Monitor Status

No one ever told me that I would become a slave to my baby monitor. It may be the most used piece of baby gear we own, with up to 15 hours of daily use between morning naps, afternoon naps, and bedtime. I didn't realize that I would use it as much as I do, so I am glad that the one we have has held up so well. With the multitude of brands and styles of baby monitors available today, there is one to fit every family. You can get one that has a camera and video screen and there is even one that will tell you if your baby stops breathing! I personally didn't even look at those fancy models. I feel my babies deserve a little privacy (I don't like people watching ME sleep) and quite frankly if I had the camera monitor I would probably sit for hours watching them and never get anything done.

Matt received the Graco iMonitor Vibe Baby Monitor we registered for as a gift at his "Man Shower". We didn't take it out of the package until after the twins had been home for a week or so, but once we set it up we found that it was defective. We contacted Babies R Us but because it was a gift and we wanted to buy a different model they sent us a Gift Card for the amount to buy a new monitor instead of just sending us the new one we wanted. The problem was that the closest Babies R Us stores are in Portland and Bangor and we wanted a new one ASAP! Ordering online would be at least a week with shipping and we weren't planning a trip to Babies R Us with two week old babies any time soon.

Luckily Aunt Heidi went shopping in Augusta that weekend and picked up a Sony Baby Call Nursery Monitor at Target. For $34.00, this baby monitor has already paid for itself...several times over! As the website states: "The Sony 900MHz BabyCall nursery monitor will help you feel more comfortable putting your baby down during naptime or bedtime. The monitor includes a transmitter, receiver, and belt clip for optimum mobility. It features a low battery indicator, movement sensor, out-of-range indicator and it filters background noise to hear more clearly." I personally like the voice activated feature which allows me to keep the monitor turned on during their naps and/or bedtime but it only transmits when a baby makes noise. This way I am not forced to listen to the constant hum of the monitor while I am folding laundry, taking a shower, or possibly taking a nap myself (yeah, right). If I had to buy a NEW baby monitor today I would buy the Sony in a heartbeat, but I would get the one that has two transmitters so that I could leave one upstairs in our bedroom and have the second one downstairs.

Sleeping Beauties

If you are planning to buy a baby monitor I suggest you do a little research to find the one that is going to suit the needs of your soon-to-change lifestyle. If you have cordless phones in your home be sure you get one that won't interfere with their signal. Thank God my husband is tech savvy because I had no idea this was an issue. While shopping in Target last weekend I saw a couple with a young baby and they had "my" baby monitor in their cart. As I walked past I said, "We have that baby monitor and we LOVE it!"