Baby Monitors Tips? thermometer? digital?

[nct73]

Am feeling lost in the sea of baby monitors on offer. What features did you find useful? Is it worth paying the extra for a digital one? What about a temperature guage? Any top tips , recommendations and also ones to avoid.

Ours (from Tommee Tippee) has a motion sensor thing which goes under the cot mattress. It has never gone off accidentally and was good for peace of mind when I moved DD into her own room at about 3 months.
Thermometer may be useful - but my DD was born in summer and it made me worry to know that it was 31 degrees in DD's room.

We also just went for a bog standard digital one. The BT one without all the bells and whistles works well for us.

One thing we wanted to be able to do was recharge the parent unit on a stand and not to faff about putting batteries in all the time and most of them when I was looking don't have recharging units.

We had a monitor, but the only thing I used it for was to have some light during the night so I could feed and change ds without putting the main light on. As for hearing him, I left our/his bedroom door open and the door of whichever room I was in open and it worked just fine!!! I think you get supersonic hearing when you have a child anyway - ds kept me awake all of Monday night just coughing in his own room.

like Plibble we bought Tommee Tippee sensor pad one and we used it with both children. It gave me peace of mind that I could see them breathing with the little green light flashing on the parent unit. The night light on the baby unit was rarely used.

The temperature part was fab especially when it was a warm day (DS1 was born in June) and then when it got cooler through the night, I didn't have to go in and check to see if he was too cold as I knew what temperature the room was from the parent monitor.

We do have "travel baby monitors" ie cheaper ones that we can take with us as we don't want to be disconnecting the whole sensor pad thing to take with us. These are cheap as chips, no frills ones. We prefer the Tommee Tippee for the extra info it gives us.

I'm now on my second monitor - I used to have a Tomy monitor - which was great, and had the temperature sensor.

However, when we moved house, we moved into a street with a few young families - all of whom had Tomy monitors - and they only have 2 channels ....

I kept finding that I was hearing what was going on in my neighbour's house.

Put up with it for a couple of weeks, then bought a tommee tippee monitor - the suresound. You can get it with the sensor pad - but the main attraction for me is that
a) nobody else has one in my street
b) it has 5 channels, so although I can still eavesdrop on my neighbour if I want, I have 3 other channels that they don't have.

ejt

i have a camera with mini tv which i think is the most fantastic invention EVER! you can sit in the living room/move it to your room whatever and you can actually see them plus it has sound with vol control and lights that go up and down in accordance with sound.you can see them without having to disturb.i love it!!

i live in spain but i have seen the same one i bought here in the argos cat

i also had tommee tippee one used until DS 18 months with sensor pad but then had 4 or 5 false alarms when he moved around the cot and sensor couldn't pick him up. Truly terrifying!!

Haven't used one at all with DD

Its personal preference, I was v worried with the first one but I think in hindsight the sensor made me worry more which is why I haven't used it 2nd time around

sorry to hijack, but does anyone know which are best at long range, say 100m? (am thinking distance from apartment to pool bar on my summer hols!)

We have the BT one with the temp sensor
I would recommend checking that whatever you buy is digital in terms of the communication between base and the unit - prevents you picking up everyone else's kid crying

Some of them claim to be digital but are only digital in terms of the temp display

noonar - tommee tippee suresound one is fab in terms of range - we take it with us whenever we go away for the weekend, and it's never let us down (ie we go to the bar, and can still hear ds!)

ejt

ejt, thanks for the tip. is it a very expensive model?

Thanks for all the advice. I got the BT digital with temp sensor which theblonde recommeded. There are families with young babies on both sides so realised I had to spend the extra for digital. Sound is clear. Like the talk back. Unfortunately the temp thing is always flashing that 23 too high even tho thermostat on 15 & window open. This drains charge much quicker if not on base. We havent used the lullabies at all & the night light is v feeble. I this we could have done without these features. My one wish would be that both units portable like the Tomy ones so can sort stuff around house in daytime if LO napping in buggy.

We also have the BT digital with temp sensor. NCT73, you can alter the range that it warns you at, so that it isn't flashing that 23 is too hot. We had to set it at 30 for the summer otherwise the blue light of the temperature warning kept me awake. But I did find it useful to know that it was so warm in ds's room that I could leave him to sleep in just a nappy and he'd be fine. I like this one because it is really clear and sensitive.

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