New mom here and I need advice on the best baby monitor. I heard the new iMonitor is good, but haven't tested any.

[threeapples]

How important is it to have a monitor with a video, as opposed to one without? Any advice would be great, thank you!

[C99]

I have only had a video monitor, so I can't really compare, but we loved our vid monitor so much that my DH bought another one for the third baby when our video monitor bit the dust when our DD was around 1. They are nice because you can see if your baby is actually awake or just stirring in his/her sleep. But they are even more useful for CIO, etc. because you can tell you hysterical your child actually is, if his or her foot is stuck in the crib, etc.

ETA: we have the Summer handheld video monitor.

[sidmand]

I would say it depends on how much you are going to want to *see* DC as opposed to just hearing them. I just about wore a hole in the carpet from going back and forth to DS's room and sneaking in to make sure he was breathing while trying not to wake him...yeah, didn't work so well! But that's the type of person I am!

Once I got the video monitor I could tell how upset he was, if he was still lying down (if he's still lying down, he'll usually go back to sleep), etc. That being said, we have the Mobicam and the cord stopped working, so now we only use it minimally on battery power. I use a sound-only one and then if I want to make sure he's okay, I turn on the video. I actually hardly do that at all anymore, but only starting very recently.

Debbie
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[jhrabosk]

Other side of the fence here! I never had a video monitor and I never missed it. In fact, during the winter when my windows are closed (and house quieter), I don't even turn on the audio monitor. That way I don't get woken by every little snuffle. :)

[miki]

We have both. The sound-only would be perfectly fine but the video adds a lot of entertainment value for us. We call it Baby-vision. It's actually more useful now that DD is in a regular bed because if we hear thumping around in her room, we can see if she's doing too much playing and not enough staying in bed.

But the video monitor we use is not sold as a baby monitor. We just have a mini security camera that has infrared to see in the dark. It's mounted on top of the door frame in the corner of DD's room and a wire runs from it to our tv so we don't have to be concerned about interference which we do get on our wireless sound-only monitor. Our version of a video monitor only cost about $30.

[trales]

I have the cheapest sound only monitor you can buy. I hardly use it. Our house is not very large, I can hear when she wakes and cries. I really only use it when I am working in the garden and she is napping inside. I think I have used it a total of 4 times.

[threeapples]

If you don't mind my asking, where did you purchase this security camera and what brand is it? thank you.

[713abc]

I like to see how DS is doing, and couldn't live without my video monitor. Provides a lot of peace of mind, and I don't feel like I need to sneak in there to take a peak every 10 minutes.

We have the Summer hand-held one; it's not cheap but works really well.

[daniele_ut]

We have the Graco iMonitor, which replaced an old Fisher Price Sound and Lights. The old Sound and Lights monitor had constant static and drove me nuts, but the iMonitor is always very clear. My only complaint about it has been relatively short battery life when you take it off the charger, but overall I really like it. It wasn't cheap, but the clarity was really important to me. I also managed to find it on clearance at the time, so that helped a bit with the sticker shock. They also have one that will monitor 2 separate rooms and now that I am pregnant I am wishing that I had splurged for that one, since we will likely need another monitor since DS will move to a different floor when the baby comes.