Baby Video Monitors are an excellent way to watch over your babies and children!

Baby video monitors are an excellent way to watch over your babies and children as they spend their sleeping nights in their own rooms and away from your careful vigilance.

We had several audio baby monitors that worked well from reputable brands, but there was a major flaw in the entire concept of the baby monitor - any time you heard something a little bit off from your child’s bedroom on the speaker, you’d get up and go over to the bedroom to see how they’re doing. It almost defeated the entire monitoring system.

As technology improved and became less expensive, baby video monitors have been introduced, and we purchased our first Summer Infant Day & Night Flat Screen Color Video Monitor with 7" LCD Screen . This Summer Infant model has a 400 foot range with good quality 900 MHz technology. It has a full color daytime video transmission and more importantly, an excellent quality black and white night vision capability. While it comes with one camera, it has two channels for any future additions. The camera is wall or top mountable and can be plugged into any outlet. The 7” LCD screen displays color and black and white for day and night transitions and has volume and brightness control, the two channels and the on/off screen button so you can keep the audio on.

There are several great features that make this one of the best baby video monitors out there. First of all, there’s the 2 channel option which we eventually used in our baby room when we had the video on for our toddler boy and our newborn baby girl. Aligning the cameras directly to the beds high on the walls provide an excellent view of the children’s positions and movements with the ability to see both of them by switching the channels.

The night vision is essential and by far the most used in our home. While this is certainly a useful daytime baby video monitor for around the home, it functions best for us when we put the kids to sleep. Recently, both of our kids suffered from fevers caused by ear infections, an we were able to monitor their movements, calls and general sense of well being while responding quickly to any movements that seemed to indicate discomfort.

And finally the ability to turn the screen off while maintaining audio vigilance. A fantastic feature that combines the benefits of the older audio baby monitors while almost entirely eliminating the need to get up and go to the kids room. With a very quick click of the button, you get an immediate visual of your child and why they may be fussing. Since most of the time they’re just moving around during sleep, you get to witness them fall quietly back to sleep.

Since our oldest girl 11 has her own bedroom, the little ones, boy 3 and girl 20 months share the bigger room. One of the cutest things to see and hear is when they get up first thing in the morning. In bright colors and cute sounds, you can hear the boy talking to his sister as he walks around the room and offers her toys through the crib, and the girl politely responding with cute “Yes” and “Thank you” replies.

There are some drawbacks - there’s usually some interference at the edge of the range when something like another electronic device or human being gets in the way of the reception, and it is sometimes a pain to place it where the interference stops.

But the bigger problem is that these units, unfortunately, have been known to stop working. The good news is that they happen in a very small percentage, and when they do, it is early on and within the manufacturer’s warranty. I’m not sure if that’s still available, but we sure used it and showed no mercy when the first unit died on us. A replacement, after a bit too long, was eventually sent along with a second camera that we ordered. But the replacement unit has been working since and we’ve been entirely happy with it.

Baby video monitors are a great successor to the original audio baby monitors. They’re far more convenient to use and provide immediate visual clues to what might be troubling your baby. We’ve come to rely heavily on ours and recommend this version for its many great features.