I truly believe one of the best decisions we made when buying stuff for LO was to NOT buy a monitor. Our house is a small, sort of one-and-a-half story structure. Our bedroom is on a different level than LO's. While it took some convincing of DH that we would be ok without one, I firmly believed that if LO really needed us he'd make enough noise we'd hear him without the monitor. Part of me really thinks that not having a monitor is the reason we think LO began sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. The first night he did that just happened to be the first night we moved him to his room. Coincidence? Who knows. Also, if you have ever been to our house during nap time, you know how completely (some might say, unreasonably) neurotic we are about limiting noise during nap time. (Is there such a thing as a "reasonable neurosis?" Probably to the person who has it?) If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you know LO has not been a good napper, but a much better night sleeper. Can you imagine how we'd be during nap time if we'd had a monitor to really know how little he slept? I don't mean to harp on parents having monitors. Most of my girlfriends have them, and I'm told "monitor talk" is the best eavesdropping around. I'm just saying that for the last 2+ years and in our current home, it made sense not to have one and I'm glad we didn't.
Having said that, it is now time to say that we have just purchased a monitor. Why? Because in 10 short weeks, we will be bringing baby brother home and he will eventually be in closer proximity to LO at night than to us. LO will also make the move from crib to toddler bed sometime in the coming year (we are not in a hurry). This combination, I imagine, will result in lots of new sleep (more likely, "sleepless") scenarios for the boys. The bottom line is, we feel we might need to see if Newbie is crying/not sleeping because LO has let himself into Newbie's room to dump toys on his head or if we need to just ignore Newbie and let him learn to sleep like we did LO.
Of course we didn't need to buy the monitor just yet. We probably won't really need it for another 6 months. Still we've read mixed reviews about them. Stories of reception interference based on the frequencies of cordless phones, Wifi and other electronics in the home. We thought it practical to go ahead and test drive one. It has just been an added bonus that we've set it up in LO's room and have had great fun spying on him the last two nights. Not much of a TV watcher to begin with and knowing there is not much on Friday night anyway, I dare say the best entertainment for my evening might be a 3 1/2 inch motorola parent unit sitting beside me. This morning I got to see LO watch out his bedroom window as his Dada left for work. "Dada all gone. Mama all gone...no Mama here...Mama can come get you," he said. This afternoon, I got to eavesdrop on him playing with his Dada while I made dinner. Tonight, I saw him settle right down, but knew he was still awake with his Lala and kicking his legs when DH left to pick up our dinner. I saw him pop up and check the window when DH opened the door to leave, and then listened to him recite "Choo,Choo...shiny when she clickety, clacks." lines from his Kindermusik book before finally settling down again 30 minutes later. Tomorrow when he is cranky, I'll know it's because he was still awake an hour after I put him down to sleep. The big challenge will be to try not to let it add to our "sleep neuroses," and to keep from nutting up on each other when we now know for certain that the noises of coming and going, washing and cooking actually do wake him.
If it helps, kids learn to sleep with each other really easily. I kept mine with me until they were big enough to go through the night without a feeding. We did a lot of shuffling at first. We moved Aiden in with his sister while Dawson learned to sleep through the night in his own room. Then we put the two boys back together and were amazed at how they each slept through the other's noises and night wakings. Good luck!
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