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Lightinthebox.com Baby Monitors and Cameras – Beware
This post comes out of my own disappointment. I thought I had found a really great deal on baby monitors and night vision cameras through a company called Lightinthebox.com. I’ve been looking because we recently had another child and was hoping to be able to monitor three or four rooms with a single portable monitor that I can walk around with and hand off to my wife when we change over who is watching the kids and who is working to pay the bills.
Unfortunately, this kind of arrangement is difficult to find. Regular baby monitors are usually just one camera and one monitor. If you look hard enough, you can find two cameras and one monitor, but that isn’t enough for watching a playroom and two bedrooms.
When you get to 3 camera and 4 camera systems, they tend to be security systems. That wouldn’t be bad except that they cost more and the purpose of the cameras is different such that they don’t necessarily make very good baby monitors. Also, security systems often don’t come with cameras that see in the dark, or night vision cameras. A system to monitor your child’s room when they are sleeping (or are supposed to be sleeping) is worthless without night vision type cameras.
At Lightinthebox.com I found tons of great options. So I decided to do some research. You can believe what you want but there are two things that made the difference for me.
The first is Reseller Ratings which I know from some other places where they are pretty much universally panned. Even worse is that a self-identified company official left a “review” to say that he would help and in that “review” he gave his company 5-stars. Where I come from that is a blatant attempt to improve your score fraudulently. Unfortunately for this guy, there are too many reviews for the one review to make any difference.
The second is that they are linked to / the same company as SellerKey which is pretty much universally reviled and despised in the Internet business community.
I guess I’ll have to look elsewhere.
Anyone with a good source for a multi-camera system with a single portable (not attached to a TV or computer) monitor that will allow for all 3 or 4 cameras to be observed and where those cameras come with night vision, let me know.
Otherwise, I’ll keep looking for as long as I can.
Baby Monitors and Over-Responsive Parenting
Baby monitors are a great addition to the parenting tools arsenal. Not only do they extend the range in which a parent can operate without worrying about being unable to hear a crying baby or toddler, but they can also give wonderful insight into another corner of baby’s life. With video monitors, parents can even determine if baby seems physically comfortable or investigate unfamiliar sounds or responses from their little ones. On the other hand, monitors can lead to sleep problems caused by overactive response to baby’s signals.
Without a baby monitor, a child must make sounds which are are above a certain threshold of loudness to be heard. With a baby monitor that threshold can be much lower. This is important because in order to both sleep through the night, and take naps of an appropriate length, babies need to learn to how to wake up, notice their environment, and then drift back to sleep. Doing so requires the ability to reassure oneself that everything is fine and that returning to sleep is the proper course of action. Experts refer to this as self-soothing.
Sleep Cycles For Mom, Dad, and Baby
Sleep experts say that as adults we do the same thing. For an adult, the average sleep cycle from Stage 1 sleep through the end of Stage 4 sleep takes approximately 90 minutes. At the end of this cycle, an adult rouses for a minute or two to ascertain their environment to assure that there is no trouble at hand. It is during this time that covers are pulled up, or kicked off, and one rolls over or otherwise changes position. It is also during this time, that we notice the need to visit the restroom (which will become important to your child later as well.)
The key to this whole process however is being able to make the determination for oneself that everything is O.K.
Being inexperienced in this process, newborn babies will instinctively cry out upon waking without noticing their environment at all. This makes sense considering they are in no position to evaluate it, and they most likely need to eat anyway. However, as baby gets older, they develop self-soothing skills and, like their parents, roll over and go back to sleep instead of crying out for Mom or Dad.
Developing this skill does require some practice. That practice comes in the form of making sounds and noises and calls to Mom and Dad which are not loud enough to be heard and therefore are not responded to. But, with a baby monitor, every sound can be heard. A parent who responds to even these lower sounds will prevent baby from developing the skills needed.
To avoid this, be sure to respond to baby based upon only what you can observe WITHOUT the monitor. One useful tip is to use the baby room monitor to determine when it is time to settle into a position and activity where one can hear baby’s activities without the aid of the monitor and then turn the monitor off. Using this technique, parents can avoid swooping into baby’s room too quickly and prolonging the period of time during which baby does not sleep through the night, or wakes up at every sound without getting enough sleep during naps.
As always, while technology can make parenting easier and more satisfying, it should never take the place of unassisted parenting.
Baby Monitor
Baby Monitor is Critical Gear
One piece of essential gear for any Undefeatable Daddy is a [tag]baby monitor[/tag]. There are so many of them on the market though, making a choice can be difficult. Here is how to narrow it down.
Get the Right Baby Monitor
- Get a video monitor
- Ok, if your baby is less than 6 months old, the video thing is not going to be much more than a novelty. After all, they won’t be moving around much. But, after that, it can be great to see what is going on in there. The first time I noticed that my baby could raise her head up herself was on the baby monitor after she rolled over and wanted to take a look around. After that, I put her on her stomach more knowing that she could lift her head. Now that she can stand and do other things, it is very comforting to be able to peek in and see that the thumping sound is her laying on her stomach and bouncing her foot on the mattress, and not her banging her head against the rails.
- Get night vision
- You would think this would go without saying, but you can’t see into your baby’s room in low light without night vision. Even during the day with the curtains shut you won’t see much without night vision.
- Get a $100-ish one
- Check Amazon and you’ll see plenty of reviews both good and bad for most video monitors. Keep in mind that everyone has a different perspective. If you just want to keep an eye on your baby you only need so much resolution and so big of screen. But, if you want to be able to read over their shoulder you’ll need much better equipment. Something around a $100 is probably all you need for normal purposes.
My Personal Baby Monitor
I use the Summer video monitor. I didn’t test out a bunch of them first. I read some reviews and bought this one. It works, I stuck with it. You’ll see on some reviews about terrible reception. The truth is, this thing is much better at video than it is at audio. My video is pretty much clear and bright all the time, and I live in a pretty urban area. The volume though is much less reliable. It seems to crackle every so often for no reason. If you are moving around with it, forget it. Even sitting on a table it can be pretty touchy. It bizarely seems to matter where you put the volume. Turning it up a little makes the static go away and then putting the volume back where it was before doesn’t make the static come back. Go figure.
As for quality of build, this thing is phenomenal. My daughter likes to play with ours. The way she plays with it is to push the Video On/Off button over and over again. I don’t know much about electronics, but I know this can’t be good for the monitor, but it still works after a year plus of this abuse. Plus, its been dropped about 50 times including from the heights of my arms which probably makes about a 5 foot fall. No problems so far.
The charge seems to last a very long time. So long that once I thought the signal was going out or something because it was getting fuzzy. My wife asked about the battery, and I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I put it on the charger. Once charged it worked like a champ.
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