You cannot put a price on some things. And the price tag of $100 or so for this Movement sensor and our peace of mind was worth every penny. I would have paid twice as much for this unit.

The AngelCare Monitor does two things: it transmits sounds from the baby's room to the parents' monitor and it detects movement in the baby's crib, sounding an alarm if no movement is detected for 20 seconds.

My wife and I were worried about a very premature delivery back at 24 weeks gestation, putting my wife on complete bed rest for 1 month in the hospital plus 2 more months at home. By the grace of God our baby girl actually arrived two days after her due date, healthy.

Our baby is 6.5 week old as I write this and just started sleeping through the night. We, like all parents, were worried about the risk of SIDS (and still are!) and took as many precautions as possible to minimize the risks - very firm crib mattress, no blankets or toys in the crib, no pillows, always put baby down on her back. And we got the AngelCare monitor.

The kit comes with nursery unit, sensor pad, and two remote units.

The monitor detects movement via the sensor pad that goes under the mattress. If the crib has a spring system upon which the mattress rests, you'll need a thin piece of plywood on which the pad will sit. The mattress then goes on top of the sensor.

After you've got the pad in place, you'll need to play with the sensitivity controls. I advise you do this BEFORE baby comes home so you're not rushing around with a million other things to do. The trick is to adjust the sensitivity so it detects the slightest movements of your hand against the mattress whilst at the same time not picking up movement from people walking around outside of baby's room. It takes a bit of trial and error to get it right.

After that you're pretty much set. The nursery monitor has three setting options: beep with each movement/alarm/broadcast nursery sounds, silent with each movement/alarm/broadcast nursery sounds, broadcast nursery sounds only/NO alarm.

There are two broadcast channels, A&B. You may get interference since there are only two and there's not much you can do about this. There is also a volume control on the remote units. In addition to plugging the units into the wall, there are also battery compartments for battery backup in the event of power loss.

That's all there is to it. The monitor will detect the rise and fall motion of your baby's chest as baby breathes. Each time it picks up a movement, an light flashes on the nursery monitor and there is a "tick" sound. We found the tick to be annoying and chose the silent setting. If no movement is detected for 15 seconds, a warning beep is heard irregardless of whether you chose audible tick or silent. If no movement is picked up for another 5 seconds, the alarm sounds and keeps sounding.

The first few nights we had our baby home we had several false alarms (we think). I suspect because our baby girl only weighed 6 pounds she wasn't tripping the monitor. However, we've had a few alarms since that time and she is now a fair bit heavier. Some were a result of her moving off the center of the mattress, the others I don't know what caused. Either she was in a deep sleep or...?

In any event, the time from the alarm going off to the time we're roused out of a deep sleep and in her room checking on her is not more than 5 or 10 seconds. If there ever were a real problem with our baby girl not responding, we could be on the phone with 911 in less than 30 seconds. So worst case I believe baby would be in a "not breathing" situation for not more than 60 to 80 seconds before we were on the phone with 911 receiving instructions.

And that's not too bad at all.

I hope that situation never arises. But with the AngelCare monitor we both sleep very well at night.

Well worth the money. Well worth the peace of mind. Don't hesitate to get this item to monitor sleeping baby, you WON'T regret it.

[update]

Hard to believe it's been 3 years since I posted this review, but there you go.

We've since had a second addition to our family, our little guy who is now just over one year old. We used this monitor for him and it now sits in his room, though we no longer use the "alarm" function. The point here, of course, is that the monitor is 4 years old and still functions like the day we bought it. It's very durable.

I read a few reviews published since mine and see that at least two people stated that the alarm saved their baby's life. I've no doubt. I can't help but wonder if SIDS couldn't be eliminated almost entirely if every baby was fortunate enough to have parents using this monitor.

One thing I found, however, is that the alarm sound stays with you...even years later. There's an elevator at my office that makes the exact same "beep" tone when it arrives at a floor and it sets my adrenaline pumping frantically for a moment or two when I first hear it...even though I know better. Call it a con.

Recommended: Yes