To ditch baby monitor?

[Newbie1999]

Camera baby monitor has broken (something with the wiring, it randomly turns off in the night and starts beeping, so I have to fiddle around with the wire to get it working again).

Do I buy a new one, or just stop using one? Baby is 9 months and in bedroom next door to me, so I can hear if she cries anyway, but I had one with eldest daughter until she was 3 so not sure if it feels a bit wrong getting rid of it so soon this time?!

What is your house layout like? Can you hear her when you go downstairs/next door after you’ve put her to bed? (When you’re relaxing for evening I mean!) we still use one for our dd and she’s 2.5 but she’s on opposite ends of the house (from downstairs living room) and is hasn’t been moved into a big girls bed just yet so she can’t come get us if there is a problem. Im due in under 2 weeks and am not going to bother buying another monitor - will just pass on the one we’ve got now onto new bub as dd1 will be in a bigger bed in the new year! I’m interested to see what others say as I’m not sure if I’m still being ott for dd1 having a monitor

I’d definitely ditched ours by 9 months

As PP said it depends on your house layout.

We still use one in the evening for DD who is four, because we can't hear her from the sitting room if she needs the toilet etc, but I turn it off when we go to bed as she's only next door.

Personally, I think your baby is young to ditch it but if you can hear baby from everywhere in your house it should be fine.

Never used one - but had a flat

Never used one.

We’re still using one at 5! I know it’s mad but I can enjoy my evening much more if I can hear that DS is asleep. I never had a video one.

We still use one for DC3 who is nearly4 years old

He currently has a cough and cold and still wakes in the night.

All ours were definitely still using them at 9 months, too young for us to not have them in monitors.

We’re in a flat, so all same level and bedrooms are next door.

(And living room also close to bedroom - central London flat = pretty small!)

Ehhhhh, I still use one and youngest is 7yo.
Its just audio, and stays in my room. He suffers with bad dreams at night and would still call out quite a lot at night. In fact he did last night.
If it makes life easier, do it.

We are also in a flat, we haven't used one since DD was 18 months (I was quite anxious) We still use it at my parents house as there is no way you'd hear her even if she was bellowing at the top of her lungs. If you feel you want to replace it maybe just get a cheaper just noise one rather than video?

We've still got ours for our PFB at 18 months. It's quite handy for taking to grandparents houses as they have bigger houses than ours and also we like to be able to hear her when downstairs if she's ill or something.

Our house is old and has thick walls, we'll probably use ours for a good few years yet after DS has gone to bed and when we're downstairs, he's not quite one, but in a flat you might be ok. The other reason I just ours is DS babbles a bit in his sleep so I can tell from the monitor that he's not awake and dint go into his room and disturb him unnecessarily

We never had one. If DC cried we could hear them and if they didn’t then we left them undisturbed. We had one who woke every 2 hours for the first year and two that slept through early on. I honestly can’t see what difference a monitor would have made.

I had one until Dd was almost 4

Ditch it. We're in a three bedroom house and I've never used one, definitely wouldn't have one in a flat. The odd time we've used one of we've been staying somewhere bigger, I've had to leave the monitor outside our bedroom because it was way too intense hearing every noise while DS slept. Then again, we moved him out of our room at 8 weeks because he was disturbing us.

We tried, but I found them annoying and preferred to use my own ears but others swear by them.

I'd still use one at that age. I found if you wake up when they're makinh smaller noises, it can be easier and quicker to get them back to sleep than if you wait until they're screaming so loudly you can hear them from a different room. All this assuming you keep bedroom doors closed for fire safety.

Have to admit I’m pretty shocked at the ages people still have ‘baby’ monitors for!

We didn’t have one after 2. We had a three storey house when DC was younger hence having one until then.

At 4, or older, surely if they need to loo they just go? Or if they need you then they call out, or come fetch you?!

@BalanchineBallet why would I want to wait until my child is at the top of the stairs, possibly half asleep, bellowing for me when, on the odd occasion she does need something, I can hear her before she even gets out of bed? Also, no she can't go to the toilet by herself in the middle of the night. Her bedroom is opposite a flight of stairs but I suppose I'd be precious to still use a stair gate on that wouldn't I? Should probably just let her fall down the stairs half asleep. Now that would get my attention wouldn't it.

Why can't people just accept that folks do things differently and it doesn't make it right or wrong or 'baffling' that people wish to hear their young children easily in the night and, as PP have said, attend to them quickly so everyone can back to their evening / sleep.

I don’t think I’d ditch at 9m. With my first, I remember it being useful to see if she was messing around or trying to sleep and the visuals helped with the ‘is this a tired moan that I can ignore or about to be a cry that I need to get up for’ . I also spotted her vomming one night when she was otherwise pretty quiet. Obviously you can manage without as many people do but I think if you used it with your first, you’ll miss it more if you don’t have it for your second once they start being more mobile.

We still used the built in nursery rhymes on Dd bit and TBH it was simple but a great bit of kit so weren't in any rush to get rid.

At 9 mo I'd definitely still be using.

My youngest dc will be 3 in Feb, I'll carry on using one until they consistently don't need me in the night. It's so much quicker to resettle a child that's just woken than one that's got distressed /out of bed.

My DS is almost 18 months and I use his when we are downstairs and he is asleep, also when he is having his afternoon nap. But as his room is next door to ours and I can hear him if he wakes then we turn it off when going to bed ourselves

Never used one, we live in a bungalow so can always hear LO. I guess my unpopular opinion is that they're another gadget used to extract money from worrying parents. I guess there is more of a point if the house has multiple stories and baby cannot be heard.

In the end the scary thing to be honest is the thing you cannot hear.