Scientists today unveiled a solution to the centuries-old design fault in babies which causes them to start crying in the middle of the night and not stop until their parents get up and do something about it.
‘We realised there are two things which generally disturb a person’s sleep: a small child and an alarm clock. But inexplicably only one of these was designed with an ‘off’ button,’ explained Professor Lyndon, who led the research project. ‘While parents might consider an ‘off’ button a little drastic and irreversible, a snooze button could really help. Now when your baby wakes up screaming at 3.17am you can just hit the snooze button and get an extra ten minutes shut-eye.’
Drawing on other design features of the clock radio, scientists have reported that the next generation of babies could also be fitted with a radio antenna to provide a wider range of alarm sounds. ‘Babies tend to come with that one loud and annoying default alarm tone,’ continued Professor Lyndon, ‘but now parents could be woken by their child broadcasting Classic FM or Radio 4. In fact tests have found that both those stations tend to have a strangely somnolent effect on the child so that the sound of his own ‘crying’ often puts him back to sleep again.’
Scientists are now working on enhancing the snooze button technology to also develop a programming function that would allow parents to ‘set’ their child only to wake up at a particular time.
The plans to fit infant humans with snooze buttons that would remain with them throughout life have been welcomed by both wives, who see ‘snoozing’ their husbands as a convenient alternative to lying about having a headache, and by husbands who don’t mind whether their spouse is awake or asleep.
