The great benefit of a baby monitor or alarm is that you can keep a check on your baby when you are not physically in the room. How many times did I actually wake my children in the early days when I thought I heard them cry? Monitors are extremely useful when your infant is sleeping at night or taking a day time nap and you want to be in a different part of the house.

With a monitor you have the ability to listen to your child and assess their cries or noises without disturbing them. You will be able to identify the type of noise and know when your child needs your attention. This gives a parent confidence to get on with work or chores (or simply have a rest) as the monitor provides reassurance that you will hear and respond when your child wakes.

There are many monitors on the market, although they are fairly simple pieces of equipment the choice can be overwhelming. Manufacturers now allow you to listen to your baby, watch it via a camera, talk back to them, assess cry with light cues and even check correct room temperature!! How do you decide? The best way is to decide what would give you most reassurance, then read some reviews online. You can save yourself money and time by buying online at baby care stores and read reviews by genuine users.

The basic baby Monitor works by using a radio transmitter. Your baby's sounds are transferred to a receiver which has an inbuilt speaker and enables you to hear your child from various locations in the house, within range. Remember when a monitor is on, if you enter your child's room anyone near the receiver will also hear, so if you have unwelcome visitors be careful what you say, don't tell junior his granny's knitted suit is awful when she's downstairs!

Some monitors have light cues which change color or flash to alert you to the intensity of the cry. These are useful for both hearing impaired and hearing parents.

As monitors are mostly wireless you have freedom of movement around the house. They also have a choice of frequencies so you can select one that doesn't interfere with any other device or your neighbors monitor!

On the whole monitors transmit one way from the infant to the parent. However you can buy some models that allow you to talk back to your infant, this can comfort and sooth some babies back to sleep. Also some babies like to sleep with the reassurance of environmental noise, my son loved the washing machine. Some models allow you to see your child via a video monitor giving you added peace of mind whilst out of the room.

Baby Monitors come in a range of styles and prices but for peace of mind and reassurance they are priceless.