Baby Monitors

Parents to be are bombarded with products that are a MUST to keep their baby healthy and safe. New parents are faced with weird and wonderful things that before never knew existed and knew little about, some of which are vital and some just a waste of money, sold by companies playing on the fears of overly cautious newbies in a scary and stressful time. This brief posting looks at the Baby Monitor - do we really need them? What beneficial features do they include?, and does one choose between the many on the market?

A baby monitor also referred to as a baby alarm come in all shapes and sizes; generally, in its most basic form it is a simple radio system similar to that of a walkie talkie. It has a transmitter with a microphone that is placed next to the infant with a corresponding receiver with a speaker that is kept near to or on the person of the parent. Some are uni-directional allowing sound to go only one way, some are bi-directional allowing the parent to speak back to the child, some are packed full of features such as thermometers and music players. The main function of all of them is to allow the parents to hear the baby when it wakes or is distressed whilst they are in a different room or out of earshot.

One of the main selling points claimed by the manufacturers is that the baby monitor can be a tool used to help reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome SIDS. It is suggested however that there is no real evidence that monitors prevent SIDS, and some doctors believe it can offer a false sense of security. This said a parent cannot be with the child 24 hours a day, nor should they be, they also need to have an environment where the child can be undisturbed and is the correct temperature. The monitors then can provide piece of mind that the child is sleeping normally without having to constantly enter the room to check every little thing, some more advanced monitors even have motion detectors which can alert the parent if the child has not moved for a period as it is normal for the child to have some movement whilst asleep, no movement could be a sign of something wrong. Therefore I boldly suggest that the monitor used in combination with good old fashion common-sense, whichever model you choose, can only be a useful thing to have as it provides piece of mind, and has other features that are aimed to assist the parents in an already difficult job. It is not a safeguard against SIDS but combined with a sensible approach certainly can't hurt in helping to alert one to the dangers.

So how does one choose which is the best one to buy? The first thing to consider is your budget, if you cannot afford the top of the range with a night vision camera, a motion detector and the longest range then don't be concerned that you are risking the health of your child by not getting the best. The monitor is not a replacement nanny or parent it is a tool to help and not all the functions are essential, this is where common-sense plays a role. On the flip side you don't want to get a set that is likely to go faulty because you bought a reconditioned cheap model from an auction site. The best advice is look around the independent consumer review sites and checks to see what the existing users think of each model and gets a balanced opinion. Contact the sellers and ask them which ones have the least rate of return and stress to them that their honesty in this matter is important. Check the returns policy of the seller to ensure if you do have a fault that they will replace the item swiftly and with little fuss.

Having done some of this work as an exercise for this article we found that one of the monitors often recommended by consumers and by the consumer review company Which is BT Baby Monitor 150 that they have badged as a best buy. It is perhaps middle of the road in terms of features but the quality and reliability of the product is highly praised. It does have the following features - crystal-clear sound quality with no interference. A range of up to 300 metres (in ideal conditions) and an Intercom feature means that a constant link is maintained between parent and baby. It features LCD, five lullabies, a temperature monitor, torch, MP3 player input and voice recording. They are sold at Big Box Shop who have a good return policy and seemed to be the cheapest at the time this artice was written.