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VIDEO MONITORS
- Emily said…
I also want to second how great a video monitor is. It is the 1 thing I have to have!
September 30, 2008 8:14 AM
Plowmanators said…
Thanks Emily. We will definitely have to get one.
September 30, 2008 3:51 PM
Valerie, also known as The Babywise Mom, is the mother to four children. She has been blogging on Babywise and general parenting since 2007. She has a degree in technical writing and loves using those skills to help parents be the best parents they can be! Read her book, The Babywise Mom Nap Guide, to get help on sleep from birth through the preschool years. You can also find her writing at Babywise.life, Today Parenting, and Her View From Home. Read more about Valerie and her family on the About page. Follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram for more tips and helps.
My husband and I call it our “prime time channel at night!” They are just so fun to watch. You wait Val!Megan:-)
We didn’t get ours until Abby was 9 months old. Not sure how we ever lived without it! Be prepared though….We discovered Abby wasn’t sleeping as long as we thought and was just being very quiet!
I could not live without it. It is a lifesaver. It helps us tell when we need to actually go into the room or not. Something we could not discern just through listening.
Have to agree! We didn’t get ours until he was much older, too. LOVE it! It’s so nice to know whether he’s really sleeping, and it’s so funny to see how he sleeps. I can also tell if/when he’s starting to rouse in the mornings when I get ready. It convinced my husband that we needed to be quieter.One thing I’ll add is that we thought we would splurge and get the color monitor. With the lights out and his room dark during naps, it looks black and white anyway…so save the money.
We got the Summer Infant Video monitor white and silver and have loved it. I don’t know how many times I said “I wish this had a way to record what was going on.” Cammon being a video professional hooked ours up to our tv and through that we did record and it has been so fun to watch.I like the Summer Infant because of the warranty-our monitor has been dropped a few times and our sound is a little shaky- I called them and they are going to give us a new one because of the 1 year warranty on it.Bethers21 is right though, the color hasn’t made a difference because we have the room darkened anyway so it still looks black and white…
I got a video monitor once I figured out that my son sleeps horrible if I intervene at all, and being able to see him and know that he is ok gives me piece of mind (especially through CIO).From the reserach I did the summer monitors seem to be the best. The kind you get really depends on what you want/need. I got one of the cheepest becaues I don’t care if it is in black and white and I didn’t have a need to carry it around with me since I have an audio monitor that I’ll take with me instead if I go outside. I have heard from many people that the monitor audio can be kind of staticy, but once again, this doesn’t bother me since I don’t really use the sound.
A word of caution: I saw a newsreport about a year ago on video monitors. I guess the frequency is open so criminals have found ways to tap into the video system. It showed the newsman riding in a car watching what was happening in multiple houses. I’m not sure that it’s something to panic about, but probably something to keep in mind.
I LOVE our video monitor!! When our baby was younger, it helped me see why she was crying (when she had become unswaddled or rolled onto her tummy and couldn’t roll back). It helped me see what she was doing at the 45 minute mark- (trying to go back to sleep, playing with her feet, chewing on her unrolled swaddle blanket). Knowing these things helped me to know if I should intervene or give her a chance to go back to sleep. At times, I used to be paranoid that our baby wasn’t breathing if she had slept too quietly or longer than normal. In the middle of the night when I could see the faint rise and fall of her little tummy, it helped me to go back to sleep knowing that everything was okay.NOTE: When looking into what brand of monitor to purchase, I would read the reviews. Our monitor picks up every little noise, which is great. However, if you use a fan in your baby’s room, even on the monitor’s lowest setting, it gives off a horrible buzz. So, I have to turn the sound completely off and use a separate audio monitor. I don’t know the exact name of the brand of my monitor… It has the word SUMMER on the screen.
Megan, I am going to have to be careful! I get a little crazy with just a regular monitor–I don’t know what I will do with the video 🙂
Abby’s Mom, I could see that happening with Katilyn. Sometimes I go in to “wake her up” and find she is awake, even though I have a monitor on her. Maybe she just wakes up in those few seconds it takes to get to her room? lol
Rachael, I definintely look forward to that.
Thanks for that tip Bethers.
Thanks Lorri. That would be fun to record it. I love to watch my kids sleep. They are such angels at those moments 😉
Thanks for your insight Rachel. That is definitely helpful when you have a no-interfere sleeper. I would watch Brayden since he couldn’t see me the way things were set up. It would have been nice with Kaitlyn, though, too. She was fine if you interefered, but was swaddled. Sometimes she was crying simply because she was out of the swaddle but you didn’t know until you went in. It will be great to take out that guess work.
Thanks for that Kelly.
Thanks blessedwife_mom! I look forward to those benefits.