Product Review: Angelcare Deluxe Movement & Sound Baby Monitor

I've wanted to do a review on the Angelcare Deluxe Movement and Sound Monitor for quite some time, because it is something that we hold in high regard around our house. We've used an Angelcare monitor since the day we brought Cupcake home from the hospital, and now use it in both girls' rooms. We're even still using the movement monitor on Cupcake's Angelcare monitor at almost 2 years old... because we've also found a nice secondary use for the movement monitor - it lets you know if someone has climbed out of their crib! (Which has only happened once, knock on wood... but it was good to know by the alarm the day it did happen!)

Angelcare Deluxe Movement and Sound Monitor, www.amazon.com, $159

The Angelcare Deluxe movement monitor has the regular sound monitor option to hear the sounds in the room, but also senses movement in the bed which basically equals it monitors the baby's breathing during the middle of the night or while sleeping. If it does not sense movement after 15 seconds, a warning beep goes off on the base unit, after 20 seconds, an alarm sounds on the base unit and the portable parent unit that you carry with you. The slightest amount of movement can be detected by the monitor, so you have to make sure to test the room before using it with the baby... to make sure that ceiling fans or drafts aren't causing a false movement reading. In that instance, the sensitivity can be adjusted up or down to better meet your room atmosphere, however lowering the ceiling fan level may also be necessary.

We've test the monitor before and it doesn't just sense weight, it does actually sense the slight movement of a sleeping baby breathing. We've set books or other inanimate objects in the crib when we first got the monitor to simulate the weight of a baby, and indeed the alarm still goes off. It must sense movement. If you lightly touch your hand across the top of the crib sheet, the monitor can sense that. It is that effective.

We did have a number of false alarms with Cupcake's monitor in the beginning, she has the ONE under mattress pad version, which is the original version. From about 2 months old until 7 months old, we would occasionally have false alarms with her Angelcare monitor, if she had scooted herself into the corner of the crib where the monitor could not pick her movement up. (Since the pad is placed in the center of the crib under the mattress.) Once she was large enough that her body mass was just large enough to be able to always be within the radius of the movement pad sensor capability, the false alarms subsided.

For Peanut, we decided to get the TWO under mattress pad version - to try to reduce the number of false alarms... and indeed it has! Since we moved Peanut to her room, we have only had the alarm go off less than a handful of times, and each of the times it did go off - we felt it was legitimately a true alarm because she had not taken a breath for 20 seconds. (Which is more common in younger babies than I think most people realize... she also went through a period where she was having eating and breathing troubles, which I think increased her odd of having a legitimate alarm go off.) Since her eating troubles have subsided, we have not had any further alarms with the two pad version. I would confidently say, we have not had any false alarms with the two pad version.

The parent units are easy to use and switch between the functions that you want the monitor to use. You can use the monitor with sound only, movement sensing only, Tic sound on, Tic Sound off, and it also has a function that can set a different alarm if the temperature of the room goes outside an acceptable range that you set. I really like that the temperature of the rooms is shown on the face of the monitor, and we actually use that alot to control the temperature in our home and in our girls' rooms.

All in all, I would recommend the Angelcare movement monitor to any exception or new parent that was considering it. It has definitely been worth the money, and we liked it so much with our first daughter that we had no hesitation in buying a second one! While of course there are other precautions you should take for the prevention of SIDS, the Angelcare monitor has helped me to sleep better at night when I knew I wouldn't be able to go in and continually check on the sleeping baby.

I also like that the monitor goes UNDER the mattress and that there are no wire or other apparatus from the monitor inside of the crib. Another popular model has a clip that goes on the baby's diaper to detect movement, however the lifespan of that monitor seems fairly limited - since the baby will be able to remove the monitor on their own by age 6-7 months or sooner. (And also could be agitating to them when they begin rolling over on their own.) Having a two under mattress pad version would definitely be my recommendation after having had both the one pad and two pad versions. It seems to lessen the chances of having a false alarm, and also gives you more confidence that the entire span of the crib is being covered by the monitor.

Check out my You Tube review, on my new "Mommy Vlogging" Channel!

New You Tube Mommy Vlogging Channel, for mommy vlogging, baby product reviews, and more:

www.youtube.com/beingmommywithstyle

Thanks for stopping by! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, as you can tell... the Angelcare Movement Monitor is something we definitely passionate about around our house!