I think it's a personal choice to make. Some are comforted by all the gadgets and gizmos; others like myself would feel unnerved.

I happen to be a physician and my recommendation is, regardless of whether or not you get the alarm system, educate yourself on what you would do if the unthinkable were to happen. That is, learn basic pediatric CPR.

Also, too often I see people purchase these alarm systems and concurrently spend money on fancy, thick bumpers. The latter has been linked to suffocation. In my house we use the breathable bumpers (made with mesh), less fancy looking, but a whole lot safer.

We didn't have a motion monitor and never missed it. Our monitor is voice-activated, so it's silent until the baby makes a noise, then it becomes audible. Worked great for us!

I think I would have been more nervous if the baby slept in his room for the first few months when they're most fragile, but because he was right beside us in a co-sleeper when he was tiny, we didn't have to worry. By the time we moved him into his room, the sound monitor alone was plenty.

Never had one - but like pp said, we had baby in the room with us early on. And then when he went to his room we share a wall so i didn't need a monitor b/c if he cried it woke me up. With first baby we did the whole video monitor thing and it was great. I think it falls into the whole wipe warmer/pacifier sanitizer department for us.

I just registered for this Angel Care monitor, so I'm curious to see what other people say about it! I thought this would be a better option than the video monitors - and make me less crazy about checking on the baby. Expecting my first in April, so looking forward to the responses!

We're still expecting, but we've purchased a motion monitor to use for the baby's first six months. Honestly, a part of me thinks that it's overkill already, but I'm worried that I'll be waking myself up to make sure that our daughter is still breathing and anything that's going to get me more sleep is worth the extra money.

I have heard, however, that at a certain point the motion monitors are more trouble than anything because once the baby starts to roll around a move a lot in her sleep, she'll be scooting off the mat and setting the alarm off. So, if we feel like we still need a monitor at that point, we'll have to get a different one.

We didn't have one and didn't miss it. If you follow US AND International SIDS recommendations you should be fine.

If you co-sleep, do so safely. Co-sleeping reduces SIDS risk. Unsafe co-sleeping/"couch sleeping" etc. can increase suffocation risk, which is different.

If you don't co-sleep, have your baby sleep near you.

If you use a crib or moses basket, do not use bumpers.

Do not use "sleep positioners."

Place baby to sleep on the back.

Some experts think that breastfeeding and swaddling independently reduce the risk.

The international community has greatly reduced SIDS but using non-toxic non-offgassing matresses. Most international experts now think this is a primary cause of SIDS. So buy organic wool or natural latex matresses or buy a wrap for a conventional one.

We registered for and received a very nice sound only monitor that we have used a total of one time. Our house just isn't that big! I also underestimated the power of my mommy-radar when i was pregnant. If my son moved I could hear it across our little house!

I think another big factor to take into consideration is the size of your home in relation to where you will be while the baby is sleeping. We never invested in one because our baby was never far enough away that we couldn't hear him. (I also had an additional bassinet that I could roll around in the house with me.) If you will be on a separate floor while your baby is sleeping, etc- it's a great option to have one available. Even an inexpensive one would serve the purpose.

I was told that the best way to reduce SIDS risk is to have your baby sleep in your bedroom for the first 6 months in a crib. That was overkill for us and we had him in a pack and play for the first 4 and then to his own room.

I was also told that the angel care is really useful for children who are born prematurely or are at a general higher risk of stopping breathing. We didn't have it and we also didn't miss it. I barely use the regular baby monitor we have now but it's helpful at times.

My friend got one and coincidently has a son with health issues, the angel care has been very valuable for her. Personally, I'd get a regular one and then get an angel care if my child had a need for one (hopefully not!)

I would say if you know yourself to be a worrier, get one. I used to watch my baby nieces overnight quite a bit before I had children of my own and I would get up even ten minutes to make sure they were still breathing. I knew when I was pregnant that I would never sleep a wink without one. I have loved it and I owe any sleep I got to that machine. My daughter is now almost ten months old and I still use it! It gave me peace of mind and that was priceless to me. I also recommend reading the Amazon reviews. I think it has several hundred user testimonies--several from people who feel it truly saved their child's life.

The only complaint I ever had with it was when we moved our daughter out of the basinet next to our bed and into a "big crib" she would sometimes roll to the edge of her crib and it would go off. That problem went away when she got a bit bigger.

We have the pictured Angelcare monitor and it was the single best purchase we made as parents. It was nice to be able to lay down at night and not worry. Regardless of your baby is right next to you in a crib, or down the hall, if they stop breathing when you are sleeping you are never going to know. For a little over $100, the peace of mind it brought us was worth it. Of course, being a worrier, we did everything else to reduce SIDS - no bumper, nothing in the crib except baby, swaddle, sleep sacks once he was older, cool temperature, etc. I only wish a company would combine a movement monitor AND a video monitor. Oh, and on a side note, our nearly 3-year old still has his Angelcare under his bed, knowing when he waked up at 2am and starts walking around within 20 seconds is very helpful! We'll be purchasing another Angelcare for #2 coming this summer!

I agree that it depends on whether you are a worrier or not. I am, and I LOVED the Angelcare. You can just glance at the parent unit and see the little metronome ticking that tells you it is detecting the baby's breathing, and many a time that glance was enough to get me back to sleep. I also agree you should not use it as an excuse to violate any of the SIDS rules, especially with thick bumpers (also love the breathable baby mesh bumper). I stopped using the monitor when my daughter began to really roll around in the crib, around 8 months or so, which would make the monitor beep (and occasionally go to full alarm). At that point it was costing me more sleep than I was gaining, but those first few months it was the best device in the whole wide world.

Our son was born premature and he had to stay in the NICU for a couple of weeks because he had premature apnea -- in other words, he would just stop breathing because his brain wasn't yet fully developed enough to coordinate everything. He grew out of it in a few weeks and came home. We spoke to the doctors & nurses in the NICU about the motion monitor, and they all said the same thing -- it's not necessary, but if it will give you peace of mind by all means use it. Their only caution was to not totally freak out if the alarm went off because most of the time they were false alarms. We knew what to look out for, and used the motion monitor in both the bassinette in our room and his crib a few months later. It was a no-brainer, and brought us a tremendous amount of peace of mind. I would definitely recommend it. Like LaneC mentioned, we did have several false alarms once my son started rolling around... and then we knew it was time to stop using it. Be sure to use a piece of plywood to place the sensor on -- otherwise you'll get way too many false alarms.

I have this monitor and quickly stop using the motion sensor because of the number of false alarms. I do really like that I can track the temperature in the baby's room. The sound quality is good too.

I have to say, I wouldn't consider myself a "worrying" type of parent, but this monitor saved my sanity. I would wake up every 15 minutes to check and make sure my daughter was still breathing when we first brought her home, which meant very little sleep for me. I was very surprised that I had this issue, but this set took that fear away.

We used this monitor exclusively for all my kids, and I wanted to point out that you can turn the motion detector off and use it as a sound only monitor as well, which we did for all of the kids around 6/7 months, when they kept schooching off the sensor area and setting off false alarms.

We did have a rather frightening episode with my first daughter who scrunched herself up in the corner of the mattress with her head up and got her little face stuck in the bumpers. The alarm went off, I went into the room and picked her up immediately where she was looking a little blue, and I wonder to this day if that monitor didn't save her life. We don't use bumpers at all anymore, and I plan on using this monitor one more time with our fourth and final kiddo.

Not to set off a big room-sharing thing, but I don't really think it's a good thing to buy before you get your baby. Mine wouldn't sleep unless she was touching someone for about 5 months, so I didn't need a monitor at all until then. And even after she could sleep by herself, I am just too lazy to get up and go to a separate room in the middle of the night to get her fed and back to sleep, so she slept in our room. And room-sharing solves the problem of wanting to check on them all the time too.

I would put this in the category of things you might or might not need but definitely don't need right away.

A little self-evaluation told me that I was going to be the mom shaking my kid awake to make sure she was breathing. I got the Angel Care system so that I could open my eyes, see the little green light blinking in her breathing rhythm and go right back to sleep. Worth every penny in my case.

I am soon to be a first time Mom too (any day now!). We went with the Angelcare Monitor just for the piece of mind alone. She will be sleeping in the same room as us (due to lack of space in our condo) but it will be worth it to know that she is breathing fine so I can catch some Zzz's myself. Once she gets over 6 months I will likely just use the sound. I have to be pretty frugal with our funds - but if you use coupons you can get the single unit Angelcare for less then $80 easy. A good sound unit would be around $50 - so you are really only talking another $30 for the movement function.

I am planning on getting a video monitor with a long range (I'm due with our first in April). We own a duplex. We live on the 2nd floor. I work from home- but in our basement- 2 floors below our living space. And my husband also works from home- in our attic- one floor above our living space. So we'll use it during the afternoon when baby is napping so we can get a little work done without constantly running up and down the stairs. Hopefully it'll help make the little bits of time when she's sleeping a little more productive. At night, we'll be co-sleeping in the beginning, so we won't need it then.

I was VERY happy with our Sony Babycall monitor. No only did it have great reviews is was very reasonably priced.
http://www.amazon.com/NTM-910-BabyCall-Sound-Sensor-Nursery-Monitor/dp/B00191MP3Y

Maybe if our baby was a primi I might have gone with something more like the Angel Care monitor.

From the minute you are pregnant you are bombarded with things to be afraid of (and companies who would like you to pay to assuage those fears). Please resist the urge to feed this fear. As someone stated earlier, unless your baby has health problems, why would you need this? Of course you should give your child a safe sleeping space but does this really make it safer?

jillandmo--we room-shared with our daughter (still do) and we had one. Some parents feel secure enough while room-sharing to not need something like this. Some don't. Room-sharing doesn't necessarily solve the problem of getting up to check on the baby--my daughter is absolutely silent when she sleeps and I have a snoring hubby. She slept with in arm's length of my side of the bed but I would still have had to prop myself up to check on her, so this monitor was a great help to me. Co-sleeping or bed-sharing may solve those kinds of problems for some families but not for all. I'm not jumping on you for your point--just making a counter-point.

Our little one developed a very bad case of reflux at about 2 months of age, to the point that when she spit up she would choke so badly that she would begin to turn purple. Our pedi recommended that we allow her to sleep on her belly given the extreme circumstances of her choking. I was a huge back to sleep advocate and the thought of having my newest baby sleeping on her belly really worried me. But since she would choke and not make a sound while doing it, I knew I had to come up with a solution that would let both of us rest. Enter the AngelCare monitor. We purchased it with a gift card and got the lowest level they they carried.

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I have been with the purchase. My second baby is not a deep sleeper and would wake up anytime I even cracked the door to her room. This allows me to know that she is ok without waking her needlessly. We have had about 3 false alarms with the AngelCare monitor. And even though it makes your heart stop when it happens, the peace of mind it gives me at other times is well worth it. I would rather be alerted that I need to check on her than wondering all the time. We considered a video monitor, but that didn't allow me any peace of mind while I slept and I still couldn't tell if she was breathing from a video.

I didn't see any need for the temperature settings on the AngelCare though. We live in a 50 year old house and there wasn't a lot that I could do to change the temperature in just the nursery if it was to warm or cold. I just dressed baby accordingly. I would not have known what to do with all of the additional information that the higher end monitors give you.

A nice plus on these monitors is that they can function as a sound machine for us when traveling. Just tune them into a channel that the pad isn't on, and it works like a white noise machine! It even works with our pack n play with a little board put under neath. It's not without it's faults, but the good well outways the bad for us.

We just have a basic monitor and I'm not even sure why I bothered with that because I hear her when she starts crying without it. We had our daughter in a cradle next to our bed for the first month or so I never really worried about it. When we moved her, I was afraid I'd be freaking out and checking her ever 20 minutes but let's face it, I was so exhausted that I was out unless she was crying (this is one of those things you don't think about before you have your first baby...rest assured you're probably going to pass out the minute you lay your head down and won't even be thinking about waking up to check on the baby).

If I had one of those fancy monitors, I'd have probably been freaking out even more. Save yourself the money and just get a basic one...or co-sleep

To be honest, I don't know anything about this baby monitor. We've never lived anywhere where I couldn't hear them and we co-slept. What I wanted to add to this is that it's hard to know what kind of baby gear you need before the baby comes. You don't know what the baby will be into and what will work. For example, my first kid was way into hanging out in a bouncy seat; second kid hated it with the fire of a thousand suns. So, there is a lot of stuff out there and you can certainly buy it all, but chances are there will more unused then you think.

I have been using the Snuza Halo Baby Movement Monitor on my 4 month old son for the last 3 months. I love it. If it doesn't detect movement for 20 seconds, it vibrates in order to stir the baby. If still no movement then an alarm sounds. It clips on my son's diaper and is completely portable, so he can use it in his crib, in the pack n' play, at my parent's house, etc.

Was it really necessary? Probably not. My son has been in our room for the last 17 weeks, he is healthy and strong, and I have followed all the standard SIDS prevention advice. However, I am a severe worrier and it has certainly made me feel better. Being a new mom is hard enough on its own and getting enough sleep is difficult. Anything that helps me rest a little easier is worth it in my opinion.

Thanks for all the input! Do you think I could Craigslist this? Would it be okay to buy such an item used?

We bought ours on Craigslist for $20--seems to work just great. Small price to pay for piece of mind.

My son is now 4 months old. He's still sleeping in our bedroom, but we're going to make the switch soon. Our apartment is a triplex and his bedroom is 2 flights of stairs down from our bedroom. We just purchased a BabyWiFi monitor. It works through our wireless router network. We can view the video image (with sound too) on our iPad, iPhone and laptop. Even if our internet goes out, the monitor still works within our home.
What makes it so awesome is that our son's grandparents in Australia will be able log-in online (we've given them a special username and pw) to view their grandson while he sleeps. They miss him a lot. My husband can also log in while at work and watch our son while he naps. We have it up and running, now we just need to move baby to his own room... (easier said then done).

Sorry, it's called "WiFi Baby" (not BabyWiFi). Here's the website:

WiFi Baby Monitor

Every time we have a baby monitor discussion, I get tired of people who don't have baby monitors crapping on people who DO have monitors.
Just because we have monitors doesn't mean we're neurotic worriers - just like you NOT having a monitor doesn't mean you're negligent.
We have a Fisher-Price monitor that allows us to hear her breathing. Love it. Here's why:
- Love listening to her breathing. Great white noise.
- When she's been sick, hearing the changing in her breathing has actually alerted us that something was wrong (high temp, but no crying).
- It's super-sweet to hear her talk to herself and us and her stuffed animals when she goes to bed and wakes up.
- We have four cats and sometimes when they accidentally get trapped in her room, we hear them moving around the room on the monitor so we know to go get them.
Final note: We live in a loft. Her room is across the hall from ours. So size doesn't really matter.
:)

We used the Angel Care monitor with our daughter and it did provide us with some peace of mind. That is, until she could move a little and the heart alarm started going off in the middle of the night. The first time it happened, my husband flew out of the bed and down the hall with me flapping at his heels screaming, "Call 911!" Sure, it's funny now (she was fine), but not so much at 3 am.

You can always turn the motion sensor option off, though. And it keeps track of the room temp., which we really liked. I did notice that the sound isn't as clear or sensitive as the standard monitor my parents use when our daughter visits.

We have the Angel Care monitor that we bought when we brought home our preemie son. He had an Apnea in the NICU as well as some Brady's. It was invaluable to me the first few months that we had him home. Now he sleeps between the co sleeper in our room and his own room. I still have it in his room and use it but more for the sound monitor rather than the movement part. I would think a regular monitor or video monitor would be fine no need to add extra stress which a movement monitor can add.

I'm all for co-sleeping... HOWEVER, Children who die from SIDS don't do so loudly or with symptoms that would wake you, so simply having the baby in your room (even if they're touching you) doesn't eliminate the risk for SIDS (even if you swear to have super-human senses).

There's a 99.99% chance that you'll NEVER need the expensive gadget, but if the 0.01% happens, I can guarantee that the price will seem meaningless and that you'd give anything to go back in time to buy it.

I say go for it.

Just make sure to get the newer model, because I've heard the older ones get static and other interference a lot.

The alarm will sound when you forget to turn it off when taking him out of the crib (and you WILL forget at least once), so attaching a cute sign to the crib and/or changing table during the first few weeks to remind you to turn it off will spare you the starting experience of it suddenly blaring at 2am mid-diaper change.

Geeky input coming up.

We live in a 3 stories high house. The main rooms are on the ground floor, baby's room's on the second floor. Since we were tired already, we wanted to keep an eye on him without having to run up and down.

We actually used a webcam. Ok, geeky thing, but it worked like a charm for the 3 months that we wanted to check on him. I had the image on my computer, and the sound whenever needed.

Cheap and perfect solution for us; we never bought any kind of monitor. I only wanted to check on him during his naps, since we were cosleeping at night.

Our son was a preemie, had breathing issues and spent 3 months in the NICU, so we definitely considered getting an Angel Care for when he came home. FWIW, the NICU nurses and docs were pretty dismissive of monitors like this (unless medically necessary), saying they usually only served to freak out the parents with false alarms, etc.

We considered one, and eventually talked the nurses/docs into sending us home with a hospital-grade breathing monitor (chest strap and all). We lasted about a month before it drove us bonkers and we gave it back.

Honestly, I think it comes down to preference. SIDS is a very real, yet very unlikely, danger. If you believe a monitor would give you peace of mind, then go for it. You'll probably get tired of it after a few false alarms (I know we did) but there are certainly worse ways to spend your money.

FWIW, another parent friend from the NICU used the Snuza Baby monitor on her sons and liked it.

On the Angel Care - I forgot to mention that in order to prevent the false alarms that we got in the first weeks of use my husband placed a firm piece of plexiglass between the mattress and the bed (underneath the angel care pad). The directions state that the area under the pad must be hard - and it solved the problems. That is, until she got bigger and it would alarm because it would hit the upper end of movement (the system thought she was seizing). At that point we removed the movement sensor.

And I concur with eavesdropping on her - it's nice to listen to her talk to her stuffed animals, or the dogs during quiet moments by herself.

We bought a 2nd hand one. And I loved it.
I'm not an overly anxious mother, and I never set it so I could see the light flashing at night. But it gave me peace of mind. And yes I know infant CRP. So if it alarmed I felt confident I could deal with the situation. For me I wanted something to inform me if baby had stopped breathing!

It totally depends on parental disposition. Another mom raved to me about hers soon after my daughter was born and I thought it was borderline crazy. But I know other parents who were very stressed until they set it up. I think it's most appreciated by parents whose newborns sleep in a different room (ours did not). Like most baby items, my advice is to see how you feel once baby arrives. You can always get one then.

BUT I do rec a sound or video monitor. Originally we thought it was unnessariy since we have a small house, but soon realized that if we could hear her, she could hear us. We've found it extremely useful for travel as well. I originally rolled my eyes at video monitors, but we now sort of wish we had one. It would be nice to see what she's up to in the mornings.

I think if you are a worrisome first-time parent, or just a worrisome parent in general, this could do you well. I suffer from horrible anxiety during and immediately following pregnancy, and I remember waking up constantly to check to make sure my daughter was breathing. We didnt use a motion monitor, and I dont know if it would have given me any peace, but I think that is definitely an option to consider. Being a parent, especially for the first time, can turn you into a bundle of nerves that you never expected. Any relief from the inevitable sleep deprivation is worth it! :)

Update: I bought a used one off of Craigslist. I really like it for the peace of mind. We don't use the sound function because our townhouse is tiny and we can hear everything, but it just helps me to feel more secure. I think it was worth it, but I'm not sure I would have paid full price to get it new.

We coslept for the first month, then transitioned to the crib in the baby's room, which is just 10 feet from our bed.

Thanks so much for all the feedback! Love this site. :-)

As a mom I've been very concerned with my little 2 month old baby girl so I went out and bought a baby movement monitor. I tried out a bunch of them including this one but none of them really made me get over my fear of SIDS until I tried the babysense V because it also detects breathing and alerts you if your baby stops breathing. It probably saved my little girls life.