When Did You Turn off the Baby Monitor???

My daughter is almost three and we still have hers on. Part of the reason is because I am partially deaf and if she cries I may not hear her. That and she likes to sneak out of her room, so sometimes we can hear the door open over the monitor. Lately though she has been really sneaky and quiet.

My son's a year old and we still use the monitor. We keep it downstairs in the kitchen. We hear him just fine at night even with the bedroom doors closed (keeps the rooms cooler) so we never used one upstairs. I'd hear him even downstairs if he yelled, but usually when he wakes up from a nap he just chills out quietly, so we'd never know he's awake without the monitor. It's also handy if we both need to do yardwork or something, we bring the monitor outside with us.

I think having the speaker in my bedroom would render me totally unable to sleep!

We never got one. I needed to just let them be unless they were crying, which I could easily hear, and had no problem checking frequently on them. My husband wouldnt' hear of it either. We would have never slept a wink with a monitor. Most of my friends were opposite and the monitor helped them sleep. Whatever lets you sleep the best! No hurry to turn it off.

I never used a baby monitor. I may have considered it if we owned a story and a half where the master bedroom is not on the same floor as the kids. Otherwise the thing is useless. Unconsciously we will hear sounds we want to. There isn't a mother on earth that will not wake to their child in distress. An example....when my son was one we lived above my ex husbands business. A garage caught on fire behind the church we share a parking lot with. Six fire trucks and god knows how many other emergency vehicles arrived on our parking lot, did not wake me up. My son woke up the same night, didn't cry, I woke up.

It is the same reason we can wake up without our alarm clock if we actually want to get up. That I guess is the funny part, if you don't want to wake up you wont.

So get rid of the ruddy thing! Especially if it is effecting your sleep. Lord I am sure your kids would rather have a mom awake when they are than when they are asleep. :-/

I kept ours a LONG time in their room. We have a 2 story and I knew it would make it easier on me to know exactly what was going on. Otherwise, I'd just be awake wondering if they were okay. We still have them though, they've come in handy when someone is sick. Even used them for elder care when my Dad was at the end of his life. Lots of great uses.

Mine are 22 mos and 3 1/2, and I always use it for naps and bedtime:) I like to know what's going on, even though we don't go up there for every "mommy-daddy" that comes through! I like it for naps, because my 3 1/2 year old is in between needing a nap and not -- I can keep track of if he's sleeping or not and be informed about his development (daycare 2x a week doesn't use a monitor, and says things like, "he was quiet, so I assume he was sleeping the whole time." I know he can lay relatively quietly for an hour before falling asleep! Anyway, I still daydream about getting the video monitors, and my kids are older than yours!

When she was one and we had to get a regular bed for her because she kept crawling out of the crib.

For some reason she really did stay in bed because we told her not to get out until we came to get her in the morning. Our home is also so small, if she called to us or coughed, I could hear her.

My daughter is 19 months and I still keep her monitor on at night. The funny (or sad thing as some might see it) is that her room is at one end of the hall and ours on the other. We both have our doors open at night and we can see her from our bed. Yet still I find comfort in the monitor, knowing that I will hear any 'danger' if something happened. And the way I see it, if its helping me to get a better nights sleep why not? I am currently pregnant with baby number 2 so Im guessing when I need to use the monitor for this baby that I will finally be able to let my toddler sleep soundly without the monitor beside her all night

I still have my video monitor on my 15 month old. Who cares, leave it on as long as you want. Why not know for sure everythings ok in there!

My son is 6 and the monitor is still on. Mainly because our bedroom is on the first floor and his is upstairs. I'm not ready to give up the monitor yet and don't have any plans to give it up in the near future!

My kids are 15 months and 3 years and I still use a monitor for nap time and at night. We keep it turned on low so that we know when they wake up in the morning or if they're sick in the middle of the night.

My 3 year old's room is downstairs from ours, so it's a necessity since we can't hear her otherwise.

My 15 mo old is just down the hall, but we shut his door so Daddy doesn't wake him up too early as he's getting ready for work in the morning.

As long as you're not using it to go in at every sound they make, but to be sure they're safe, I say use it as long as you want to!

I just stopped using one recently... I always kept it on low, but I always used it b/c my son is tube fed and I needed to be able to hear the beeps and alerts that his pump would provide during the night. After 5 years of tube feeding, we don't use the night pump anymore! I can't believe I can finally sleep through the night! I guess I didn't think about the fact that after we stopped the night feed I stopped using it. I say use it as long or as little as you feel like you need to.

Still have mine turned on and my girls are four. We have a very long house with master at one end and the other bedrooms on the opposite end, so I can't hear even if my kids yelled in the middle of the night. I hate the monitor but can't think of any other way to hear if they need me. They yell only every month or so (nightmare, dropped water bottle and can't find it, door stuck, etc).

Edited to add: I have mine on low so i can only hear yells, not every time someone rolls over.

Just turn it on low if his tossing is waking you.
Nice to have it on for a little while longer.
Keep it on till age 2? Just an idea.

My little guy just turned 4 and I still use it. He almost never wakes up but on those rare occasions when he wakes up screaming I like to be able to hear him.

we still had one for our daughter into her 3rd year - she was a great sleeper, but my kids go to bed long before we do, so it was helpful to have it while we were downstairs, or at nap time, if i were in the basement doing laundry or crafts. Good to be able to hear them if they wake early or are having a nightmare, or when she was learning to potty, if she needed help.

BUT we usually didn't have a reciever right in our bedroom after about 1 year.

2 yrs old when child was finally sleeping through night consistently AND could get out of bed and come get me if he/she woke up. Turn it off when you are comfortable. Pediatrician tells me to turn off monitor at about 12 months when SIDS is no longer a serious threat, but I just do it when I'm ready. There are no 2 kids alike when it comes to sleep patterns.

My daughters are 5 and 2 and we still use them. We don't go running to them for every little toss, turn or sigh but it's nice to know that should they need us, we will hear them. It's just peace of mind for me, that if I should sleep hard I will always hear them.
I don't think it's a big deal.. if you are comfortable with it and it helps you, leave it. If not, well, that's ok too!

30 yrs ago only the critically sick babies had monitors-i was so afraid of sids that for the 1st yr my kids slept ontop of me an i would wake up an chex them every 1/2 hr or so...let me tell ya..it was a long yr.but well worth it.

i will let you know when i turn it off. mine are 7 and i have no plans of getting rid of it. i cannot count the times that thing has been there for my girls. my kids don't cry when they get sick in the middle of the night. instead, they whimper. i am a light sleeper, the times i recall hearing sounds and i would go in to find them burning with fever. i don't know if they would have woken me up if i hadn't heard them. i see no reason why to stop using it.

Never had a baby monitor so I never turned it on ... let alone turned it off LOL

I'd say leave it on as long as you want as long as you're getting enough sleep. If it's disturbing you sleep when he rolls over, but you still want to hear him when he wakes up, turn the volume down. I know on some you can adjust the sensitivity, so maybe try that if it can be done.

I didn't turn off the monitor until my boys were old enough to stay in bed and sleep through the night in a toddler/"big boy" bed. I guess that was about 3 years old. We lived in houses where the kid bedrooms were on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom, so I wanted a way to keep "an ear" on them, so they wouldn't play all night and be trolls the next day. Also, I wanted to make sure they were old enough to be able to race down the hall to my room if they needed me. Once I knew they could do all that, the monitor disappeared.

Since neither son was observant enough to notice they HAD a monitor, I never suffered the "MMMOOOOOOOOMMMMMMY!" scream through the monitor. They just thought I was supermom who KNEW when they were 1) in trouble, 2) needing help or 3) on the verge of making a very poor choice! Too funny...

Use your monitor until you're comfortable not listening in at night. For some that's very young; for others, it's much later. I don't think there's a better or worse time.

Good luck!

About 9 or 10 months! We could hear both of ours fine without it. Ours played in their cribs for up to an hour before totally wanting to get out, so we cherished that extra sleep without hearing all the fun!