Angelcare AC5401 Digital Baby Monitor

Baby monitors are an essential addition to any nursery but with so many options out there it can be hard to know what one is best. For me the choice was made easier thanks to a friend who recommended the monitor we use in our home. It doesn't only pick up sound (as with all baby monitors) to alert you to a crying baby but also monitors movement when your little un is in the crib (or indeed moses basket as it worked just as well in there for us).

This particular baby monitor comprises three elements: a parent unit, nursery unit and sensor pad. The parent unit is plugged into the main room (ie. the living room) although the unit itself is mobile and so can be taken wherever you go in the house (and indeed garden). The nursery unit, as its name would suggest, is positioned in the nursery or room where the baby sleeps (remember it is recommended that babies sleep in the same room as their parents for the first six months so Lily's nursery is for the time being our bedroom!). It is connected to a sensor pad which needs to be positioned under the mattress of the crib. 

When all three elements are connected, it's relatively simple to set the unit up. In essence the system works in the following way:

The nursery unit is switched on whenever baby is put in the crib by a switch on the left hand side. A green light indicates the unit is on, while a second green light flashes when movement (ie baby's heartbeat) is detected. There is the additional option of lighting the unit up - the halo on the top of the unit emits a low night light via a switch on the right hand side of the unit.

The parent unit displays a ticking icon on it to represent movement being detected by the sensor pad. This ticking icon can be accompanied by a ticking sound but personally we turn the sound off as in our experience it makes you become a little obsessive at listening out for the tick! The LCD screen on the parent unit also displays the temperature of the nursery - a handy feature which ensures your baby is not too hot or cold in her room. 

If movement isn't detected in the crib an alarm will sound from both monitors. I have heard of some other baby monitors on the market similar to this that have emitted false alarms - scaring the parents half to death, running upstairs only to find all is well with their little un. In the time we have been using it this has never happened to us. We do, however, check the alarm is functioning properly for peace of mind which is easy enough to do. If you lift baby out of the crib, thereby stopping the sensor pad from picking movement up, and leave the nursery unit switched on the alarm is quickly triggered.

Having our daughter's sound and movement monitored is a definite plus point and has certainly helped my husband and I relax more when we put our daughter to bed. We now take the monitor with us when we are staying over at friends or family so that we can, with the help of Angelcare, keep a watchful eye on Lily wherever she is sleeping. The only snag thus far has been that we seem to have to re-set the monitor's settings when it is moved from our home and installed somewhere else but I have to stress that this may be down to something we are not doing correctly rather than a fault of the system.

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