It astounds me how much money people a willing to spend on crap like this. I mean, thank you for keeping the economy running, but also how do you afford to keep doing it?
Parent of a formerly colicky baby here, but I agree with OP. Products like this prey on modern parents who have unrealistic expectations of what is needed of them by their baby.
Our son didn't sleep for the first two weeks of his life. We tried everything, including swings and rockers and white noise. Nothing worked, and none of us were sleeping (very similar to OP's story). He was losing weight and the doctor was getting worried.
The breakthrough came when my wife decided to finally just leave him alone to cry in the (very dumb) bassinet. It took a few minutes, but he finally fell asleep and slept longer than he ever had before and woke up happy. From then on that's what we did—he went down crying, he woke up happy. He started putting weight on again and became a healthy happy kid. Based on the concern we were starting to get from the doctor, letting him cry himself to sleep probably saved his life.
Too many parents accept the unrealistic expectations placed on them by our culture, and I'm convinced at this point that those expectations have been largely crafted by people who benefit financially from selling the "solution".
Teach them difficult holds that temporarily work but are unsustainable, then sell them an incredibly overpriced product that automates the hold. Assure them that letting their baby figure out that life outside the womb doesn't have to resemble life inside is abuse, lest they realize that babies can and do sleep in beds and have for centuries.
People also don't understand what it means to actually stay up for a week straight until you do... they think "I've pulled all nighters in college" or something.
You completely lose your mind and start hallucinating. You feel extreme physical and mental pain. You can potentially fall asleep suddenly when it is dangerous to do so. You can get lost or confused in your own home- and be unable to remember the words to communicate simple ideas. You become reactive and easily startled and can become dangerous to people around you. Your entire body and its systems starts to progressively fail on you.
My extremely frugal friends bought one when their second came. It’s a night and day difference for them. They can actually live and enjoy a life instead of being constantly hounded by an infant that keeps them up all night.
Don't dismiss something you don't understand the need for. Even fairly poor people buy these when they can barely afford it because they need it, and there is no realistic alternative.
It effectively solves a desperate problem for people in a desperate situation so they can actually sleep and not go crazy and lose their jobs or get hurt (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41286547). Humans evolved to have lots of baby caretakers, and sometimes newborn babies need to be held and rocked almost continuously- yet not everyone has that kind of help available.
When my sister got one I couldn't believe the incredible disdain from older, non-working family members who raised their kids with the help of a big community that she had no way to access. These same family members that did not step in to help take care of the baby.
