Need that baby monitor?

A baby monitor is so often on the list of must haves for new parents. But do you really need one?

Look at the layout of your home. A baby’s cry is loud- is there anywhere in your house where you won’t be able to hear them when they cry? It’s probably worth waiting until your baby has arrived. See if you can hear them crying whilst you’re in the places you’re likely to be when your little one is sleeping. You could save yourself a lot of money.

Babies are noisy- they grunt, cry, squirm, burp and fart all whist asleep. You don’t need to jump at every noise they make. If you have a monitor in your bedroom and your child has one in their room you may as well be sleeping next to them. You will hear every noise they make. The chances are that this will wake you. You may spend quite a bit of your night awake listening to your little one sleeping.

You don’t want to jump out of bed as soon as you hear your little one make a noise either. Infants are noisy and they may not actually need you to help them- always wait until you hear that really urgent ‘Mommy I Need You Now Cry.’

Monitors which use DECT technology (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) pulse electromagnetic energy. This isn’t necessarily something we want to be exposing our children to too much of.

If you are going to use a monitor you want to make sure that it’s as far away from the crib as possible. I would also make sure that you don’t have any other electrical appliances in the child’s room (for example computers and TV’s).

The jury is still out on the effect electromagnetic energy has on us humans. Some say it can cause headaches, appetite loss, even sleeping disorders and autism. So it’s probably better to err on the side on caution.

Don’t think that you must have a monitor because everyone else has one. I know many families who have never used one. I didn’t use one with when my daughters were little; we didn’t really have the need, even with one of our daughters sleeping on another floor to us.

Monitor’s can give you peace if mind, especially if you can’t hear when you’re baby is crying, but they aren’t an essential buy when you become a parent.