What To Look For In A Nursery Baby Monitor

By Author: Simone Butler
Total Articles: 434
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Baby monitors are an essential piece of nursery equipment for today's parents, offering the opportunity to oversee your sleeping baby with the disturbance of entering his room. As with most consumer products, there are thousands of products to choose from, with a wide range of features that you may or may not need. So what should you be looking for in a good monitor?

The first thing to check is whether the transmission technology is analogue or digital. Analogue monitors are cheaper, but are prone to interference and a noisy distorted signal. Digital, on the other hand, can offer crystal clear sound which lets you hear everything that's going on, even down to breathing. This might actually be a disadvantage when you're trying to sleep yourself at night, so make sure your model has variable sensitivity so you can set it to only broadcast the louder noises which will need your attention.

Digital monitors also have a better range than analogue ones. If you think you might be spending time in the garden, for example, while your child sleeps, then make sure the model you buy has sufficient range to let you do that. ...
... Remember too that the figures quoted for range are for under ideal conditions, and don't take into account the number and thickness of any obstacles and walls between you and the nursery, so err on the safe side.

Also check how many channels your unit can broadcast on - the higher the better. In today's increasingly wireless world, more and more devices are competing for radio spectrum, so a monitor that can work on more than one channel is less likely to conflict with other transmitters in the area.

More expensive monitors also feature a video option where you can check visually on your baby. Once, these offered only low-quality black and white images and even those only in daylight, Today's models offer much better picture quality, and can even be used in darkness if they have a nightvision feature.

A final option to consider is whether you need a breathing and/or movement sensor. This will listen out for signals that your baby has stopped breathing, and sound an urgent alarm if it detects that this might be the case. While this is unnecessary for the vast majority of parents, those with a poorly child may find this added level of reassurance very desirable.

As with all things, you get what you pay for, and the better the quality of monitor, the more it's going to cost you. Because of this, it's worth getting the best quality monitor you can that only offers the features you need, rather than one that tries to do everything at a knockdown price - units like this can be unreliable, and an unreliable baby monitor is barely worth having.

About the author: Simone writes for http://www.becomingaparent.co.uk/ where you can read more about baby monitors at http://www.becomingaparent.co.uk/nursery-equipment/baby-monitors/