To still be using a breathing monitor when DD is 19m

[EugenesAxe]

I was planning to use a breathing monitor until we move DD into her own bed. As there's no sibling waiting in the wings for the cot, this may not be until she's 3yrs.

I still switch on the breathing monitor at night, with the light. AIBU to still be doing this? We don't use the monitor as we hear them if they wake.

[valiumredhead]

Oh no not at all OP :)

Obviously we used one in the hospital but it was never mentioned in our discharge meeting, they weren't around back then really unless given out by the hospital, or I'd never heard of them anyway.

I do remember our first night with ds at the hospital when we were just about to take him home and one stroppy nurse came in and took his monitor away and said " Well, you wont need THIS now, you need to treat him like a 'proper' baby!"

Inwardly I was thinking " Fuck off you witch, he IS a proper baby!!!!"

Sorry, off topic!

[RikeBider]

There's no harm in it as long as it isn't causing you extra anxiety.

However, there is also no evidence that they prevent SIDS.

[experimental]

I still use them for 22 mo DTS and won't stop until we have to, which will be when we take the bars off their cots.

[EugenesAxe]

valium - bugger; I was interrupted in my post (started hours ago) and read your response after completing it. I hope I haven't upset you; obviously there are thousands of premature babies that are fine. And I'm no medic either.

[EugenesAxe]

crumble - you could possibly use them in a bed, but the mattress may be too thick to detect the fine movements they make when they are still, but breathing.

Pickle - they can but she's quite tall and sprawly in sleep. It only goes off when she's curled herself tightly into the corner of her cot; it's happened maybe twice.

I really wouldn't go and check on her every 10 mins if we didn't have it. I know of one child that died of SIDS aged over 2yrs, but found out later he was born severely prematurely, which seemed to me to be a not insignificant fact in the case.

I guess actually that if she was to stop breathing at this age, even if I knew this immediately, it is more likely to be due to something I couldn't work against. I doubt babies of her age would have a 'blip' in their essential actions but go on to be perfectly fine, as may be the case with some averted SIDS cases in the classic 'at risk' period. But like I say, please correct me if you know this isn't necessarily the case.

Sorry if anyone reading has been affected by SIDS. I'm talking about it quite matter-of-factly and really it's hard to know what, if anything, people can do to protect their DCs from it. All this speak is with an 'in an ideal world' sort of caveat.

[CarpeVinum]

Not unreasonable.

I hung on to ours for ages. It was like Dumbo's feather for me.

I needed a feather. The early years were tough, and all new and...often quite scary.

[AmyFarrahFowlerCooper]

Just make sure you test the room if you increase the sensor. Have the cot empty and walk around the room. If the cot is in the same room as you, bounce on the bed too and roll over like you would in your sleep. I was horrified to find mine had been picking up me tossing and turning in bed for a few days after I moved house and didnt test it properly in the new room.

And you definitely nbu. We still use one at 15 months and we will for a while longer yet. It doesn't take much extra effort to use it so for the peace if mind it provides, its well worth it I think! Although dd has got into the habit of rolling to the top of the cot and propping herself up against the bars and we get a false alarm. The running up the stairs is all good exercise

[CoolaSchmoola]

And if they start to alarm when children wiggle increase the sensitivity and make sure the board the sensor is on covers all the cot slats. DD is a wrigglers and often sleeps across the top of the cot which caused alarms until we adjusted everything.

[CoolaSchmoola]

I still use one with DD 20 mths. She was considered to be at risk of SIDS due to family history and had a hospital monitor until she was ten months. I plan to use hers until she is at least two as that is when the risk of SIDS is considered over. For most babies the risk is dramatically reduced by six months, but as the children in our family were older than that when they died we are going for the oldest risk point.

[ajandjjmum]

I always found the beeping reassuring - but when they started wriggling around, it became a continual false alarm!!

Do what you're comfortable with.

[valiumredhead]

I didn't even use when when we brought ds home and he was 8 weeks prem and 4lbs BUT do what makes you feel comfortable, I might have been a lot less anxious if I had had one.

[scarletforya]

Pickle they don't have to be lying directly on the sensor mat. They can lie anywhere in the cot and the monitor still detects the heartbeat!

[scarletforya]

YANBU

There's no harm in using it. dd mostly sleeps in with us but it's handy for naps when she sleeps in her cot!

I can bring it to the garden and hear the nice reassuring bip, bip, bip!

[PickleSarnie]

Surely they can move off the monitor and set them off constantly by then?

[crumblepie]

busybob just curious , can you only use these monitors in a cot and not a bed then ?

[MrsMoffat]

I still use it for ds2 - he's 27 months

[moogy1a]

countess they alert you if the baby has stopped breathing. Sleeping in the same room / co sleeping wouldn't alert you to that when you are asleep yourself.
OP carry on using it for as long as you feel happy with. better than you having sleepless nights checking on her every 10 minutes.

[TheCountessOlenska]

I've never had any kind of baby monitor - not really sure what they are for? I live in a small house though, keep little babies downstairs with me in the evenings, co-sleep etc.

By 18 months my DD was in her own room in her own bed and it really wouldn't occur to me to monitor her breathing!?

No harm in it though OP, up to you

[busybob]

my little girls two on sunday and am still using mine with no plans to stop till shes in a bed

[EugenesAxe]

Cheers - I'm not dead neurotic about it; I kind of use it because I have it. If she gets a bad chest cold it gives me some reassurance beyond this level, but that's about it. I guess I'm just interested in hearing relevant testimonies for/against.

[Sirzy]

I had to stop with DS when he was about 18 months as he kept moving off it.

They are great for peace and mind but do make you slightly paranoid!

[RedHelenB]

I think you are but at then end of the day it's what you feel happy with!

[SkinnyDecaffGiraffe]

Of course not - you should do what you want, what makes you comfortable.

Lots of people will say you are BU though.