Some of you may be privy to this information already, but I finally caved and bought a video baby monitor. It only took three times of seeing one for half price on kids woot and a few weeks of erratic naps to eventually justify the $80 purchase to myself.
I ended up getting the Motorola MBP20 with the 1.5" color screen and "talk back" feature. It's all good and the reception has been great across our house. One thing they don't tell you in any of the literature and I had to figure out after musing at it for a few hours is that the sound on the parent unit cuts out when the microphone on the baby unit doesn't detect "sound" for 20 seconds. Now, what they apparently think "sound" is seems to be different than my definition. It only really detects his voice or banging. It doesn't detect little feet on sheets, which I was always able to hear on our other monitor and know he was still awake in there. Anyway, it ends up being fine because when I have any doubt about whether or not he's actually asleep, I just look at the monitor! AND I got some of the best sleep I've had in many, many nights last night and I think it's because I wasn't hearing every little tiny movement he made while he was sleeping.
Score 1 for video monitor.
I used it for his afternoon nap yesterday and discovered that he was spending all his time playing with my old stuffed duck that I had been letting him sleep with for almost a month now. I thought he didn't care about the duck! It was always at the other end of the crib when I would go in to check on him and when I would try and snuggle Pontius next to him when putting him down, he never responded. I have found him sleeping on the duck once or twice, but those were rare occasions. Well, come to find out, he was talking to the duck, and tossing the duck around the crib, and chewing on the duck, and flinging the duck. There he was yesterday, having a grand ol' time with Pontius instead of falling asleep. Some of you may also know (maybe only grandparents) that we NEVER go back into his room after we've put him down. It's been that way since he was 4 months old. Naps, bedtime, it didn't matter. We never went back in. There have been a few times when I heard something disconcerting and went in there to check. Once, he has thrown up an entire bowl of oatmeal after a coughing attack. A few other times he hasn't fallen asleep after about an hour of happily playing, so I go in there, leer at him in the dark from the doorway, and say, "Abram, go to sleep" just to make him cry and pout and lie down and ultimately fall asleep. So yesterday, I went in to take Pontius away from him and he freaked out. But after 1 hour of playing and then 3 minutes of crying, he was taking an afternoon nap for the first time in three days.
Score 2 for video monitor.
His sleeping schedule has been pretty crazy and so I don't know when to put him down for naps. He's actually been sleeping later in the mornings, recently. Despite this fact, he has taken a champion 2-3 hour morning nap very consistently, so the idea of one nap was fading into the background for the time being. Last night he slept from 8:30pm until 9:45am. Craziness. He was getting up around 7:30 last week. I'm trying not to get used to it, because he might just being on the verge of a "developmental milestone" (walking?!) and needing the sleep.
As I sit here blogging this morning and putting off the things that I really need to do (like getting ready to leave for our Christmas vacation!) I have been watching him lie still for awhile, suddenly stand up, play with the curtains behind his crib, point at the pictures on his bulletin board he can barely see, play fetch in his crib with his pacie, etc for an hour and 15 minutes. Every time he settles down and I think he's going to go to sleep, he bolts up a few minutes later to do more "fun" stuff. He's been rolling from one end of his crib to the other, too. Which if you saw this video:
you understand, as I do now, that he was just being a punk. He still tells me he can't roll. But when we ask him if he can roll his ball (a large pink yoga ball that he used to be terrified of and now loves), he will gladly roll that around. But then I ask "now can you roll?" and still get a head shake. Well, I don't really want him rolling around the house anyway, I guess.
Right now it seems as if we are also on the verge of giving him a good rolling companion in his sister. She is rockin' out in there and getting a lot bigger really fast. At the 20 week ultrasound she was 12 oz. (right on track) and I'm definitely visibly pregnant now. No hiding it. Not like I wanted to :)
Look at that little nose!
Our big 3D anatomy sonogram is January 10th and I'm super excited. I also don't know if I ever said this here, but the doctor had been a little worried about how close the placenta was to my cervix. If it is covering the opening it's called "placenta previa" and can cause bleeding and basically means you have to have a c-section. He checked it at this last visit and it's a good centimeter away and getting farther. So it's called "low lying placenta", but hasn't caused and shouldn't cause any other issues. Praise God!
Well, this one was definitely talk heavy and not picture heavy. So sorry if you made it to the end expecting pictures. I'm just going to sit here a few minutes longer eating shortbread cookies and milk and watching Abram TV, which has not gotten to the sleeping part yet. But this part is much more entertaining.
I ended up getting the Motorola MBP20 with the 1.5" color screen and "talk back" feature. It's all good and the reception has been great across our house. One thing they don't tell you in any of the literature and I had to figure out after musing at it for a few hours is that the sound on the parent unit cuts out when the microphone on the baby unit doesn't detect "sound" for 20 seconds. Now, what they apparently think "sound" is seems to be different than my definition. It only really detects his voice or banging. It doesn't detect little feet on sheets, which I was always able to hear on our other monitor and know he was still awake in there. Anyway, it ends up being fine because when I have any doubt about whether or not he's actually asleep, I just look at the monitor! AND I got some of the best sleep I've had in many, many nights last night and I think it's because I wasn't hearing every little tiny movement he made while he was sleeping.
Score 1 for video monitor.
I used it for his afternoon nap yesterday and discovered that he was spending all his time playing with my old stuffed duck that I had been letting him sleep with for almost a month now. I thought he didn't care about the duck! It was always at the other end of the crib when I would go in to check on him and when I would try and snuggle Pontius next to him when putting him down, he never responded. I have found him sleeping on the duck once or twice, but those were rare occasions. Well, come to find out, he was talking to the duck, and tossing the duck around the crib, and chewing on the duck, and flinging the duck. There he was yesterday, having a grand ol' time with Pontius instead of falling asleep. Some of you may also know (maybe only grandparents) that we NEVER go back into his room after we've put him down. It's been that way since he was 4 months old. Naps, bedtime, it didn't matter. We never went back in. There have been a few times when I heard something disconcerting and went in there to check. Once, he has thrown up an entire bowl of oatmeal after a coughing attack. A few other times he hasn't fallen asleep after about an hour of happily playing, so I go in there, leer at him in the dark from the doorway, and say, "Abram, go to sleep" just to make him cry and pout and lie down and ultimately fall asleep. So yesterday, I went in to take Pontius away from him and he freaked out. But after 1 hour of playing and then 3 minutes of crying, he was taking an afternoon nap for the first time in three days.
Score 2 for video monitor.
His sleeping schedule has been pretty crazy and so I don't know when to put him down for naps. He's actually been sleeping later in the mornings, recently. Despite this fact, he has taken a champion 2-3 hour morning nap very consistently, so the idea of one nap was fading into the background for the time being. Last night he slept from 8:30pm until 9:45am. Craziness. He was getting up around 7:30 last week. I'm trying not to get used to it, because he might just being on the verge of a "developmental milestone" (walking?!) and needing the sleep.
As I sit here blogging this morning and putting off the things that I really need to do (like getting ready to leave for our Christmas vacation!) I have been watching him lie still for awhile, suddenly stand up, play with the curtains behind his crib, point at the pictures on his bulletin board he can barely see, play fetch in his crib with his pacie, etc for an hour and 15 minutes. Every time he settles down and I think he's going to go to sleep, he bolts up a few minutes later to do more "fun" stuff. He's been rolling from one end of his crib to the other, too. Which if you saw this video:
Right now it seems as if we are also on the verge of giving him a good rolling companion in his sister. She is rockin' out in there and getting a lot bigger really fast. At the 20 week ultrasound she was 12 oz. (right on track) and I'm definitely visibly pregnant now. No hiding it. Not like I wanted to :)
Look at that little nose!
Well, this one was definitely talk heavy and not picture heavy. So sorry if you made it to the end expecting pictures. I'm just going to sit here a few minutes longer eating shortbread cookies and milk and watching Abram TV, which has not gotten to the sleeping part yet. But this part is much more entertaining.
I'm looking into video monitors. I found a cheap one on Craigslist... I think it's a Summer Baby Brand?? Elle has started standing in her crib, which makes the "teaching her how to fall asleep" part of my day much more difficult trying to discern if her cry is a "standing and I need mama to come in and show me that it's not okay for me to be doing this" cry or a "lying down and I'll eventually fall asleep" cry.
ReplyDeleteShould I just go for it with the video monitor and get a good quality one, or stick with the used craigslist option? Thoughts?