Baby listening

[Ellaroo]

I am trying to book a holiday somewhere in England and a lot of hotels seem to offer 'baby listening' - does anyone know exactly what this is and if so what are your experiences of it? Is it safe??? Thanks in advance.

We stayed at Sands Resort in Cornwall with Baby listening service. Basically it works through the phone so that a receptionist can monitor the noise in each 'live' room once you have set it up. They should then notify you of any crying etc whereever you say you are in the hotel (bar, restaurant etc.) Its safety/success depends on your confidence in the staff to let you know of any problems. But we had no problems with it and it does give you a bit of a break. Alternatively your own BabyIntercom may work over the required distance (so long as noone else is on the same frequency in which case you might monitor someone else's baby!). With Babylistening do remember to switch it off when you go to bed otherwise you may have an audience!!

The Wooley Grange, Moonfleet and The Old Bell Hotels have baby listening. We went with 2 other couples and 3 small children. We were up and down from dinner most of the night, and gave the receptionist her nickname - The Grim Reaper, as we knew when she turned up, it was going to be one of our children crying!!
It worked very well, tho', based on the telephone system as LIZS says.

We've just come back from Bedruthan Steps (Cornwall) - they have baby listening - not the phones - some sort of extra monitor you press. If anything they were too vigalent - I went up once and he had gone back to sleep - must have just been a few small yells which we ignore at home!

We went to Sardinia with Mark Warner last year and children were unwelcome at dinner. You were supposed to use the baby listening service, which consisted of leaving the child alone in the room and every 15 minutes a nanny would physically go and stand outside the door to listen. If the child was crying she'd walk over to the restaurant to fetch you. A lot of parents used this but I thought it was unsafe and mean to let a child cry in a strange hotel room all alone. Also, my son could climb out of the cot and knew how to open the door to the balcony, so I thought he could easily have met with accident in 15 minutes. Why don't you ring up the hotel and ask exactly what they offer and then you can decide if it would suit your child?

LizP would you recommend Bedruthan?

Some hotels give you baby monitors, some have a baby monitor system at reception, but some use the room telephone, which means that the receptionist listens in every so often - I don't like that one!

I highly recommend Knoll House on the south coast (near Swannage). They'll lend you a baby monitor for daytime naps, and at night 'housekeepers' patrol the corridors (in sufficient numbers) to listen for the babies/children until about 11pm. They will page you if the baby cries, you can tell them to wait a few minutes first in case the baby settles, or, if you prefer, they will go into the room and try to settle the baby themselves.

The Carlyon Bay Hotel in St Austell is very child
friendly, excellent facilities, good position, own golf course. We stayed there when I was pregnant with first child and remember lots of people at dinner with their baby monitors!!