Wondering how long you should use a baby monitor? From my experience and the parents, who I interviewed, there is no unique answer to this question. You can probably turn off the monitor after 6 months but read on to discover why I’m still using my baby monitor with my 5-year-old kids.
You could stop using your baby monitor when your kid starts to sleep through the whole night. Around 6 months, your baby should be loud enough to wake you up at night if he needs your help. This doesn’t mean you should throw away your baby monitor because it will be useful in specific situations.
At what age should you stop using a baby monitor?
There’s no specific rule when it comes to losing the baby monitor. Many parents will need the baby monitor until their kid is 2 years old. I’m still using it with my 5-year-old kids. Our grandparents had no baby monitor, and we are alive!
To better understand when it’s time to take the baby monitor out of the room, I did research what other parents had to say. I ask how long they used a baby monitor and here’s what I founded out.
For babies under 6 months
For the first weeks and months, your baby monitor will be handy to check if your baby is safe. This is particularly true when you start to sleep in different rooms.
In my experience, our first baby never slept in our room. She stayed for 14 days in the hospital, and when she finally arrived home, we made sure she comfortable in her own bedroom.
On the first night, we fired up the monitor. It was our personal assurance that everything was ok and she was sleeping safe and sound.
For childs after 6 months
After 6 months, babies will begin to sleep the whole night without waking up. Also, at 6 months, they should be able to call for help loud enough for you to understand.
I would recommend stopping using a baby monitor when you can hear clearly your kid from across the bedrooms. It also relative to your kid sleeping through the whole night. When a week or two have passed without needing the baby monitor, you could turn it off.
Stopping to use baby monitor will help you get a better night of sleep and develop a healthy sleep habit for your kid.
For toddlers sleeping a regular bed
Another milestone you could use to give up on the baby monitor is when your toddler is ready for his grown-up bed.
If your kid needs your help, he can come a see you in your room.
5 Reasons to stop using your baby monitor
Monitoring a healthy baby past 12 – 15 months is really probably unnecessary. Here are the main reasons why parents are ditching the monitor.
1. It’s not all noises that need your attention
It’s normal for a baby to be noisy when sleeping. There are all types of normal sound, including breathing, snorting, sneezing, coughing, wheezing, hiccuping and more.
After 6 months the only sound who need your attention is crying. Even crying can be normal. My daughter uses to make a sound that seems like a cry. At first, I was rushing inside her room every time, until I realize she was just dreaming.
This is when I stop using a baby monitor all night. I didn’t want to risk waking her up by rushing into her room because of a strange little noise. It was hard enough to put her to sleep that I couldn’t risk to disturb her for my own reassurance.
If you are anxious and still want the peace of mind, this is when a video baby monitor with the night vision feature is useful. You don’t have to be inside the room to check if your baby is still sleeping. You just turn on the monitor.
2. Your bedrooms are close to each other
In my experience, if my kids are crying, I can hear them through the wall. I can even hear them coughing. So if your child is loud enough so you can hear him from your room, you can ditch the baby monitor.
3. Using a baby monitor can lead to anxiety and sleep problems
After using a baby monitor for 5 months, I become obsessed with every sound coming out of it. I will even check if the baby monitor is still working.
The anxiety became so intense! My sleep became lighter, and I felt like I was never profoundly asleep. I was tired, and depression was coming my way. The solution was to stop using my baby monitor and trust that my kid was loud enough to wake me if he needed my help.
Now I’m ok, but I still wake up 2 to 5 time per nights. I am pretty sure it’s because I became programmed to do so.
If you can’t stop using your monitor right away, maybe you can try to move it a little bit further every night. First, Ppt it a the bedside table, then after the dresser and finally outside the bedroom.
If your baby monitor is doing more harm than good, it’s better to get rid of it.
4. Watching is addicting
Sure the ability to check on your kid through the video monitor is helpful. It gives you the possibility to make sure your kid is safe without disturbing his sleep. But, after a couple of months, it becomes addictive, and you develop the habit of always checking on your kid.
Because it is so easy to peek inside the bedroom without risking to wake your beautiful sleeping child, it’s something you can do every 15 minutes.
Just like scrolling through your Facebook feed, you start to open the monitor to see if there is something new going on in your kid bedroom.
If this situation sounds familiar, it will be better for you to stop using your baby monitor.
5. You will become a spy
Sure it super cute to see them playing and interacting with their siblings or friends. It’s a privilege to see how our kid is acting when no parent is around.
This curiosity is even more present with parents who use a video baby monitor. Many parents will still be using their baby monitor beyond the point where they would have normally stop with an audio monitor. Because they become fascinated by watching their kid on video. It’s a way for us to see what a great job we are doing at parenting.
Being a spy can backfire really fast.
If your kid realizes you are watching he could modify his actions. Maybe what you see is not what’s happening outside your home.
I don’t want my kid to become the type of person who changes his personality when he is in front of the camera. I don’t want my kid to become a narcissistic jerk who thinks his every move are worth to be seen.
Privacy is essential for everyone. And I’m sure things are happening in my kid room that I don’t want to see.
Remember that what you see can not be unseen!
5 Reasons to keep your baby monitor
There’s no general rule with baby monitors, and they are numerous reasons why to continue to use a baby monitor. My babies are not babies anymore, and we still use our baby monitor on different occasions.
Here are the reasons to keep your baby monitor
1. Sleep training your toddler
As a parent, I feel like I never really knew what my kids were doing when to suppose to sleep. I mean, sometime I could hear noise or little footsteps coming from their bedroom.
My baby monitor was the only I could tell if there are sleeping or playing.
When my son move got his big boy bed, I didn’t take long before we turn back on the baby monitor. I finally understand that when it’s bedtime, it’s for his own good and not just because we wanted him to stop playing. I’m not sure if he really understood the concept of sleep or it was just the fear that we were always watching him. But, it works!
2. Do you live in a large house?
Most parents will stop using a baby monitor when they can hear their kid from the bedroom. But for many families who live in a large house, they will keep on using their baby monitor.
It’s also true for families who have rooms on separate floors. The kid may have his bedroom upstairs, and it can be difficult to hear him.
If you are a heavy sleeper who might not hear your kid asking for help, you probably should keep the monitor for a while. Or at least when your kid is loud enough to wake you.
3. Does your kid have nightmares?
My daughter, until she was 5 years old, used to have nightmares and she could go back to sleep until I reassured her. Hopefully, our rooms were really close, and I could hear her correctly. This situation can be terrifying for a child who calls for help, but the parents are not coming, because their rooms are too far apart.
4. Is your kid sleepwalking?
Depend on the configuration of your house, sleepwalking can be dangerous. If your kid is sleepwalking, he might not make enough noise to wake you. Your baby monitor could be the only way to be alert if he leaves his room.
5. Does your kid have a health condition?
Many parents who’re kid have a health condition will continue to use their baby monitor. It a good solution to keep an eye on their child and be alert if their help is needed.
3 Reasons why I still use my baby monitor
There are situations where a baby monitor is still useful. Here’s why you should not get rid of your baby monitor for good.
1. When my kids are sick
We still use our baby monitor at night when one of the kid is sick, and we need to hear him. It easier for them to fall back to sleep if we intervene fast enough to clean their bed if they are sick. Sometimes we can even catch them at the “coughing stage” and manage to get them to the bathroom before they vomit.
I don’t know for you, but me if I have to clean up the whole bed in the middle of the night, I can’t go back to sleep for at least 45 minutes or more. Using my baby monitor in those situations can make a difference in the quality of sleep I get.
2. When we have friends over for the evening
We like to invite our friends over for dinner. Sometimes those dinners can last past bedtime. Because people are speaking while music is playing, it can be difficult to hear if the kids are calling for us. Couple times a year we will use the baby monitor when we have friends over for the evening.
3. When we travel
We find our baby monitor very useful when we are sleeping outside our home. We like to travel a lot and often. It can be by plane, cruise ship, road trip or camping. We also love to visit the grandparents and friends.
We don’t always know the configuration of the home we are staying at, and we don’t want to go to bed at the same time as our kids. Our baby monitor gives us the possibility to enjoy more our little vacation.
I will probably get rid of the monitor when my kids become teenagers.
As long as I feel like my kids are not mature enough to be let alone by themselves I would keep my baby monitor close by.
My baby monitor is still handy when we go camping or on vacation. There’s always a situation where they are not in my sight, but I want to make sure they are safe.
Use your baby monitor as long as they are useful to your family.
P.S. If you’re seeking for the best baby monitor and hoping to find real reviews from real parents. You should check out this list I created of the top baby monitors.
To get the best insights and tips to find the best baby monitor, I read more than 300 reviews online and ask my friends or others parents. From all their insights and my own experience, I’ve built this list of the best baby monitors.