Baby Monitors - need recommendations and sleep

[Lucy1]

Last night DH & I transferred our baby to her room. DH did not consult the baby bargains book and bought a First Years monitor which snapped, crackled and popped all night. It was worse than having the baby in our room. I have the 2001 Baby Bargains book but the best Fisher Price monitor is discontinued. I promise the authors of the book that I will go out and buy the latest version of baby bargains but for now I need someone to tell me what the brand recommendations are for good, better and best from the latest baby bargains book. I need to get some sleep tonight. Thanks.

[TaChapm2]

We went through 4 monitors before we finally found one that worked for us. I think BRU was getting rather sick of me returning them. Anyways...We finally settled on the Sony Baby Call monitor and LOVE LOVE LOVE it! No static at all. The sound is so clear that I can sometimes hear my DS breathing and I love that. It also has a setting where it can block out all background noise and only alert you when there is a human voice (cry) in the room. It works great! After 4 bad we really appreciate a good monitor.

Tara
Mommy to Jackson (11-10-02)

[egoldber]

Unfortunately, baby monitors can be very tricky. What works well for one person may not work well for another. It can depend on a lot of things in your particular house (electronics used, overhead powerlines, your neighbor's electronics, etc.) But that being said, a lot of people have good luck with:

Sony Babycall
Philips monitors
Fisher Price monitors

Of those I have personally tried the Philips InTouch (works well) and the FP 900 Megahertz monitor (works OK for us), and the Sony Babycall (hated it, for us it was worse than The First Years Crisp&Clear which we received as a shower gift and don't like at all).

HTH,

[annex]

Consumer Reports reviews them in the Jan 2004 issue, its top 3 choices were:

The First Years Crisp & Clear Plus 3813B
Evenflo Constant Care 3000
The First Years Safe & Sound 3808

In particular, for the Evenflo it said "This monitor had better separation than most between its two channels, so you may have an easier time finding a signal without interference from neighbors’ wireless devices." I'm not sure if that's why you have static, but it could be.

They didn't review any Sony or Phillips models, fwiw.

We have an annoying crackling issue with our Fisher Price Sound and Lights with Dual Receivers (CR's lowest rated monitor.) It can be improved sometimes just by moving the receiver around the room, changing its orientation, etc.

[amp]

We have the FP 900mhz vibrating monitor. It vibrates, but also has lights and sounds. We don't use it at night though, so I haven't been as aware of whether it snaps, crackles and pops as I would be if I tried to sleep with it next to me. During the day I haven't found it to be problematic. Here is a link to ours. The link is to Amazon, but we bought ours on sale at KMart and I've seen it at Target too.

http://tinyurl.com/zcgc

[MelissaTC]

It is so funny with monitors. What works for one may not work for another. We have the FIsher Price Lights and Sounds monitor and love it. We have never had a problem! It is always crisp and clear. We have two handsets so there is one in our family room and one in our bedroom.

[sntm]

We use our FP 900mHz at night and I love it. No snaps or crackles. Minimal static, just enough to let me know it is on. Can hear him breathing over it and his monitor is across the room.

My biggest beefs with it are design issues -- their design engineer must have been a moron, because the A/B channel switch is in the location of the on/off switch, so for weeks I kept changing the channel instead of switching off the transmitter. and the receiver has a combined volume & on/off switch which means that if you turn it on after baby is asleep and quiet, you have to guestimate how loud to turn it up so you can hear him when he starts to fuss but if he makes a loud noise it isn't earsplitting.

shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03

[amp]

I always switch channels when trying to turn it off too! Thought it was just me.