sleep on a firm, flat mattress. Avoid using soft, fluffy or loose bedding that can increase suffocation risks. Consider using a sleeper or other sleep clothing as an alternative to blankets. (See the Merino Wool Baby Sleeping bag as part of our giveaway.)

• Keep baby’s room temperature warm but not too warm. Overheated
  babies are more likely to go into a deep sleep from which it may be hard to wake up.

• Babies with mothers who smoked during pregnancy are three times
  more likely to die from SIDS. Exposure to passive smoke around babies can double their risk of SIDS.

• Good prenatal care and breastfeeding can also help lower the risks of SIDS.

Please forward this valuable information to people you know to save lives!

Now for some Babble Soft news:

The Ultimate Guide to Baby’s First Year of Sleep
Win a $75 Target Gift Card, $50 Target Gift Card, 3-Month Subscription, and more!
Babble Soft Is Staying Home

The Ultimate Guide to Baby’s First Year of Sleep

We know that many of you find your way to Babble Soft because you are trying to help your baby get on a schedule and possibly sleep better, too. Using Baby Insights helps you do both and now we have more ways to help! Now when you purchase a subscription to Babble Soft, you not only receive a subscription to Baby Say Cheese, your very own online baby album, but you will also receive a free copy of the book The Ultimate Guide to Baby’s First Year of Sleep! Inside the book you will learn the primary ways to help your baby sleep through the night, how much sleep he really needs, how to help him nap better, tips for keeping up your tracking in Baby Insights, and more! The book also has sample schedules for each month of age to compare against what your baby is doing. To purchase a subscription, please go to the Purchase Page, now!

Win a $75 Target Gift Card, $50 Target Gift Card, 3-month subscription, and more!

In recognition of SIDS Awareness Month, Babble Soft is co-sponsoring a giveaway on the Pick Nick’s Brain website and providing 3-month subscriptions to three lucky winnsers! There are a variety of prizes available including a $75 Target Gift Card and $50 Target Gift Card. Who doesn’t need some money in time for the holidays? To enter the giveaway is very easy and takes just a few seconds of your time, so head over now by following this link: Enter Giveaway!

Babble Soft Is Staying Home

Awhile ago, we announced that Babble Soft was looking for a new home and for all intents and purposes, we’ve found one! But, it’s not too far from the current home, so you might say we’re staying home. I have decided to take on the operations at Babble Soft! Helping parents with their babies is near and dear to my heart and I have a lot of passion for it, so it made sense for me to take it over and run with it. Aruni has taken the company to an amazing place and she is an amazing woman, but with all the things on her plate right now, she needed to confidently let someone else see to the day-to-day details. Aruni is still part owner and Babble Soft will always be near and dear to her heart. I know that I wish her well in her next endeavors.

Have a great weekend!

Hello Babble Soft Friends and Customers –

Happy New Year! It’s been quite some time since we sent out an official newsletter so we thought now would be a good time to tell you what we’ve been up to. Here’s what’s in this newsletter:

A New Partner On Board – Baby Sleep Expert
Survey Opportunity – Giving away up to $450 in prizes
Babble Soft Going Mobile (iPhone)!
The Babble Soft Blog – NEW!
Special Discounts through February 15, 2009

A New Partner On Board – Baby Sleep Expert

The biggest Babble Soft news that will make all of our lives easier is that we brought on a new partner! Her name is Nicole Johnson and she is our new VP of Product Development. If you want to know how we found her, please see a recent article I wrote on GigaOm called 5 Tips for Vetting a Partner Online. Now when we have bug or feature requests, she will be able to figure out how to fix them much faster. Nicole is amazing and not only is she going to help improve our existing Babble Soft applications, she’s also going to help bring new applications and features to market with the first new mobile application being available already (see below)!

Nicole is also the founder of Pick Nick’s Brain, where she offers an ebook and advice on how to help your baby sleep better. You can keep track of your baby’s sleep patterns using Baby Insights, share your reports with her and she can impart her sage advice to you!

I am so excited to have her as part of the team! Please say hello and/or send her any feedback on the website and applications. You can reach her at nicole@babblesoft.com.

A Quick, Fabulous, and Lucrative Survey – Up to $450 in prizes

In order to provide you with quality service and understand your needs better, we have designed a quick 10 question survey to help us provide the best, most useful products and services for new parents.

Please take a few minutes to take the survey by clicking the link below and enter to win several prizes just in time for Valentine’s Day! Feel free to forward this survey to other new or expecting parents who might be interested in Babble Soft applications.

Click Here to take survey

We will pick the winners based on a random drawing after the survey is closed on January 30, 2008. If you want to be eligible for the prizes, please don’t forget to fill in your name and email address at the end of the survey.

1. First Prize: $100 gift certificate to Amazon and Two 6-Month Babble Soft email gift subscriptions (worth $29.95 each).
2. Second Prize: $50 gift certificate to Amazon and Two 6-Month Babble Soft email gift subscriptions (worth $29.95 each).
3. Third Prize: $25 gift certificate to Amazon and One 6-Month Babble Soft email gift subscriptions (worth $29.95 each).
4. Fourth Prize: Three lucky winners who weren’t selected to win any of the above prizes will get One 12-Month Babble Soft email gift subscriptions (worth $37.95 each) to use yourself or give to any expecting family members or friends.

Babble Soft Going Mobile (iPhone!)

Baby Insights 3.0 Alpha is now iPhone compatible! We have just released the Mom Pump & Feed and the Baby Bottle Feeding portions of the new application. We will be releasing sleep, diaper, and medicine tracking as soon as possible!

The application has been optimized (i.e., looks the prettiest) for the iPhone and we continue to work to make it look nice on the Blackberry browser and Opera Mini browser on the Blackberry. For those of you with an account, you can log in by going to http://m.babblesoft.com/ and enter your user name and password to get started.

Since this is an alpha release, if you find a bug let us know and we’ll add a month to your subscription or give a one month subscription in your honor to the person of your choosing! That’s a $9.95 value!

The Babble Soft Blog – NEW!

In addition to my blog, entrepreMusings, and Nicole’s blog at Pick Nick’s Brain, we just launched a blog on Babble Soft’s website located at www.babblesoft.com/blog where we will offer unique baby tips, advice, parent stories, etc. Sign up for FREE updates via e-mail or preferred RSS reader. Don’t miss even the first post!

We also welcome guest posts on your parenting experiences and will gladly link back to your sites and blogs. We look forward to you stopping by, subscribing, and/or sharing your comments with us on The Babble Soft Blog!

Special Discounts through February 15, 2009

In case your name doesn’t get pulled to win any of the free subscriptions from completing our survey, we are offering a New Year’s discount so you can still buy a Babble Soft subscription for yourself or your friends using coupon code: BABNOW15 for 15% off purchases from now until February 15, 2009.

Please also feel free to give the gift of sleep to yourself and your family members by using coupon code BABBSPEC for 15% off any baby sleep consulting services at Pick Nick’s Brain during the month of January 2009.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Happy New Year!

Thank you,

Aruni and Nicole