The thing about new babies, even when they aren't your first, they come with a whole massive range of new kit. 10 weeks in with Baby No. 3, and I'm still getting to grips with a whole raft of new gadgets.
Since we've had Sam we've had to rejig the whole house and for the first time I've felt the need for a baby monitor. The first two boys had always been within easy ear shot, so I never used a monitor with them, but Sam is sleeping 2 floors up and if he was to start crying I wouldn't be able to hear him.
I've always been a bit on the side of Billy Connolly when it comes to baby monitors. In a truly brilliant sketch (which I have searched and searched for to see if I could include it in this review) he talks about how you listen on the monitor to the sleeping, peaceful baby only to instantly convince yourself that you can't hear anything because the baby isn't breathing and proceed to panic. But with Sam so far away, I really did want to have the reassurance that he wasn't crying unheard, so we were thrilled to offered the chance to review a Tommee Tippee baby monitor.
The Suresound Ultimate Baby Monitor works by allowing you to hear any noise in the baby's room, but also has the ability to sound an alarm if the sensor pad hasn't sensed movement from the baby for 20 seconds.
We haven't used the Sensor pad. It is suitable for use in cots, but as Sam is still in his little crib we haven't had the opportunity to use it. To be honest, I am not sure that this is a function that we will be making use of, I can see myself becoming like Billy Connolly too easily, but I can see how some parents would find this very helpful and reassuring.
As for the Sound aspect of the monitor, I've been very impressed. It is silent except when there is a sound in the bedroom, but there are lights to show that the monitor is working well. It is portable, the range easily encompassing our house, although it does eat batteries if you use it away from its stand too much. The base has a number of funky features as well. I liked the night light; although it seemed quite bright at first, it didn't affect my (or Sam's) sleep and I've grown quite attached to its amber glow. There is also a digital thermometer giving a read out of the babies room. I don't totally trust its readings, in the coldest December/January for umpteen years when our central heating couldn't get the temperature above 14C, the monitor was reading 20C. It so wasn't 20C. It was cold enough to be picking ice off the inside of the windows. OK, not literally but it felt that way.
My one reservation with this piece of equipment is that our monitor was very sensitive to any other electrical items. So, when the base was placed near to a phone charger, the monitor didn't work very well. There was constant beeping and large amounts of interference. It took us forever to work out what the problem was. When we finally sussed it, we realised that any electrical item placed nearby would cause this problem. Now we've removed the phone charger everything is hunky dory again.
Overall, this particular Monitor is a bit gadgety for me, I would have been happier with a plain vanilla version, but setting aside the electrical interference issue we've found it to be a good and reliable piece of kit.
This post is a sponsored post for which I received a Tommee Tippee Suresound Ultimate Baby Monitor to review free of charge.