The Other Baby Monitor I Wish I’d Always Had | Owlet Review & Link-Up

Let’s real talk it here for a moment…

Every new parent has done this (and if you say you haven’t, you’re probably lying). You bring your new baby home from the hospital and that first night home you put them in their crib / bassinet / rock and play / sleeper and you sit and you stare at this new, tiny creature that God has suddenly entrusted you with. And you stare. And you stare. And you watch them. And you think… “He is so tiny. So, so, tiny. I don’t want anything to happen to this sweet baby of mine.” 

And then you check like every 20 minutes to see if your baby is breathing.

And then fast forward the the days and weeks and months ahead, and you still go in their room and you check on them. And then they are two and a half and you still go in their room and check on them and watch them sleep.

You know exactly what I’m talking about, right? 

From the night we brought Lilly home from the hospital, I worried. Not in like an obsessive way (although maybe sometimes it felt like that…), but I just worried about her. I would stand over her crib and watch her sleep and check to make sure she was breathing. I would put my finger in front of her nose to feel for air… or I’d put my hand on her belly to make SURE it was going up and down.

It’s just that natural instinct I think we all get as parents.

And even after all this time, John and I STILL go in Lilly’s room every. single. night. and we check on her and we just watch her sleep. There’s something about watching your baby sleep.

Then, in February, we had Amos. Our sweet baby boy. Our sweet, so tiny, baby boy. Lilly was almost nine pounds when she was born, so our little six pound, 13 oz Amos was just a little peanut to us. And I remember when we brought him home from the hospital, I was too afraid to leave him alone because I was afraid he’d stop breathing. Or he’d spit up and choke on it. Or any number of terrible, awful things. I just worried.

So, on top of the sleep I was already not getting, I worried about my tiny baby. For some reason, I worried even MORE this time around than I did with Lilly.

And then, about a week after Amos was born, we got the Owlet Care baby monitor. And everything changed.

You may or may not have heard about the Owlet Smart Sock… I had heard bits and pieces about it when I was pregnant and the more I read about it the more I wanted to try one out. I thought it was a really cool concept. Turns out, it’s been a dream come true.

What exactly is the Owlet Smart Sock monitor?

The Owlet Smart Sock is the first smart baby monitor of its kind that uses hospital technology—pulse oximetry—designed to alert parents if their baby stops breathing or if the baby’s heart rate drops too low or goes too high. So, in essence, it’s a monitor that literally does FOR ME what I was obsessively trying to do – make sure my kid was still breathing all night.

If you think about it, the baby product market is SATURATED with monitors that require you to obsess over whether or not your child is OK because the monitors use only audio and video. The Owlet Smart Sock is the first of its kind among the new category of “smart baby monitors,” which are aimed at giving parents peace of mind. Over 100,000 hours of testing went into the development of this monitor. 100,000!!! That’s crazy!

How exactly does the Owlet Smart Sock monitor work?

There are multiple sizes of socks – so the sock will fit from newborn until, presumably, the monitor is no longer needed. The sock is placed on the baby’s left foot to begin monitoring the baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels. The information from the monitor is then relayed to the parents’ smartphones via a blue tooth-connected Base Station, allowing parents to check on their child from anywhere.

Here’s what the base station looks like set up in our room (the light is green when the monitor is on and working). To the right, you can see a screen shot of what it looks like when I check on Amos from the app. I can see his heart rate and his oxygen levels.

What are the various alerts like?

There are three types of alerts, yellow, blue, and red.

Yellow alerts mean that the monitor can’t get a good reading. This usually happens if the sock isn’t on correctly, if it falls off, etc.

Blue alerts mean that monitor has disconnected from the base station. This usually happens if the base station is too far away from the sock so it can’t get a reading, or if you’re blocking the sock with your body when you’re holding the baby (presumably during a middle-of-the-night feeding).

Red alerts are the ones you don’t want. Red alerts* mean that the baby’s oxygen levels are too low or the heart rate is too high or too low. Now, if you get a red alert, don’t panic. It’s important you use your eyes and ears to determine what the next steps are. Check to make sure your baby is, in fact, breathing. Check to see how your baby is doing. If something is wrong, seek medical attention right away. Sometimes you may get a false red alert if the sock isn’t on properly.

All of the alerts will occur on BOTH your base station AND on your smart phone. So, the good thing is that if you’re phone isn’t working or if your battery is dead, you have the base station as a backup. I wouldn’t rely solely on your smart phone to alert you.

*Owlet is not to be used as a medical or diagnostic tool. It’s important you seek medical attention if you suspect something is wrong.

So what do I think about the Owlet monitor?

We’ve now had the monitor for a little over five weeks (we got it about a week after he was born), and I can safely say that both John and I are believers. This monitor really has given us the piece of mind that we felt like we needed. When we put Amos in his crib at night, I don’t stress as much wondering if he’s okay. When I go to sleep, I go to sleep knowing that he’s safe in his crib and that if something is wrong, I’ll be alerted. We still have a video monitor for the kids (obviously, so we can know when they’re awake and all that…)… but this is the type of monitor that just keeps me from constantly worrying.

My only wish is that we’d had it when Lilly was little! I feel like I would have gotten at least a LITTLE more sleep. 🙂

In all honesty, I think this is the kind of monitor that I know I think every parent should have. Yes, most parents have made it to this point without a monitor like this, but ask those same parents how much they would have loved to have a monitor making sure their baby is breathing? I bet most would say they’d have loved it.

Have you been wanting to try out the Owlet Monitor? Read on for my Owlet Review!

What about you?

Have you heard of the Owlet smart sock baby monitor? Have you used it before? Know someone who has? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments!

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*This is not a sponsored post. The kind people at Owlet sent me a monitor to review and share with y’all if I liked it. Turns out, it’s amazing and I am sharing it with you today because I truly, TRULY believe in this monitor and would love to see ALL parents have one! The link I included is an affiliate link and if you choose to purchase an Owlet monitor through me, I will receive a small commission. Thank you for supporting the brands that support this blog and my family!

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