My advise is dont do it.. Monitors are the spawn of the devil that prey on new parents inability to think for themselves, making us all ridiculously paranoid that jnr is not OK. When the reality is, JNR is fine, the temp of the room is fine, the fact that he has wriggled is also fine.... + the camera ones can and have been intercepted by weirdo's.
I wasn't aware that our monitor had stopped me thinking for myself. I'll bin it when I get home. If I make it. 🙂
quite the contrary, they give you peace of mind that they are ok, and stop you going in every 10 minutes to check that they're still breathing.
parents will behave in a particular way towards their children (which they're entitled to do) regardless of whether they have a baby monitor or not.
I forgot to mention that ours is two-way, so that you can talk to baby over the monitor. this may or may not freak them out a bit, depending on what voice you put on.
Dont' get me wrong i've had (got) 2 kids. The first one we didn't use a monitor as she was a V. loud child at night, so if she wanted something we knew, and oddly enough we didn't worry about the temp of the room or anything else, but just checked on her every so often.
Sui JNR however, for some reason the decision was made that we must have a monitor, 2 way, with chimes, with temp sensor... ARRGGHHH the arguments we had over the temp of the room and if it was ok or not, a [low] number does not necessarily mean the child is uncomfortable. All it seemed to do was put the missus on edge, the lights might flash or, it would beep for another reason - was it the out of range beep etc...
I appreciate you could consider it peace of mind, but at the same time the number of gadgets on them these days just leads to emphasising the paranoia that we all have as new parents.
I never understood what these were for. Babies do scream pretty loudly
Indeed, but if you can to get to the baby/child BEFORE they get to the screaming loudly stage then it makes them a lot easier to settle down again!
Temperature was also not an issue either for us. Babies aren't as delicate as people think.
A moderate controlled room temperature is one of the measures [url= http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/getting-baby-to-sleep.aspx ]recommended by the NHS[/url] and other health bodies to help prevent cot death.
Granted it may make very little actual difference. Babies in hot countries seem to cope. But personally I'd rather follow the medical advice.
Monitors are the spawn of the devil that prey on new parents inability to think for themselves
My baby monitor says that is utter nonsense and I should post a roll eyes for you.
🙄
The main use for the two way bit is to talk to the wife when she is upstair with the baby to ask her to bring your slippers/phone/other stuff downstairs when she has finished calming the baby down. 😈
Other than that, my advice on monitors would be "don't ask for advice about childern on an internet form". These places are full of nutters and people with significant chips on their shoulders and the very nature of this type of audience means all you will get is extreeme and conflicting advice.
As we see with everything from "I'd get one of those beds they put babies in, in hospital, just to be sure" right through to "beds? beds are for the weak, wild animals don't sleep in beds"
molgrips yep it monitors breathing. They are very sensitive which you can adjust as appropriate.
I really fancy the idea of a two way one so I could freak crankbrat out but I may just get a walkie talkie and hide it in his cupboard.
I forgot to mention that ours is two-way, so that you can talk to baby over the monitor. this may or may not freak them out a bit, depending on what voice you put on.
I like to do this one:
The wife disapproves.
A moderate controlled room temperature is one of the measures recommended by the NHS and other health bodies to help prevent cot death.
Yeah, but you can test that easily enough by going in there, surely? Do they need it to be a certain temperature within a degree? And it's their temperature that's important, so it depends how warmly you've dressed them surely? To me it sounds like the advice is simply to make sure the room's not boiling or freezing.
You see a lot of babies and even toddlers heavily overdressed and looking really hot. People seem really bad at figuring out how to make their kids comfortable for some reason.
Other than that, my advice on monitors would be "don't ask for advice about childern on an internet form". These places are full of nutters and people with significant chips on their shoulders and the very nature of this type of audience means all you will get is extreeme and conflicting advice.
It's not just internet forums, it's everwhere 🙂
Monitors are the spawn of the devil that prey on new parents inability to think for themselvesMy baby monitor says that is utter nonsense and I should post a roll eyes for you.
of course your monitor would say that!! duh.
Who also played the rather annoying game of research and came to the conclusion that not one model didn't have something inherently wroing with it?
"beds? beds are for the weak, wild animals don't sleep in beds"
i like this 😀
Yeah, but you can test that easily enough by going in there, surely?
Completely agree - but as you point out people are really crap at judging how to keep a kid comfortable. Plus some people are so used to overly hot central heated houses and heated cars that an 18 degree room feels bitterly cold to them.
Second time around I suspect we'll pay less attention to the temperature on the monitor, but the alarm on it is very occasionally useful (e.g. when we left a portable radiator on by mistake and her room got to 26 degrees - or at the in-laws house where 26 degrees is the default room temperature!)
Try living in Oz and dealing with 40c nights. Actually it's not /that/ bad. Ducted aircon helps!
+1 for Angelcare with breathing monitor pad. It's well worth it and the breathing sensor definitely works, speaking from personal experience. Now using it for number 2 son, would be without it. Don't let anyone else tell you not to get one if you think it will give you peace of mind.
if you think it will give you peace of mind
You might think that now... But once you've been up the stairs seven times in an hour 😉
Keep the room temperate and check on them occasionally. Babies get too hot, not too cold. And they cry. For all sorts of reasons. And none at all.
Aside from a nursery thermometer and advice to place them on their backs, is there any evidence that the incidence of SIDS has fallen with the advent of baby monitoring? And what of parent neuroses?
You might think that now... But once you've been up the stairs seven times in an hour
With sprog#1 we were up the stairs seven times an hour (at least!) before we got the monitor.
Once we got one the missus could relax and we got a precious bit of our evenings back.
As others have said, everyone reacts and parents differently.
(I've mentioned before that we also used the video monitor to allow us to have a meal and quiet drink at the bar while sprog#1 was asleep two-storeys above us in a locked hotel room)
An alternative approach which we are finding works really well is to get an extra cotbed and put it in/near the living room so you can monitor them in person. We do have a lot of stairs though.
We found a sensor matt alarm a great comfort for the first few months - it just gave you that reassurance that everything was ok.
Breathing pads?? is this a new thing? i'd never heard of them before today!. I must be a bad parent (well certainly according to some on here). we had one of those plastic wall thermometer things and kept the doors open so we could listen out for them and that was about it. When they were babies we had them in our room for the first 6 months so we could listen out for them. Seems to be a huge amount of tech out there now!. I do sometimes think some of the manufacturers come up with solutions which are for problems which are relatively rare. Dont get me wrong but if i were that concerned about issues with sleeping then id just keep them with me downstairs and take them up when i went to bed.
Daytime naps were near us wherever we happened to be. A small, thin mattress that rolled into a shopping bag with a small quilt made a makeshift bed anywhere. The nounou had a similar arrangement for the kids. When he started school at two and half, siesta time was the first time he'd ever slept in a proper bed.
We just used our ears most of the time, but occaisionally I'd use the baby monitor function on my Motorola 446 two way radios (they're a good toy to have when out on the bike as well).
