When my older daughter wanted to go to sleepovers, she would often ask me, "Won't you be upset if I leave a baby monitor on all night?" I thought about it for a while and finally realized that she would probably never get that particular sleepaway question answered perfectly. She was just asking because she wanted to explore the world of possibilities. I had never thought about it that way before.
Sleepaway camp is so much fun. If you have ever been to one, then you know how peaceful it can be. My daughter loves sleepaway camp, but when I think about leaving her in the middle of the night while going to or coming back from school, I start to worry. I'm sure other parents feel the same way.
I decided to see what other parents had done. Most of them said that their babies loved their sleepaway experiences. Some said they wished they had thought of having a baby monitor. (Now I wonder what did they mean by that.) I also wondered if I should leave the baby monitor on all night.
Here is what happened. My daughter is three months old and we recently added a baby to our family. We had already planned out a whole lot of special activities for her to enjoy at camp, so the decision came down to whether or not we should use a baby monitor to keep track of what her little one was up to during the night.
We have two alarms on the baby monitor. One sets off an alarm whenever the baby starts to cry. The other one goes off just before she falls asleep. We set those both off about fifteen minutes before bedtime.
About an hour and a half later, we heard the baby start to cry. We quickly rushed her into her crib and turned on the sleep machine. The second alarm went off about thirty minutes later. We let the baby stay in her crib for only ten minutes before taking her back to the baby monitor. We knew that she would be safe with the baby monitor because she has been cooped up most of the day and wasn't getting much sleep at all.
About an hour and a half later, we heard the baby cry again. Of course, it wasn't quite as loud as the first time. However, she woke up and was screaming. She was shaking and we could tell she was tired. So we took her to the baby monitor. The second alarm went off and we set the baby up in the cot and went right back to bed.
When we got up the next morning, we saw that the baby had fallen asleep on our feet. Apparently, she'd been playing too much and fell asleep sitting upright. That's when we decided to leave her in the cot and to let her sleep through the night. That way, she wouldn't have too much noise waking us up and we wouldn't miss a lot of sleep while trying to get her back into a good sleeping pattern.
I've never been one to admit defeat and leave a baby alone in a room. There are times, however, when we need to be a little more hands on. We were tempted to leave the room and come back at midnight to pick up the baby, which would have worked for a few days. It would have meant she had been sleeping in the same room as the monitor and it may have helped her sleep.
So we gave it a try one night and were rewarded with a sound sleep. Unfortunately, the next day the crying continued and we were back in the same room. We did manage to calm her down a bit, but she continued to be a bit restless during the day and by the end of the day we hadn't managed to get her back into a deep sleep. By the end of the second week, we were fed up and decided to take the child out to see her pediatrician.
We have since discovered that baby monitors do not have to be used 24 hours a day to keep your baby safe. Some baby monitors allow you to set them to wake you up in the middle of the night when your baby gets restless but by the time the alarm goes off, your baby has probably fallen back into deep sleep. Also, some baby monitors are only useful if you can get to sleep in the same room as your child as some monitors are designed for babies who are older. So if you're short on space and can't afford an alarm for your nanny, you will still be able to use one of the many baby monitors that are available on the market to keep an eye on your child from the comfort of your own bed.
One final benefit of baby monitors is that it can prevent SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). This is a very serious problem that plagues many families every year and it can be brought about by several reasons. The most common cause is suffocation while asleep, but there are other less common reasons such as a baby getting their arm caught in a door or being choked. Even being left alone with a baby who may be playing a game of hide and seek can be enough to cause this problem. So using one of these baby monitors to listen for any sounds or movements in your baby's room can help to prevent this situation from occurring.