The Philips Avent Baby Monitor Review

The average parent likes to have a good idea, while their baby is sleeping in another room, that their child is sleeping soundly. In years past parents had to rely on techniques such as putting their ear to the door or even fully entering and having a look to see how things are going. In the case of my beautiful Chaim Yosef we sleep in the same room as him and so we are well aware of how he is sleeping as he lets us know quite quickly if he is not sleeping.

One weekend my mother and stepfather visited and presented us with a baby monitor courtesy of my stepsister. We realized that even though it served no purpose for the times in the night when he was sleeping and we were also in bed, it was perfectly excellent for when he was in bed and we were anywhere else in the apartment — for example, during naps or in the evening prior to our going to bed. Despite my getting up at five in the morning I most certainly do not go to bed at the same time as Chaim Yosef, that is to say at around nine.

As nice as it was having the baby monitor, it made a lot of noise and most of it was static. We began looking online for a baby monitor and even though every single one we found had some strong criticism from one or two people the one that was the most highly praised was the Philips Avent monitor and so it was the one we bought.

Out of the box the Avent needs to be synched so that the base can transmit a clear signal to the receiver without any interference coming through. That is why the former monitor was so static filled — it was receiving and playing everything in a certain frequency. The Avent in a way sends an identifying signal that lets the monitor know to play it and nothing else.

Another fantastic thing about the Avent is that it allows the person at the monitor to talk into it and send their voice over to the base. Of course, this is not always a positive thing. Just the other day my wife told me that Chaim was having a hard time falling asleep and so she started talking calmly to him from the monitor to soothe him. The problem is that it had the opposite effect. Hearing her voice but not being able to place a physical being to it induced panic in little Chaim — how could he hear her if he couldn’t see her? He began sobbing large and heavy tears that had to be calmed with my wife’s presence.

The Avent monitor further tells us the temperature near the base so that we know if it is a pleasant environment for Chaim. It also has five blue LED lights that flare up like volume LEDs tend to do and seem even more sensitive than the actual sound coming from the monitor. Sometimes the light will flash a couple of times up and down and then we will hear little Chaim Yosef crying out, “mmmmmmMAAAAMAAA. MAMA.” Not sure why he always cries out for mama when about half the time it’s his Tati that puts him back to sleep in the middle of the night, but that’s okay.

In sum I would say that the Avent was an excellent choice for us and you too will find it to be most excellent for monitoring your darling dear child.