Any parent knows you cannot simply monitor your baby your self 24 hours a day without any assistance, you may try and may want too but it is obviously not  feasible.  To aid you in doing this and making it very posible you will need to get a Baby Monitor.

There are a lot of baby monitors available on the market and they all offer varying functions and monitor baby in a variety of ways.  As with everything the way they monitor and functions offered will very much vary on price.

Over the years the Baby Monitor has developed into quite a sophisticated piece of technology and gone are the days of the old analogue ones which worked on radio waves and were therefore prone to a lot of interference and could even be picked up by your neighbours!!.  Today’s Baby Monitors use digital DECT frequency and so offer crystal clear sound with no interference, they also offer a better range and can monitor your baby up to a distance of around 300-350 metres away, therefore allowing you to be in the garden etc if you so wish.

Audio Baby Monitors, as you would expect allow you to listen in to your baby.  You simply place the main unit in the baby’s room and then you carry the parent unit with you.  Here you can listen to your baby and monitor from anywhere in the house whilst you get on with those jobs you’ve been trying to do all day!  Many of the audio baby monitors now allow you to talk back to your child remotely, simply by hearing your voice is sometimes enough to settle your child back to sleep. Other functions on these baby monitors include the facility to play lullabies or additional mp3 tracks to your baby, night light functions and even monitor the rooms temperature.

Video baby monitors, allow you to both visually and audibly monitor baby from afar. Simply place the camera overlooking your baby where he/she sleeps and you keep the hand held unit with you. These video baby monitors are slightly more bulky than the non video ones and are also  more expensive, but they do offer you a bit more re-assurance in the fact that you can obviously see your child sleeping or playing.  The additional functions on these video baby monitors are less than the audio counterparts, although given time I am sure this will change.  Having said that, they are superb and simply being able to see your child in full colour, is a wonderful security.

Movement Based Baby Monitors go even one step further, in that they also monitor your baby’s movement and alert you if your baby does not seem to move after a period of time ie 20 seconds, which doesnt seem long at all, but as babies genrally always move and twitch does work very well.  This type of baby monitor checks for movement with the aid of a small pad which you insert beneath the babys mattress.  These baby monitors also provide you with audio so you can also listen to your baby as with the audio baby monitors.