Conference moira::parenting_v3

    Dear "Tired Mom"...
    
    I don't know how to answer all your questions.   However, I do
    have a suggestion as to how you can determine whether the monitor
    is working or not.  We put a digital clock in our son's room when
    he was an infant.   Our monitor (and probably most brands) was
    so sensitive that it easily picked up the steady tick-tick-tick
    of the clock.  
    
    As far as your other concerns, I suspect that if you left yours and
    Matthew's bedroom doors open, you will be able to hear him if he
    cries such that he needs attention (i.e. loudly).   I stopped using
    the monitor after awhile because I am a light sleeper and I would
    waken if our son cried out lightly or turned over.   I slept alot
    better after I quit using it.   I didn't really worry about the
    breathing part either - we had no reason to be worried about apnea
    from a health standpoint - and I don't really believe that you can
    prevent something like SIDS unless stood next to the crib 24 hours
    a day.
    
    Good luck and good sleep,
    carol

First thing is  R E L A X ...

Unless your baby has health problems, do yourself a favour and try turning off 
the baby monitor! It will pick up and amplify any noises, disturbing your 
sleep.  Millions of babies have slept in rooms where mum and dad could barely 
hear the baby.  You will hear your crying baby ... unless you are related to 
Rip van Winkle :-) ... without the monitor ... because your house will be so
comparatively quiet in the night.

If you can't bring yourself to do that (and I really would recommend that you
try for a few nights), try the clock, but make sure the volume is low enough
so that the tick is a little quieter than the clock would be in your own room.
That way you won't hear baby rolling over, rustling the covers, grunting,
gurgling, playing in the middle of the night (yes, they do that, and put
themselves back to sleep without your intervention) ... all the things that
are wrecking your sleep.  You can be sure that you'll hear the crying though.

It's too easy to worry too much about our kids ... as was mentioned in the
baby monitor note ... generations did without monitors ... and survived.

When you can relax, parenting a baby gets SO much easier.

Stuart

    Another alternative is to consider using the small study as a bedroom
    during your child's infancy, and then moving him upstairs in a couple
    years.  
    
    We have a similar dilemma - 2 bedrooms downstairs, 2 up. If/when we
    have another child, I'm not sure when or if we'll move Ryan upstairs.
    

    We have the same situation in our house.  When our daughter first moved
    upstairs I was a wreck as well (around 4 mos.).  My husband and I tried
    moving upstairs into the spare room but it just wasn't as comfortable
    as *our* room.  So we left the monitor on all night.  At first, I
    seemed to hear every sound, every movement she made (probably not, but
    it felt that way).  But after a while you really do get used to it.  I
    make sure the monitor is low enough so I don't hear any background
    noise.  
    
    She's two now and we still use it.  Since she moved into a bed
    we keep the door shut to the upstairs. I don't want to have to worry
    about her wandering in her sleep somehow and then falling down the
    stairs!  So I'd say, do what you feel comfortable with.  I simply
    wasn't comfortable *not* having the monitor on.
    
    Susan
    

    For a while when David was about 4 months old I'd wake up at least
    two or three times every night in a cold sweat of panic and go
    running into his room convinced I was going to find his cold dead
    body strangled by his crib blanket, or the window smashed, with
    broken glass lying across the empty blood-stained crib. 
    
    Rather funny because I had breezed through the first two without a
    worry, the casual "People have been raising babies for millions of
    years" attitude.  But for some reason it didn't work this time.
    I'd tell myself all the "relax" things, tried monitor on and
    monitor off, and generally tried to use common sense.  But it
    didn't do much good because I was trying to use rationality on a
    primitive emotional fear.  
    
    The worst of it passed in a month or so when I gradually found
    that every time I went in he was sleeping peacefully.
    
    Oh, and this did take place shortly after I came back to work.  So
    I assumed it was associated with guilt over not being home with
    him all day any more. (Another feeling I never had with the first
    two!)
    
    I don't have any advice for you, except that perhaps some quiet
    time to reflect on your personal reasons why you're so worried
    might help ease your fears.  And it, like so many of motherhood's
    other difficult stages, will pass.
    
    --bonnie

RE .1

I think you mean a wind-up clock that ticks. Digital clocks are
usually silent as electrons don't make noise when they work.

I am sure that all the responses will tell you to relax and trust
that your little will survive you and all the bugs and scrapes of
being a child can bring.

calvin

    re: .6
    
    It has been pointed out to me that my terminology is in error.
    I use a analog display clock with quartz movement.  The tick
    comes from the movement of the second hand.  It is battery-operated,
    not wind-up.   I still think that it is possible to get the gist
    of my response without picking it apart!
    

re: .7

I read your .1 and thought "I've never heard a digital clock, tick".  I'm
sorry but .6 is not being picky.  If you walk into any store and ask to see a
digital clock, you will NOT be shown one with hands.

Bob

    hmmmpff....(i want to say something sexist here, but won't).
    
    I said (oh jeez, now I'll probably get slammed because I didn't
    actually SAY anything)  that *I made a mistake* confusing quartz
    movement with the term digital.   It IS picky, in my ever-so-humble 
    opinion, to concentrate on the type of clock when the important thing
    to draw from the suggestion is to use a clock that makes some sort
    of repititive, low volume sound.
    
    Back to the regularly scheduled program,
    Carol

re .-1 and re below..

     <<< Note 407.8 by SCAACT::AINSLEY "Less than 150 kts. is TOO slow" >>>
                -< There's nothing wrong with what .6 said... >-

>I read your .1 and thought "I've never heard a digital clock, tick".  I'm
>sorry but .6 is not being picky.  If you walk into any store and ask to see a
>digital clock, you will NOT be shown one with hands.



and I thought that .1 ment one of those 'old fashioned' digital clocks
.. where each number is on a 'leaf' on a cylinder (along
with all the other numbers).. and each leaf flips down to show
a number  (sort of like a 'rollodesk' file)

Perhaps they dont make these any more???

    
    	Thanks everyone for your support...and I did understand the
    	point number .1 was making when he said put a clock next to
    	the monitor....I have, and it works real well.  Thanks!!!
    
    	On with motherhood...

    We experienced this, but at a much later time.  AJ slept with us until
    his third birthday.  (We have a cape and the second floor is "dorm"
    style, we each had our private space.)  When we moved him down to his
    new room and big boy bed I spent the first week with baby minder
    buzzing in my ear, complete with static.  I forgot to put it on one
    night, I heard his cries loud and clear, so my advise is relax sound
    seems to REALLY carry in the silence of the night.
    
    Lyn

    I had the same problem when we moved Samantha at 12 weeks into her own
    room.  I used to stay away and STARE at the monitor (fisher price kind
    with the light-up front) to be sure she was breathing, etc.  Every time
    she rustled, sighed, etc. I'd wake up.
    
    Lo and behold, she's 10 months old now and it is rare that I wake up to
    any of those noises.  I only wake up to her morning wakeful sounds of
    playing with her puff-a-lumps or busy box.  In time you relax, and not
    because someone tells you to, but because you just _get comfortable_
    with your new role, the new person in your house, etc. etc. etc.
    
    Re:  Not using a monitor and opening the baby's door. . . I continue to
    use a monitor and keep the door CLOSED due to fire safety.  Remember in
    3rd grade (or whenever) when the firemen came to your class, and told
    you to keep your doors closed when sleeping, because smoke rises, and
    smoke from fires cause more deaths than the actually flames, etc. etc. 
    I never forgot it, and have kept my door closed ever since.  
    
    Cheryl
    

    You are perfectly normal. I too had very restless night for about the
    first few months and then I came to "trust" the monitor and myself for
    turning it on. My husband was a good reminder!! The first night our son
    was home, sleeping in his own room, my husband insisted that we turn
    the monitor up full blast so we could hear. I made him put it by his
    head. He spent the entire night awake listening to him breathe. The
    next night the monitor was at a normal volume and by my head!!! It will
    settle down. 
    
    Remember it only takes you a few seconds to get up the stairs to get
    into the baby's room. We personally never had our son sleep in our room
    as an infant because we knew we would never sleep. Maybe the monitor
    develops a false sense of security but I never lost sleep over
    worrying. A baby's cry at 3am is piercing!! I think an intercom system 
    is an incredible expense when the monitors do the same thing.
    
    Relax, you're in good company!!!
    
    Andrea 

    re .14, excellent reasoning, keeping the doors shut, and how timely
    your entry is, since Fire Prevention Week was last week!  I shut AJ's
    door more to keep noise out than anything else.  Guess being married to
    a firefighter you shut bedroom doors from habit more than anything.
    
    Now I couldn't help but think of this note as I watched the movie
    (Small town something or other) last night about the woman who heard the 
    murder being plotted over her baby monitor!  
    
    Too bad I fell asleep before the end, Does any one know the punchline??
    
    Lyn
    
    

    	Yeah, I to thought that it was quite ironic that this movie was
    	on last night.  There were so many Don's and so many Judy's, I
    	couldn't keep up with it.  That and trying to take care of my
    	sick three month old, but from what I can remember, it was
    	the Don who was the back Dr., and the young Judy who had the
    	supposedly executive position..