baby monitors....are they an essential?

I don't think we will use ours much in the begining as our house is designed so that eveythigs is central,plus he will be sleeping in our room at night.
When we move him into his own room I might use it as the boys sleep next door and teenagers waking grumpily in the middle of the night is not a pleasant thing! This I guess will all depend on how he is sleeping then too. If he's still waking in the night then we'll have to use it, but if we are fortunate enough (fingers crossed everyone) to have him sleep through the night then it probably won't need to be used much.
the rooms not far from ours (just the other side of the bedroom) but to stop bubs from waking the big boys it might need to be used.

We sleep soundly at night knowing that if our son stops breathing,the angelcare monitor will alarm and we'll be there in a second.

Although, we have had a few false alarms, where he's been sleeping on the edge of the cot and not on the sensor pads. First few times scare the hell out of you. It's amazing how fast you can run while you're still half asleep. :lol:

thanks ladies for all ur comments, I think we may end up getting one as our house is two story (its the old beachcomber style, on stilts IYKWIM) so would be very handy when doing washing and outside.

thanks for mentioning the brands & styles you have 2 - the movement one sounds great, i think we would greatly appreciate that piece of mind considering this is our first bub and we will probably be up checking every 5 minutes anyway!!

thanks again - some great reading

I recieved a fisher-price one as a gift which we used when bub was first born as we were living in a double story and he slept upstairs. Now that we are in our new house and he sleeps in the next room with the door open, we haven't used it once. I still manage to hear every noise he makes- and as baby monitors amplify every sound- we really couldn't handle any more noise!! Plus, as Kell said, you will find your mother instinct is stronger than you think. I seem to always wake about 5 mins before bub- its bizzare. They start to stir long before they cry and I've got bub on the boob before he even has the chance to wake-up fully and cry!! Another thing to consider is that baby monitors omit radiation which can be harmful for bub. Apparently there is a device that you can purchase to minimise the radiation.
However, if you feel that you will have difficulty hearing bub during the day from one end of the house to the other- than you will find a monitor useful.

I don't think they are a necessity but they are great to have, even if you go to someones house overnight or have a bbq..

I have an angelcare, would never go without it now.. well worth the money

nope! they arnt essential at all... :)

We have received an Angel Care Sound and Movement monitor, was something we decided we wanted for some extra piece of mind, first time parents and a bit nervous! Will be very useful in the new house though as it is a long bigger than the one we are in now and is two story, plus with office separate from the main house (via a connecting corridor).

But each to their own really, we have friends who chose a motion sensing video camera which would activate when bubs moved... they said it was fun to watch what bubs did while sleeping! But wasn't useful when bubs got big enough and found the camera!