Most parents will tell you they couldn’t survive without their baby monitor – a simple audio device which allows you to listen out for your baby from another room.

If your baby is tucked up and asleep upstairs, you can watch television downstairs, safe in the knowledge that you’ll be alerted instantly if your baby starts to cry.

As technology progresses, so too do baby monitors.

Manufacturers are using the very latest technology to take baby monitors, and other baby products, to the next level. However, the jury is still out on whether this is a good thing or not.

Should we rely on technology to monitor our babies, or should we attempt to tune into our natural instincts more often, and trust our parenting skills?

Or is it possible to do both?

Neebo – The Next Generation Baby Monitor

The Neebo is one of the latest baby gadgets to create a storm in the tech world. This watch-sized baby monitor fits perfectly around your baby’s wrist.

The Neebo tracks your baby’s heartbeat and alerts you of any problems. It can also be used to track your baby’s temperature and blood oxygen levels.

The Neebo also filters out background noise, allowing you to hear only the sounds your baby is making. This means you’ll know when your baby wakes up, even before she cries. The technology even lets you use the monitor to chat to your baby, and you can choose the entertainment options to keep your baby engaged.

Sounds pretty snazzy, right? But some parents can’t help wondering whether it isn’t just a little too fancy for a baby monitor. Do we really need a baby monitor to tell us if our babies are cold? Can’t we just reach out and touch them? Do we need to keep track of our baby’s heart rate, or is this just one more thing to worry about, in the world of modern parenting?

A Monitor For Peace Of Mind Or Fuelling Anxieties?

The big question is whether the additional features will provide parents with peace of mind, or whether it’s simply going to add to the list of worries new parents already have.

As a new parent, I know how easy it is to fill your mind with irrational fears. I can’t help but feel it would be more useful to teach new parents how to trust their instincts, and have faith in their ability to look after their newborn babies, rather than create complex and expensive products that risk reinforcing the message that parental instinct is not enough.

It could be argued that, for some babies, the Neebo could be a life-saving device.

It’s important to remember, however that babies considered high-risk for breathing difficulties are provided with monitors from the hospital, so there’s no need for parents to spend excessive amounts of money on fancy baby monitors.

The Neebo also claims to deliver medical quality information to parents, but it’s important to remember that most babies simply do not need medical information to be tracked in this way.

The Neebo is available for pre-order in the US, Canada and EU countries and is expected to ship mid to late 2017. You can find out more on the company’s website. The product costs $269 Australian dollars and can be secured with a deposit of $66 (the rest is paid around the time of shipping). Around 80% are sold already.

Will you be investing in a Neebo baby monitor?