Baby · Sponsored by Graco

The Bedside Crib That Hears Your Baby Before You Do: Meet the Graco Eluma Collection

Graco's new Eluma Nest bedside crib and Eluma Sway swing use clever cry-detection technology to start soothing your baby the moment they stir. We took a proper look at the range, exclusive to Kiddies Kingdom.

By Katie Manson  ·  5 min read

Every new mum knows the 3am maths. Baby stirs, you hold your breath, and you calculate: do I go in now and catch it early, or wait and pray she settles herself? Get it wrong in either direction and everyone is awake for the next hour. It is the tiredest guessing game in the world, and Graco has decided to take it off your plate.

The new Graco Eluma Nest bedside crib and its sister, the Eluma Sway soothing swing, both come with cry-detection technology built in. When your baby starts to fuss, the Eluma senses it and responds automatically with gentle motion and calming sounds, often before you have even opened your eyes. That is not a gimmick; for a lot of families it is the difference between a wobble and a full wake-up.

It senses, it soothes, and sometimes it settles her before you have even opened your eyes.

Eluma Nest: the bedside crib that pulls night shifts with you

A good bedside crib keeps your baby close for those first six months of safer sleep, and the Eluma Nest does the basics beautifully: breathable mesh sides so you can see and reach your baby, a firm, flat organic cotton mattress with a spare sheet in the box, and a raised sleeping surface that saves your back on the hundredth lean-over of the night.

Then it adds the clever bit. Cry detection triggers gentle rocking, with three rocking speeds and two vibration settings to find what your baby loves. There is white noise and a set of melodies at three volumes, and you can even connect your phone over Bluetooth to play your own wind-down music, so the same songs from your bedtime routine follow your baby into the crib. Everything is controlled from a soft-glow touchscreen panel you can work one-handed in the dark.

It is suitable from birth to around six months (9kg), and at £200 it sits well below most of the smart cribs it competes with. The Luna colourway is calm, neutral and very forgiving of nursery colour schemes.

Eluma Sway: the same brain, downstairs

The Eluma Sway swing brings the same cry-detection soothing to daytime. Four swaying motions, three speeds, two vibration settings, white noise and ten melodies add up to thousands of combinations, which sounds excessive until you meet a baby who will only settle to one very specific wiggle. A cosy newborn insert supports the tiniest passengers, the fabrics are organic cotton and machine washable, and the removable toy bar buys you time for a hot cup of tea or a shower, which is to say it buys you sanity.

Like the Nest, it is designed for birth to around six months and runs off the mains, so there are no batteries to die at the worst possible moment.

And for leaving the house: the Myavo

If you are building a Graco list while you are here, the Myavo compact stroller is the one we keep recommending to mums who want travel-light without the travel-light price. It weighs 5.8kg, folds with one hand in about a second, stands on its own once folded, and takes your child from birth to around four years with a raincover included, all for under £100.

Where to find the range

The Eluma collection is exclusive to Kiddies Kingdom, one of the UK's biggest independent nursery retailers, with free delivery over £50 and a reassuring 365-day returns policy. If you would rather see the crib and swing in person before you buy, and with something your baby will sleep in every night we completely understand, you can book a free appointment at the Kiddies Kingdom showroom and try the whole range with a cuppa in hand.

However you get your nights back, protect the wind-down that comes before them. A calm, repeatable bedtime is still the best sleep tech there is, and our guide to family rituals your kids will remember forever is full of ways to build one. And if the early evenings are the bit that breaks you, we see you: the 5pm witching hour comes for us all.

This article is sponsored by Graco. As always, we only feature products we would happily recommend to our own mum friends. Always follow safer sleep guidance from The Lullaby Trust: baby on their back, in their own clear sleep space, for every sleep.