4 Other Uses for Baby Monitors!
With my first little one, I remember jolting out of bed in the middle of the night and running into peek on my four month old because his baby monitor was just too quiet. I hadn’t heard a peep from him in three hours, he was typically up every two hours still at this point. I was sure something was wrong.. the monitor must be busted and not revealing his cries.. or surely he wasn’t breathing. Of course, as I made it to my sons room he was perfectly fine and was completely sound asleep, until I busted into his room and woke him up.
Over the years, I’ve been able to upgrade our baby monitor as technology has advanced and move away from a sound only monitor to one that gives me peace of mind with a visual picture as well as sound. Thankfully, I’ve also relaxed a lot more as a parent, too. But I still find myself checking in on my boys throughout the day even though my youngest is now a toddler.
This is a sponsored post brought to you by VTech. All opinions are my own.
We have even used our baby monitor in some really creative ways, so I thought I would share a few other uses for baby monitors to consider when your baby is all grown up.
4 Other Uses for Baby Monitors
Playroom Monitor – We converted our garage into an insulated playroom. I absolutely love it because my boys can go out and play and my house is actually quiet for a good 15-20 minutes while they happily play. They leave the door to the garage open, but because of the space and insulation, their laughs and fights are muffled out a lot when I’m inside our home.
When I no longer needed a night monitor for my toddler, our monitor went right out into our playroom so I can keep an eye on my kiddos while I work on lunch in the kitchen. It lets me quickly see if I need to referee a fight or remind my boys the rule of only one bucket at a time to put out fires before they begin. It also lets me sneak a peek on precious and rare moments when my kids are happily playing as best friends and creating something together.
Front Door Protection – A baby monitor can be set up indoors facing your front door to give you peace of mind against invaders. It’s a cost effective solution to home monitoring if you are ready to pass along your baby monitor for another use. As a bonus, it can also alert you if your kiddos are up and out of bed sneaking a midnight snack or trying to sneak out of the house.
Hide-n-Seek Game – My boys play this game all the time, no matter where our monitor is set up. If you have your monitor still mounted in a room, let one child hide in that room and then give the second child the parent unit and let them pan, tilt and zoom through the room trying to find their hiding sibling or friend. The VTech VM333 monitor has a 2-way intercom which lets the seeker announce when they’ve found the hiding child, which always leads to lots and lots of giggles.
Caring for the Sick or Elderly – When I was a teenager, my grandma was caring for her elderly widowed mother. Once a week or so, I would go over and visit and sit with my great-grandma to give my grandma a chance to get out of the house and run errands. I thought it was really neat that even way back then, about 15 years ago, my grandma would use a baby monitor to help her in caring for her mother. It gave her the peace of mind to know if something was wrong without needing to be with my great-grandma 24/7. This type of setup would also be extremely helpful when you have a sick child or a scenario where your loved one needs a bit more monitoring than you are able to offer non-stop.
Life never stops moving, every day I seem to pause for a second while looking at one of my boys or hearing something crazy one of them just said and realize how fast they are each growing up. Just this week, my youngest learned three new words. He finally has started saying “mama”.
Of course, he could say mama before but whenever we asked him to, he’d giggle and say “dada” to get a big reaction out of us. He’s turning out to be just like his father with a witty sense of humor. However this past week he’s called me mama several times, it always makes me smile.
I’ve watched as my 7 year old stops to help one of his younger brothers fix a toy they’ve been working on or read a story to one of them and it completely melts my heart. My middle two boys are learning new letters and how to read which excites me as they gain new independence with these important skills. It’s these moments that as a parent I’m so thankful to get to capture.
The VTech VM333 monitor comes with support for up to 4 cameras that can be monitored from a single parent unit. You can show all four cameras at once or cycle through the camera feeds every few seconds to see a larger view on the parent unit. This is such a neat feature when you want to monitor several rooms or children. You can also move the camera right from the parent unit with a pan feature that gives you a 270° view of the room side to side and some tilt up/down adjustments can be made as well. The camera has a 2x zoom when you need a closer look.
To learn more about the VTech VM333 monitor you can visit the VTech website.
I love these ideas, but since we don’t have one with a camera, I am going to use my phone now as a monitor.
Oh such great ideas! I love the hide and seek idea for the kids! Carter and I would have fun doing that! 🙂
I do use them on occasion on the dogs. We have three and one of them was getting into the trash. Using it we caught the culprit.
I love the idea about watching the front door and about the hide and seek game.
I never thought of these before. Especially love the front door monitor idea.
cant think of any other uses unless you keep it focused on areas where you need to know what is going on,,like the back door or front door
Watching kids play in their room or also for pets.
I have two video monitors but neither one allows you to move it from the parent unit, very cool! I used a regular baby monitor when I was taking care of my father in law because our room was far from his and once he fell out of bed in the middle of the night and he was calling for a long time before we heard him. We didn’t own a video one then but it would have been even better.
what a great ideas, I have one hidden in my boys room and they do not even know it. They are younger.
I love having a video monitor to watch my 1 year old. I am starting to worry that she may try to climb out of her crib soon, so it’s nice to be able to go in her room and lay her back down if I see that she is standing up.
I would use my baby monitor to watch my kids play. They are not babies but still very young.
Great suggestions! I remember when we cared for my Grandma (video baby monitors weren’t out back then), a baby monitor would have been so helpful!
Great ideas! Putting it at the front door is perfect for security.
Oh I love the idea of using the monitor as a hide and seek game! What a great idea!!
Since I don’t have a peekaboo hole on my front door, I would really like this to take its place. Great ideas!
I honestly really want a video monitor for my daughter’s room. Even though she’s not a baby any longer, she has some delays; so I like to keep a closer eye on her. Plus I would love to use it to monitor my boys as they play; so I really know just who started the fighting! 😉
i wish we had a playroom to put a monitor in!
we had one in the playhouse for a while, outside. same purpose 🙂
These are awesome ideas and so fun. I love dual use products and this one will never go out of style from baby to grandma it never stops protecting. I love that 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Great ideas! I never thought about other uses for a baby monitor. Thanks for sharing.
I had one of those exact video monitors in the playroom. That way I could always see what my daughter was doing
I love your ideas! When I saw your post I was thinking; hearing conversations between the neighbors.. that used to freak me out. Your ideas are so much better!
Great ideas! My inlaws use a baby monitor for my grandfather-in-law. He’s 93 and lives with them in his own suite- he needs monitoring, though, as well as a way he can talk to them if he needs them at night. Baby monitors are awesome for so much more than babies!
I would have never thought of these uses for a baby monitor. Very cool!
The hide-n-seek game is such a cute idea, and fun use of the monitor!
What great ideas!
Who would have thought to use a baby monitor to play hide and seek? That’s such a cool and fun idea.
These are great ways to reuse a baby monitor once your kids have outgrown it. The playroom idea is brilliant.
That’s some serious creativity. The hide and seek option is a great one. Talk about creative play!
My parents have used one for my Grandmother when she visits. She’s in her 90s and it makes them feel better to know she is OK.
Those are all great ideas! I think I would use mine to monitor my front door.
This is so creative. I would have never dreamed of these other uses. I love the hide and seek idea.
These are such good ideas, I am so paranoid both of my kids still have video monitors in their rooms! I love the playroom idea!
I love using the monitor for the playroom. Actually, I wish I had cameras all over the house 😉
This looks so cool. I really want one!!
These are some great ideas! I would have never thought to play hide and seek with a baby monitor! How fun!