Why Every Mama Needs A Video Baby Monitor (Life Changing Freedom!)

I refused to buy a video baby monitor when I was pregnant. I thought it was frivolous. It was newish technology and didn’t seem necessary. I felt like I wouldn’t use it and it would be a waste of money. I was so wrong!

My dad ended up giving me this monitor after I had my first baby, and I can’t overstate my dependence on this thing!

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Your baby will sleep better

If you aren’t constantly checking in on your baby just to make sure they are still sleeping, they might actually sleep.

Some babies are super light sleepers. (Mine was. I swear he’d wake up if I even thought about him.)

If you create a restful environment for your baby and leave them undisturbed, they will sleep sooo much better.

More sleep means they will grow better. Afterall sleep is when the body does all its miracle-working magic.

By the way, the notion of not letting your baby get used to quiet while sleep, is a myth.

I believed this one at first. I was told by so many people to make sure I get him used to sleeping with a lot of commotion going on. This doesn’t work for all babies.

Some people are naturally heavy sleepers. I personally am not, and neither was my first baby.

If there was anything going on, he just refused to sleep. (The second could sleep through a train rolling through the house.)

Decrease your mommy anxiety

I’ll be honest, I was a super anxious mommy. I was so paranoid about SIDS. (Borderline obsessed.)

I bought one of these which was never used as it didn’t help me feel better about baby sleep at all, I was always worried it would fall off or not work.

I had postpartum anxiety bad, and it affected my sleep, which in turn just made it worse. A vicious cycle.

Once I finally started using my video monitor, I could relax while my baby slept.

If I started to feel that anxiety creep in I would watch his little chest rise and fall with each breathe, and know I was just being paranoid. (Most importantly I didn’t have the crazy urge to run into the room and nudge him up to make sure he was in fact still breathing.)

Makes Cosleeping functional

Before becoming a mom, I laughed when people said they let their kids sleep in their rooms.

I said nope, never. Hah! Both my kids sleep with me in my bed, my husband sleeps on the couch.

This is the only way that people get sleep in my house. I would love for my husband to sleep with us, but there simply isn’t room and nobody gets sleep.

Cosleeping can be done safely.

However, in general, if you cosleep your baby probably isn’t going to take to a crib well. This means you have to have a mattress on the floor.

This also means baby can just get up and roam free or accidentally roll off.

I always padded well around the mattress, but I loved being able to watch my baby on the monitor to make sure he was safe. If he started to wiggle, I knew to go in.

My second baby won’t even make a sound. His nap bed is on the floor in my room, but he will just wake up and start playing.

He won’t cry or even make noise. I’m so glad to have the video monitor because, with this baby, an audio monitor would not cut it.

(It seriously felt like this the first time I realized what the monitor could do for me)

Most importantly, Gives Me Freedom!

I didn’t even realize how big this one was. My baby was so needy for so long.

Once he got about 7-8 months old, I could finally put him to sleep, and he would sleep long enough that I got an hour or two of alone time with my husband. This was AMAZING.

It felt so good to have re-connection time, alone.

One night the monitor wouldn’t turn on. I got my baby to sleep, and I fumbled for 10 minutes trying to figure out what the problem was. I was starting to get a little panicky.

My husband went to see what I was doing and realized I was near tears because the monitor wouldn’t work. (Maybe a bit overdramatic, but honestly that hour or two was my only me time of the day.)

I could feel my freedom slipping away.

Funny thing was, in all my panic I didn’t realize that it had an off switch that had been turned on. Ha! My husband took one look at it, flipped it and Voila. My freedom returned instantly.

The joy that came with that moment! My tiny bit of me time keeps me healthy and happy.

I am such a better mother (and general all-around person) when I get time to do good for myself. A must for every mama out there!

A video baby monitor is an essential (Hands down)

A video baby monitor is now one of my essentials as a mom. It’s seriously just as important as diapers.

If my monitor broke today, I would definitely be out buying a new one, today. (My little bit of mommy freedom is very, VERY important to me.)

My current one has been running for 2 1/2 years strong. (Although the battery is starting to not work so well. I just keep it plugged in.)

However, if I were to buy another one the one I would get is this one. It’s a bit pricier, but rated very well on Amazon. The main reasons being:

It has a USB charger. (my current one has a very specific charger, which I keep having to unplug so the babies don’t get to it, and inevitably spend 10 minuets of my special me time looking for the dang charger for the monitor.)
You can turn the “warning” beep off. This is a big deal, as when my current looses its radio frequency for a few seconds it beeps really loudly, which has woken up my baby if the house is too quite.
It has temperature monitoring. This is another one of those SIDS relief things for me. If the room is too hot, safe sleep can be an issue. In the winter we run the heater and our room can become quite “stuffy.” I would love to know when to turn the heater off at a comfortable temperature for our little ones.

By the way, I found this very comprehensive review of the best baby monitors out there. So if you are in the market, i suggest you check it out.

I really believe every mama could use a baby video monitor, simply because it means you get freedom! And every mama needs some alone time, sometimes.