When my husband and I purchased our first house, we loved its unique layout—but we hadn’t considered that the house might put some constraints on life with a baby, on down the road. The house was a 1950s ranch that had been added onto over the years—a dining room here, a master bathroom there—with two guest rooms off an L-shaped hallway at the front of the house, just off the foyer.
The master bedroom was nestled in the far back corner of the house; to get to it from the front of the house, one had to walk through a living room, a set of French doors, an office, and our bedroom door. At night, with the French doors and our bedroom door closed, we were happily secluded from the rest of the house.
The layout was perfect for us. That is, until we had a baby. We’d converted the smaller guest bedroom into a nursery, believing its cheerful yellow walls and small size would be just right for our little one. What we didn’t take into consideration with our planning was the room’s location. Though it shared a wall with our bedroom, in order to get to it, my husband or I would have to walk through the many rooms and down the L-shaped hall to tend to any crying, whining, or all-out screaming from our son in the middle of the night. It was impossible from the back of the house to hear the baby clearly, let alone see what he was doing, so after stumbling through the entire house, we might find he’d already calmed himself back to sleep or that he really was in distress.
Though these nightly treks continued for a few years, they became easier once we hooked up the Motorola Wireless Baby Monitor MBP36XL. Colleagues purchased the monitor for us as a shower gift and it turned out to be the most useful item we received. Its color screen, with infrared night vision, enabled my husband and me to check on our son from the comfort of our bed, and the sound quality was clear enough to hear every babble, gurgle, and cry. Further, the two-way communication system allowed us to respond to him when, as a toddler, he called out every “why?” question possible in an attempt to postpone sleep.
That said, the monitor offered a number of bells and whistles that weren’t particularly useful. Its five lullabies, meant to “soothe” the baby, were more startling than pacifying and actually caused my son to cry the first time we used it. And the room temperature sensor was often incorrect, giving us a read a few degrees higher or lower than the actual temperature of the nursery.
But, overall, the monitor was a blessing. It didn’t stop our son from waking or needing us during the night, but it provided peace of mind. If he cried out, a quick glance at the screen enabled us to determine if it was time to run through the obstacle course that was our house or if he was merely mumbling in his sleep. And as he got older, we used it to gauge whether he was actually napping or just rolling around his bed.
The MBP36XL currently retails for $142, a price right in the middle of other Motorola monitors, which range from $50 to $300. Though there are less expensive options, this particular monitor has a larger display (5” vs. 3.5”) and impressive 1,000-foot range (with many other monitors maxing out at 700 feet). These are just a few of the reasons this monitor received the top spot in Babylist’s Best Baby Monitors of 2020 list.
Unlike many of the gadgets we received when he was born, the Motorola Wireless Baby Monitor lasted well past the infant stage. We used it for six years; the screen gave out after five, but the sound and two-way communication system worked great until the end. By then, we relied on it less for helping our little guy out in the middle of the night and more to hear the heartwarming bedtime stories he’d tell his stuffies before drifting off to sleep.
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