Thursday Thirteen

With my closest friends getting knocked up and having their first babies and my mommy friends who are currently preparing for their second, third or fourth child, there's a lot of talk in my circle these days about baby gear; what's necessary, what can't you live without, this vs. that and a hot topic amongst nearly all of them is whether a video baby monitor is a necessity or more a luxury.

We have a video monitor but we haven't always had it. In fact, we just had a cheapo Graco monitor (sound only) that my mom picked up on a whim one day while at Babies R Us. We weren't going to register for a monitor nor did we think we needed one because:

1) Emily's room shared a wall with ours
2) We all sleep with our doors open and could hear her breathing
3) We figured she's be sleeping in our room for the first 3-6 months anyway
4) Neither of us was interested in listening to the silence all night long, wondering if the silence was a "good" thing

So, we put that baby monitor up in Emily's closet and figured we'd just exchange it for some diapers or something later on.

Then, we had our baby and all those things above went out the window and we were ever so grateful my mom had passed by that clearance table and purchased that baby monitor. As a new parent, you don't sleep much as it is but, that first time you move your child into his/her own room, away from being next to your bed (or in your bed), I swear, you are awake all night long, intently listening to every single solitary noise on that baby monitor IF you aren't sleeping on the floor right next to your baby! No lie!!!

Then, you child does something you just don't expect to be horrifying in the middle of the night until it happens: they learn how to rollover, sit up, stand up, jump and even climb out of their cribs and, somewhere along all their developments you realize you have got to be able to watch them at all times and thus, the need for a video monitor arises... this happened for us when Emily was only 8 months old and, after having it for only a few days, we couldn't believe we had ever lived without it!

With all that said, this week's Thursday Thirteen is based on our experiences with Emily and why we personally feel everyone should have a baby monitor!

* When you move baby to their own room, you will be a nervous wreck at first, some of us have been known to sleep on the nursery room floor and/or not sleep at all for days, wondering about every little sound and when no sound is made at all!

* When she learns to roll over, you'll have anxiety attackes every night as you place her in her crib, safely on her back, away from the crib bumpers, ensuring you have removed everything from her crib that could suffocate her AND double-checking that her crib sheet is tightly attached to the mattress! Then, you will awake in a sweat-drenched panic at every sound she makes in the night those first few nights, fearing she has rolled onto her stomach and suffocated on that little flap that keeps her zipper down on her footed PJs. Having a baby monitor would prevent ALL of this and allow you to take a quick peek at her to ensure that even if she has rolled onto her stomach, her airway is clean and she is breathing normally.

* When she starts pulling herself up to sitting and can't lay herself back down, she will cry and you will want to rush in but DON'T because you'll be in the middle of sleep training (around 5-7 months) and she will get the idea that pulling herself up and crying will result in your coming in to rescue her. This could potentially ruin sleep training! If you had the video monitor, you could see that her pulling herself up is what's making her cry NOT that she is in any danger so, you could watch her to ensure she safely lays back down and falls off to sleep, all without leaving your bed and without screwing up weeks of training her to self-soothe!

* When she starts spitting her pacifier out and can't find it nor reach it to put it back in and you want her to learn this skill on her own, you'd be able to see this on the video monitor and watch her as she searches for it and either eventually finds it or gives up and goes back to sleep. You'd know why she was crying and would feel relief rather than panic at not knowing what was going on in there.

* All during sleep training, baby is learning to self soothe, put herself back to sleep when she wakes up and, each time she wakes up and is crying herself back to sleep, you'd be able to see this and feel relief in the fact that she is just learning to self soothe, not that her limbs are stuck in the crib slats or something equally as upsetting.

* When she learns to stand and can't quite sit back down, she will cry out for you to come rescue her. With the video monitor you'd be able to see this and watch her sit herself back down and go back to sleep rather than rushing in at the sound of her cry only to find her doing the exact same thing she was doing the other 900 times that evening that has resulted in you now having gotten about 15 minutes of sleep total.

* Nightmares, night terrors... being able to see your child and know that you NEED to get in there to comfort them is priceless!!!

* When she is jumping up and down in her crib and is giggling and laughing and then, falls down and bumps her head and cries out, you'd be watching her, laughing yourself because you just can't help it and would know you have a new challenge on your hands to deal with that may require more attention from you.

* The rare time she slips and her leg DOES get stuck in the crib slats and she is screaming bloody murder, although it sounds the exact same as when she's just upset that you put her to bed and won't come back in to nurse her or read her another bedtime story, you'd know that you need to get in there immediately!!

* When she gets herself undressed and takes her diaper off and all you hear is giggling coming from her room, you'd be able to see this potentially very disgusting scene play out and would get in there to redress her before poop wound up every where later on at night/during her nap. haha Gross!

* That first time you hear a "thump" and you think she's just hit her head again or kicked the back of her crib and you check the video monitor to see her NOT IN HER CRIB! She has fallen out/climbed out and you need to get in there!


To get a fantastic video monitor like the one we have, visit Summer's website by clicking ***HERE***!