[JabavuAdams]

Q: Why do you want a baby monitor?

We got one as a gift, but hardly used it. Of course both my kids are little Darth Shnorkulas.

I just can't really think of a scenario where the monitor helps. I mean I've had those panicked moments where I'm like "Is my kid dead, and I've just been sitting here playing computer games?" But either get up and check, or just keep playing. They almost never die.

[pavel_lishin]

My favorite part of asking any technical question is the mandatory "you don't actually want to do what you're asking us how to do" :)

Pretty much most of what people said in response; if the baby's asleep and I'm cooking in the kitchen while watching a YouTube video and boiling something, it'd be nice to have a window displaying the kid in the corner so I can tell when it wakes up. Plus, it might be nice to tune in from work and watch it sleep. Plus, the wife wants one.

Given that dedicated hardware ones are expensive, I'd like to try it with one of the old phones we have laying around - if I come to agree with you that it's unnecessary, I won't have wasted $200 on something that really has no other purpose.

[JabavuAdams]

> My favorite part of asking any technical question is the mandatory "you don't actually want to do what you're asking us how to do" :)

As I was writing my response, I realized that I was doing this, but it amused me. So yeah, touché.

[DanBC]

Some children sleep in rooms that have decent sound insulation, and the parents want to know if the child is awake and distressed. (You don't start sleep training a child who is under 6 months.)

[JabavuAdams]

Don't worry, you'll know when they're awake and distressed. I tend to let kids cry for at least a minute before intervening, well, unless they're old enough to be asking for help.

The alternative is madness and leads to divorce or murder-suicide.

EDIT> Actually, I just made that number up. It's all context. My main warning / peeve is that our unrealistic standards of care as modern, educated, intelligent, self-improvement-minded parents actually leads to a shitty child-rearing experience that produces somewhat shitty children, rather than a more laissez-faire approach. Crying is like the weather. We don't always have to fix it.

[pavel_lishin]

I agree with you, and hope I'll be strong enough as a parent to not always come running when my kid starts crying.

[DanBC]

When the child is under 6 months you probably don't want to delay when the child is crying. Under 6 months they cry to communicate a need - they're hungry; they need changing; they're in pain; they're cold' they're lonely.

Most people think it's a good idea to address those needs.

Even the people who like sleep training think you probably shouldn't start when the child is under 6 months.

There are a couple of people who think you can start sleep training under 6 months (Ferber; Gina Ford), but even Ferber sets a minimum age of 4 months.

If you are going to go down the "cry it out" route you will want to carefully investigate the different systems. Some of them have been discredited as harmful and cruel. Ferberization (or Gina Ford, they're pretty similar) is about the harshest system that a modern parent could get away with, but you need to be aware that a lot of people hate this method.

[r00fus]

A: In our case we have twins and when they were babies, if one was rousing, we could put her back to sleep without having the other one wake up (and create a wakeful feedback loop).