Monitors in the City - help, please!

[Mesa]

I'm having a hard time picking a baby monitor for our home in the city. This is our first baby, so I don't even understand if/when/how often we will need/use a monitor. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. The DECT technology seems important as we are in the city and other homes and condos are literally feet from ours. I'd prefer to not have our home conversations (if we forget to turn off the monitor or walk by while baby is sleeping) picked up by our neighbors.

2. My husband is a light sleeper and NEEDS his sleep for all of us to be happy..... this leads me to thinking that a vibration feature would be good, but Graco seems to be the only company offering that and they don't have the DECT technology.

3. As I read the boards, it seems that the majority of people who have a video monitor LOVE it and say that while they were ok with audio-only, now that they have video, they would never go back. Of course, the video monitors don't have the DECT or the vibration technologies.

UGH! Help! Do I even NEED a monitor? The baby will be on the 2nd floor and we will be sleeping on the 3rd. City dwellers, do I need the DECT?

Thanks, in advance, for your help!

[SnuggleBuggles]

I can't answer many of your questions. But, my advice would be to just wait and see if you really need one after the baby comes (and after they move to their room- many people keep baby in their room initially b/c it's a pain to be up and down all night getting baby). We found that we did not need a monitor in any home we have lived in. On occasion it might have been nice to "peek" into ds's room via a monitor but we were very able to live without that feature.

Beth

[BeachBum]

You can count me in on the video camp. I find it invaluable to see if baby is really awake--or just trying to soothe themselves (but being noisy about it). Once baby can stand up, it helps to know if they are standing at the crib screaming etc.

[MontrealMum]

Honestly, if I were you, I'd wait and see. We also live in a large city, attached to other houses, 2nd floor of a duplex with neighbors downstairs. Lots of computers, wireless phones, and 4 other babies in close proximity (though I don't know if they have monitors or not). Police station two blocks away. So, tons of things to provide signal interference.

We have never had a monitor and have never needed one. I can hear DS easily whenever he starts to fuss. Mind you, we are living on one story, but when I visit my mom, who is in a two-story townhouse, I have no trouble hearing him either.

[sunshine873]

I'm another one in the video monitor camp. I love ours and we're on the same floor as our DD. If I had to go up and down stairs, it would love it even more (if that's possible.) We put DD to bed 30 minutes ago and 5 minutes ago she started making grunting noises (kind of sounds like she's struggling.) It's so nice to be able to just look at the monitor and see that she's laying right where I put her and the grunting sound is because she's chewing on her hands. :)

Since you're worried about interference, if/when you do buy one, make sure you can take it back if you have problems and check it all out right away.