Any new parent who has spent hours watching their sleeping baby and listening intently to check all is well will know that a baby
monitor is an important piece of equipment. With one half of the system set up at a near but safe distance from your baby's crib or
cot, you take with you the other half as you move around your home.
Many have portable parent units so you can carry it with you rather than having to plug it in, room after room.
Monitors are useful if you might be in the
garden, lounge or your bedroom, far away from your baby when he is asleep.
As with so many things, the more you pay the more added extras you get, though even the most basic baby monitors offer
reassurance.
Sound
Obviously you need to know you can hear clearly what's going on in your baby's room. When you buy a monitor it will have at
least two channels for you to tune into. This is to make sure you don't get interference from another monitor or sound system in a
neighbouring home. Many now offer more than two channels (the BT Digital Monitor has 120 channels!), which helps to ensure
you can find a clear channel that works for you.
Monitors operate in analogue and digital. Understandably, the digital ones are increasingly popular and not neccesarily more
expensive.
Vision
Few parents need to watch their child as they sleep, especially if they don't want to become too obsessive! However, if you can
afford this extra, there are monitors that come in black and white or in colour. If you are getting a vision monitor, make sure it has
a 'night vision' function otherwise you won't be able to see your child in the dark. Given that you are likely to close the curtains even
during the day, this is a useful facility.
Some vision monitors can be linked to bigger screens like your television and some systems can take up to three extra cameras.
Range
This is the distance you can go and still get a signal from the monitor where your baby is. Some of the more basic monitors have a
60 metre range but most are 100m. Some are 300m. Think about where you are most likely to use the monitor. If your home is
small or you only want it at night and your bedrooms are close, you don't need a very far reaching one. However, you may feel this
is a valuable extra to ensure you are in range when you take your monitors away with you anywhere.
Some monitors come with an 'out of range' indicator to warn you if you are too far away to get a signal.
Light
Some parent's units come with light indicators. These usually show up as a row of lights. If one red light flickers it's probably just a
baby sigh or a car passing outside. If the red lights all light up for a sustained period, this probably means your baby has woken up
and is crying for you.
The lights feature is useful if you are watching television, doing something noisy like vacuum cleaning or
perhaps have boisterous older children in another part of the house with you. It means you can let the lights be your gauge rather than having to listen out to the
sound monitor.
Breathing sensor pads
Some monitors come with sensor pads. These are placed under the baby's mattress and will alert you if the baby's breathing slows
down, is irregular or stops. The Babysense II Infant Respiratory Baby Monitor, for example, has one sensor for newborn babies
and two sensors for older babies. This reduces the number of false alarms caused when your child has started to move around
more.
Power sources
Most monitors can be operated by mains or battery. This is useful when you are travelling or moving from room to room and don't
want to keep plugging a unit in.
Many Tomy models have a rechargable middle section in the parent unit so you can leave it plugged in but take the sound unit with
you into another room.
Some monitors will alert you if the power source is running low.
Portability
The battery operated option makes many parent units very portable.
Some parents units have a small belt clip so you can carry it with you if you are moving about elsewhere in the home.
Some more expensive models come with their own travel case.
Extras on some models
- Nightlight: Some monitors have a nightlight facility as part of the baby unit. This is simply a light which gives off a glow so
there is a soft light in your baby's room. Some can be activated by remote from the parent unit.
- Thermometer: This gives a digital display of the room temperature where your baby is sleeping. The display is usually on
the nursery unit but some have a display on both units.
- Two-way intercom: Enables parents to speak reassuringly to their baby from their own unit.
- Vibrate feature: Tomy's Walkabout Platinum Monitor has a vibrate alert facility on the parent unit.
- Sound-activated monitor: To save power, some monitors only come on when the baby makes a sound rather than
broadcasting constantly.
- Lullabies: A few monitors play lullabies to ease your baby off to sleep. Some offer three lullabies and others have a
repertoire of five songs or play soothing nature sounds.
