Baby monitors have become an absolute godsend for parents. Not so long ago a parent got little rest, particularly if they were of an anxious nature, because they were constantly checking on their sleeping child. Many children have been lost over the years to cot death and although the incidents are dropping, it is still not a fully understood phenomenon. An otherwise healthy baby stops breathing for no apparent reason and the first thing a parent knows is when they go to wake it and find a tragedy has occurred.

This fear is something never very far from a parent's mind, especially when the baby is still very young. To this end, they are constantly backwards and forwards checking the child is ok, checking the room temperature and checking their baby's health. This is an exhausting thing for the mother and father but what else can you do?

Modern technology has brought about several inventions to help parents. One of them is a sensor that the baby lays on and that will sound an alarm if it detects that the baby stops breathing. These are usually used by parents who have experienced the trauma of losing a child to cot death previously. However, they are not that reliable in that the alarm will sound for no reason so you are still running to check your child and those few seconds it takes to get there, thinking your baby might have stopped breathing, are very traumatic.

Baby monitors have proved very useful over the years. They cannot help in the event of cot death but nothing really can unless you are going to sit and watch your baby twenty four hours a day. But a baby monitor does give you the freedom to roam your house or garden and still feel secure in the knowledge that if your baby wakes and is in distress that you will be able to hear them.

This gives the parents much more freedom and peace of mind. They can go about their everyday activities and regularly listen in to their child. Baby monitors can be quite sensitive and snuffles, snoring and crying will be picked up, meaning you can rest assured your baby is fine.

Today, there has been an improvement in baby monitors in that they now come with cameras installed. Not only can you hear your baby but also see your child sleeping peacefully in full colour. This means that you can check your baby has not got entangled in blankets or uncovered and getting cold. For the slightly older baby who will sit in a cot and play with toys or drink from a baby bottle, it's also a good thing to be able to see that they come to no harm.

Once the room is dark you would think that these baby monitors would be a bit useless but no. They also come equipped with an infra red facility so, although it may be black and white, you can still see your child is safe, warm and well.

As high tech as these gadgets sound, they do come in unobtrusive designs that blend into a nursery without looking obvious. One particular design of baby monitor with built in camera comes in the design of a brightly coloured flower, which would blend quite nicely with a nursery design. Safety is not compromised for style, even in baby monitor equipment!