little noah things

Hi, I’m Kim and I’m addicted to the Angelcare Monitor.

For those of you who are not familiar with what this monitor is all about, it monitors your baby’s breathing so that you can rest assured they are still alive in their crib. If they stop breathing for more than 20 seconds an alarm will sound on the base unit to wake them up. If they still are not breathing a god-awful screeching siren noise will emanate from the base unit as well as all of the monitors. There are also other fun features like a thermometer so you can see the temperature in your baby’s room on the monitor, and of course there is a nightlight on the base. Basically, it is super fancy and if you think about it better than a video monitor for totally paranoid parents because you don’t have to squint at the screen to see if your baby is breathing.

My sister-in-law gave me hers to use when I had Noah since her boys were older. The funny thing is, I didn’t start using this monitor until Noah was 8 months old. I used the sound monitor part, but I never actually hooked up the motion sensor. Noah slept with us so much of the night, and he was pretty noisy when he was sleeping in his crib for the few hours he spent in there, I didn’t want to mess with it.

Then he got The Croup. The croup affected his breathing and I had been spending his nap times in our steamed up bathroom so I could make sure he was breathing and had him sleep with us while he was sick. Once he was better and it was time for him to sleep in his crib again I was seriously paranoid. What if I don’t hear him if he is having a hard time breathing? What if he just stops breathing in his sleep?! I know, totally unlikely, and I should be over this particular fear by now.

Sam HATES this monitor. There are a few times that I have forgotten to turn off the monitor when I bring Noah back to bed around 4 or 5 in the morning and the horrid “Dead Baby! Soon to be Dead Baby! Your baby is not breathing!” Alarm goes off. There was also that time when the monitor went off in the middle of the night when Noah was in the crib. Sam and I rushed back there in a terrified panic being roused from a deep sleep. Noah was breathing just fine and somehow did not wake up during all the alarms and whatnot. He was just sleeping on the far end of the crib all scrunched up next to the wall, at least that’s why I think it went off.

Now a friend of mine is having her second baby and a few days before Noah got sick I told her she could have this monitor since I don’t really use it. Ha! She had her baby shower over the weekend and all week I kept forgetting that I needed to pack it up and ended up not bringing it to the shower. I keep telling myself I didn’t forget on purpose.

Dear Katie,
I am sorry for not bringing the monitor. I am giving it to Kerry tomorrow to bring to you. I am going cold turkey on the monitor. When you reach the point where you need to give the monitor to someone else, I’ll be there for you. You can just call me when you wonder if your baby is breathing and I will tell you, yes. Unless you can’t give it up and end up using it until they go away to college. Actually, wouldn’t this monitor be awesome for when we have teenagers? We could just look at the little tic feature to see if there are in their beds or if they decided to sneak out and go to that party. Also, I suppose there is a chance I may not make it through the week and end up breaking down and buying myself another monitor. No. That won’t happen. Here’s to being strong.
Kim