Baby Monitors: The Good & The Bad

We live in a world where we are able to control so many things. Especially when it comes to our babies. We can control their sleep routines, what they eat, what they wear, and we are even able to watch them on the monitor whenever we need to.

One thing I often have to warn parents of - is not to become a monitor-mummy. Aka - don’t watch the thing 24/7. ESPECIALLY when your kids are already sleeping.

The beauty of teaching your baby healthy sleep habits is that they will know how to put themselves BACK to sleep in the middle of the night if they wake up. These skills are called self-soothing mechanisms. We all have them. Think of how inconvenient it would be to wake up on your own at 2am and NEED a foot rub until you fall asleep. Sorry, but no way honey. I’m also not prepared to make your favourite meal at 3am. The same rings true for our babies who can sleep through the night.

We all have wakes in our sleep cycles. A healthy adult can wake anywhere up to 10 times a night without even recognizing it. It could be you transitioning from 1 sleep cycle to the next, rolling into a new position, or subconsciously elbowing your partner because they’re snoring. Babies are the same - they also have natural wakes in their sleep cycles. So, if you were to glue your eyes to the monitor for their full 12-hour sleep, you might notice a LOT of movement coming from that little person all night long.

When sleep training, having a video monitor is helpful to use because sometimes our children are protesting, but we aren’t quite sure if it’s because they are stuck in their crib rails, if they bonked their head, or they’re simply mad that you’re not rubbing their backs to sleep. Whatever the case may be, having the monitor to refer to is a very helpful tool to know when exactly to respond.

Middle of the night wakings are something that every parent has to go through. It is a part of parenting that can’t really be skipped. We can teach our newborns healthy sleep habits from day 1, but they are still going to wake up for feedings, and that is 100% normal. Having a baby monitor to hear and see from is super handy because babies are very noisy sleepers. Some babies grunt, cry, and even moan in their sleep. If your baby is just making little sounds, then i’d recommend waiting some more time before going into their room. Sometimes they just babble themselves back to sleep, when other times you need to go in to help soothe them.

I know some moms who really can’t put the monitor down when spending time with friends or even their spouse. Instead of watching a show they are glued to the monitor, flinching at every small movement and any change in sound. While this is an extreme example, there are many good things that monitors can provide.

If you feel like you are a mom that hovers over the monitor screen and cannot set it down, then I want to challenge you to take a break from it. Hand it to your husband to keep an eye on, and I even challenge you to turn it off in the evenings while you’re still awake. I can almost guarantee that you will be able to hear your child if they start crying in the evening - even if you’re watching your show.

One last thing to remember is that buying the most expensive monitor is totally not necessary. There are many affordable options, and some parents even buy a home security camera and install it in their baby’s room and use an app to navigate it. Often the temperature gauge on the monitor is false, so I wouldn’t rely on that to base your child’s TOG rating for their sleep sack/blanket situation.

My current baby monitor is this one from Amazon. I have had it over a year and love it!

If you don’t use a baby monitor - leave a comment below & tell me why!