Owlet or equivalent

[Leaf86]

I’m currently 35 weeks pregnant expecting our first child. My first pregnancy sadly ended in TFMR due to a very severe heart defect that was not going to be correctible with surgery. As I get closer to the end of this pregnancy, my anxiety (which has been under control and not too bad) has ramped up and I’m worrying about the baby’s welfare and how to ensure they’re going to be ok when born. I’m obviously worried about another heart problem (although all looks ok so far) and worried about SIDs.

I have been thinking about getting an owlet baby monitor (or something similar) - I wondered if it might give me a little more peace of mind when he and I are both sleeping. Obviously I will be tackling the anxiety separately and I don’t want to rely on external things like a monitor forever to make me feel ok about the baby’s safety, but I am literally imagining me sitting there watching him breathe for the first god knows how long … 🫣

Does anyone have one and can recommend ? I know a couple of Australian friends who have been in hospital with their babies were sent home with a recommendation to pick one up, but it seems to be treated with far more caution in the UK.

Hi,
I was gifted the owlet camera and sock monitor when my baby was born.
I found the camera absolutely useless. It connects to the wifi so if i was in certain rooms I would get terrible signal and then couldn’t see a thing. Plus, you have to go on the app on your phone to watch the camera so if you’re on your phone for anything else then you won’t be able to see the baby. I ended up buying a cheap vtech monitor from Argos so that I could always have the monitor screen on and not worry about any signal loss. A downside to that is that it doesn’t record so you can’t playback.

My baby is almost 8 months and I’ve never used the sock. I too worried that I’d actually end up so obsessive over it that I’d never sleep anyway. However, I didn’t have any major health concerns to worry about so I feel your situation is quite different. Although, I still have it and I would never say never to using it, perhaps when she’s at nursery and catches a bug it might give me reassurance as she’s in her own room now.

Best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy.

Love our Owlet. You'll be flooded with comments in a minute about how you shouldn't have one but I couldn't have done without it.

So long as it doesn't replace the normal checking you do on your child (which of course it doesn't 🙄) it's brilliant.

Don't buy the camera with it though apparently that's crap.

Thank you @R41NB0W2022 @MaybeBabyTwo - really good to get your perspectives. Interesting that very different! I have also heard the camera is shit. Maybe it’s something I need to see if I “feel” I need once baby is here and/or be aware that I might buy it and not use it as much as I thought. Hmm.

We brought one, I suffer with anxiety (which I am medicated for) and I felt it would help me be less anxious and be able to sleep better.
For me it worked very well for that.
2 false alarms early on: both while baby was feeding so I knew she was ok, guessing positional.
Only issue we had was when she moved into her own room we found if we had the base in our room it kept alarming for no signal, however if it was in her room I was worried I wouldn't hear an alarm, in the end we put it in the hallway outside our door and had our door slightly open. No issues then. We used it until about 9m nightly and then again around 10m for a week when she wasn't well.
If I was having another baby I would definitely use it again.

I'm sorry about your earlier loss. I have a heart baby who had to have surgery at 6 days old to correct the issues. We left GOSH a week or so ago and I asked about these monitors and they advised against getting one as they can be v unreliable and can cause extra anxiety. Might be worth waiting until baby arrives and see how you get on without it, you can always order it later.

We had a little alarm that clipped on the nappy, it would flash green if all was well and I used to stare at that green light in the middle of the night 😬 I did like it though and it definitely didn't replace me checking on her. It went off a couple of times but it was because her nappy had moved, it was mostly fine though. I think if I had another I'd get something similar.

I had a little clip on nappy alarm like @BirdIsland. Thought it was great! We had a few false alarms where he’d just wiggled too much but generally it seemed to work well. I used it from when he was a few days old to about five months when he was moving too much.

Nonsense about them being unreliable - we've had many ambulance call outs and the owlet has always been absolutely spot on with their numbers. In fact, the last two times they didn't bother with their equipment as it distresses her and they were happy with the owlet.

Regarding alarms - it makes two sounds, it sings a nursery rhyme if it's disconnected/poor signal/poor placement which does happen occasionally, it makes a loud alarm if they drop below the pre-set limits. There is no mistaking the two. We have never had a 'red' false alarm, occasionally the 'yellow' annoys me as she's kicked it off but that's an easy annoyance to put up with for the reassurance and safety it's given.

My daughter is now 2yrs8months and will be wearing it until it doesn't fit anymore!

Yes the alarms are completely different- we had 2 false alarms and they really made me jump and woke my partner who is a deep sleeper. Yellow alarm is just a bit irritating!
Interesting to hear how accurate you find it, we always felt it was very accurate but never (thankfully) had anything to test it against.

I have the owlet, my son is 10 months old now so I will stop using it and use it only for if he gets a cold but it has given me so much peace of mind. My baby was full term and healthy but I wanted it because I started co-sleeping with him from when he was about 3 months old because it was easier with breastfeeding. Of course, I followed all the safe co-sleeping guidelines but having the owlet relieved so much anxiety for me and allowed me to sleep peacefully without waking up in a panic that I had rolled over him or something. I wouldn't have had the guts to co-sleep without it. I've never had any false alarms only the disconnection lullaby alarm.