The Two Kinds of Baby Monitors Worth Having
With a lot of different baby monitors on the market, there's only two practical kinds you need: one that's stationary and one for travel
11/6/20253 min read
Deciding on the right baby monitor for your home can be overwhelming. There are so many out there that boast of different qualities to help track your baby's sleep. From complex ones requiring a WiFi connection to ones that work only within a certain range, there's a lot to consider. After nesting panic set in before our first was born, I found myself researching the various options. Looking back on it, I can now say there are two kinds of monitors you should add to your registry that achieve both practicality and safety. Let's get into it.
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The Details
The first kind of baby monitor you should have in your nursery is a stationary one. This is a monitor that does not leave the room. The reason this is a must have is because of convenience. You don't want to come home from a short trip or other outing, have a sleeping babe in your arms and have to fumble with trying to set up a camera. It's already there and ready to go.
The stationary baby monitor is also the one you would want to have all of the bells and whistles. If you're interested in tracking your baby's sleep, monitoring their breathing, getting real time alerts if they're crying or coughing, and looking back on various milestones or nightly recaps, then you'll want to do that with the monitor that will be staying in the room you little one is consistently sleeping in.
After much research and comparing baby monitors on the market, we ultimately decided to go with the Nanit Pro Smart Baby Monitor with the floor stand. This thing has never left our nursery. The quality of the video feed along with the monitoring features it provides really puts us at ease. The camera connects to your WiFi network and the video is displayed via the Nanit app.
You can access a real-time video feed without a subscription, but in order to view previous videos and nightly recaps, you do have to pay a subscription. The app is very user friendly and worth it to utilize everything that is tracked.
Another feature that sold us on the Nanit was their Breathing Band. This is a velcro band that wraps around your baby's belly and has no tech built into the band. Instead, the camera picks up on the pattern on the band and detects your baby's breathing pattern through that pattern. It is very cool and very reassuring, especially during the peak SIDS/SUID months.
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The second kind of monitor you should have is a travel monitor. This is a non-stationary monitor that's not reliant on WiFi or an app to work. It will typically come with a camera and a screen that connect to each other without any internet connection required. This kind of monitor is great for traveling, outings where your baby may need to nap, and even monitoring elsewhere in your home outside of your nursery.
We have the UKSUP Baby Monitor, which has worked quite well for us in all of the above situations. I will often use this monitor to watch my daughter play in her playroom while I tidy the kitchen or do a load of laundry. We have also brought this on vacation, and even used it in our car for long road trips. The reliability of the monitor off of WiFi is great for this exact reason.
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Another baby monitor we considered was the Owlet Dream Sock that boasts of being a smart wearable baby monitor. I was considering this one during my nesting panic and ultimately decided to hold off until we could see how we liked the Nanit. We did decide that the Nanit met all of our expectations and we felt that we didn't need to get the Owlet. The Owlet does have a baby monitor camera and sock combo, which seems like a good option for closely monitoring your babe's health stats similar to the Nanit, and possibly even more in depth.
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Thanks for reading!