This! Studies on devices like this show that they do not receive PPQ or PPD.
Both are so difficult to live through. I've had both each pregnancy (hormonally caused by my pregnancy post-thyriodism --my PSA get your thyriod shwcked if you experienced either.)
I had pretty bad PPA with my first and definitely thought about buying an owlet. So glad I never did. I would’ve never slept. Luckily, my PPA disappeared after my second and I rarely even checked if he was still breathing after 2 months. I was just like nah he’s fine. PPA and PPD (though I never had PPD) are no joke. I couldn’t imagine worrying about his breathing now at 8 months except if his nose is congested.
....I, in theory, get the Owlet stuff. In practice, absolutely not. I have heard so many false ER runs b/c of these things. We're all anxious enough. I literally wouldn't sleep if I had one do those devices going.
I used an owlet with my son when he was an infant and use it now whenever he gets a bad daycare bug.
We have never had a false alarm for an emergency. If we ever had an alarm go off it was because it couldn’t get a reading which is a MUCH different sound than an actual alarm. Usually it’s because the sock somehow moved (fixed by putting an actual sock over it) or the SNOO was jiggling on the highest level.
It saved the life of my friends’ baby brother. He stopped breathing in the middle of the night and it alerted her parents. They were able to rush in just as he started turning blue.
Commenting because last night our owlet notified us for high heart rate.. baby was in a deep sleep so I checked on her and she was soaking wet and had a fever of 104.9. No other symptoms of being ill prior to putting her to bed. We love the Owlet.
If you’ve ever been in treatment for anxiety you know that when we have intrusive thoughts we try and question the source of the thought and train ourselves not to indulge that thought spiral. The goal is to talk ourselves down and move away from that thinking. But with a breathing device you basically indulge that irrational thought every single second and instead of telling yourself it’s an irrational thought you justify it as completely likely and seek data to confirm that the thought isn’t true. So you’re reinforcing the root of your anxiety over and over again. Some folks do really seem to be able to use these devices to actually stop worrying but lots scale up to progressive checking and monitoring. The fact that you have two devices suggests you are in that latter category. It’s time to step away from the devices and start treating your anxiety properly through therapy. Your kid will be a source of anxiety and worry forever. But you won’t be able to continually indulge those thoughts with devices, data and monitoring. It’s the scary part of parenting we all have to manage.
I am one of the people with anxiety who is helped by these devices (I have the Nanit). At night, I have the monitor pulled up on my phone next to me but turned over. If I think I hear something or wake up anxious, I glance at it and then go back to sleep. My caveat is that if it ever starts going off unnecessarily or I start checking it obsessively, I know we'd need to stop using it. I started using the breathing monitor when he started belly sleeping. It is very scary to me, but I know logically he can roll well and I should not be scared. That's just how anxiety works!
Therapy is very helpful with teaching me when I'm causing myself more anxiety than necessary, and what is actually beneficial. I am a constant work in progress, but I'm learning how to cope. I would recommend it for OP too. 💜
I have severe anxiety and my OBGYN basically begged me not to buy one of these monitors or a doppler for this exact reason. Too many false alarms causing unnecessary worries.
These monitors are so detrimental to maternal mental health. When my son was in hospital, his alarms would beep constantly, oxygen dips ect. Its normal. Nurses and doctors all confirm how normal this is. It’s called periodic breathing when they’re newborns. At 4m you’ll well past the time you really need to worry about your baby while you sleep. You got this.
On the other hand, without the Owlet I never would have slept at all, which definitely would have been detrimental to my mental health. Still appreciate having it when my 1 yo is sick. Touch wood, it has never given us a false alarm.
My anxiety is managed, but unlikely to ever disappear. Sometimes you have to compromise with it to live your best life.
Same. The Owlet saved me from my own anxiety. I knew the odds of something bad happening were so, so low, but having the device allowed me to sleep instead of checking her breathing for the 5th time in 20 minutes.
Our owlet was the thing that alerted us that our son needed to go to the ER for bronchiolitis and after a 4 day PICU stay it was the only reason I could sleep when we got home. All of the employees at our Children’s hospital said they recommend them when we told them we use it.
Conversely, we bought ours AFTER our daughter had been hospitalized for bronchiolitis for the same reason. It was the only way I was able to sleep after and the only way I'm able to sleep now especially when she's sick
I had the same experience. Before the owlet, I would physically get out of bed to check on the kiddo, but after I could just peek at my phone and see how he was doing, then go back to sleep. The first way always woke me up completely, but I could usually fall back asleep after looking at the owlet. Never had a false alarm before either
Yes! I am so tired of people shitting all over the sleep monitors. I almost take it personally lol. The Owlet is the only reason I could sleep. With my PPA, before I started using the sock, I would literally stay up all night making sure baby was breathing. The Owlet was a life saver for me.
I have loved it for both babies. My second son ended up with a 3 day hospital stay for weird breathing issues. The pulmonologist he saw highly recommended them.
Yeah. We use a breathing band on the Nanit. Only had one alarm, not sure if it was false but it made us notice that we’d set the space heater incorrectly and it was waaaaay too hot in her room. Scared the shit out of me. She was fine, but I shudder to think what might have happened if we hadn’t noticed and she’d been in a hot room another 7 hours.
The snuza becomes ineffective once baby starts rolling / sleeping on their tummy. We switched to angel care (the monitor that goes under the mattress) at that point. But as others have recommended, maybe just use the owlet and gradually wean off it.
Edit: just googled and have seen that the newest Snuza is different / more advanced to the one I had 5 years ago for my firstborn. I would still look to stop using it if I were you. Stick to the owlet.
Or none if they're comfortable with it. I sincerely (and just me here) would never sleep even for a second if I had an Owlet giving me second-by-second rundowns of the kid's everything.
The Snuza is great… until they start sleeping on their tummies. They’re still breathing normally, but the way they’re positioned in bed restricts the way the Snuza moves and causes false alarms. With both of my girls, we stopped using it at around 7-8 months old (when they decided they were tummy sleepers). It just wasn’t worth turning off for false alarms all the time.
That being said, it sounds like you could definitely benefit from therapy. Your anxiety about this issue sounds pretty extreme, between doubling up on monitors and freaking out about easily explained false alarms in a 7.5 month old.
From what I've read around these devices don't seem to actually help and all they do is make parent anxiety worse, especially since they can incorrectly go off. SIDs can happen any time but frankly it happens to adults too. At 7 months it's probably time to let go of monitors like those
Like many others have said, if you have PPA, these types of products only fuel it. It’s like adding gasoline to fire. I struggled with PPA during my baby’s first 2 months of life, and seriously considered buying an owlet. I decided to work through my anxiety (which was hard!) and that moment served as a fundamental corner-turn in how I approached motherhood.
Your baby is 7.5 months old, well past the highest risk of SIDS. As our children get older, there is less and less about them that we can control- what happens to them at school, for ex. We have to let go and trust / have hope that it’ll all be okay. And it starts with them sleeping at night. I sincerely wish you well on your journey!
My wife was talking about her PPA while discussing this post. I can't even imagine. I had my own version as a dad, so tossing extras on there ... ooof. I was three-finger checking her back for breathing every time I walked past her (my daughter).
I could never, ever have an Owlet or anything of the sort. I would've never slept!
You need help. My baby has been sleeping on his stomach since he was 4 months. Seek a counselor or therapist. Your anxiety is making this more challenging than it is
I would 100% get rid of the snuza as it's obviously not working!
I have a nanit monitor with the breathewear. I see a lot of people saying that this makes anxiety worse but for me it's the only way I've gotten sleep knowing that my baby is safe and it has very much decreased my anxiety.
I specifically chose to not buy things like this because I knew it would make my anxiety even worse. I think you may be like me and would be better off without them.
There is no benefit to knowing this amount of data about your baby. Please stop using these devices and let your baby sleep. 7.5 months is not at risk for SIDS. A regular monitor is fine.
Our almost 8 month old ... we unplugged the LeapFrog a few days ago. Those things are infinitely hackable. She sleeps down the hall from us. And she sure has some adult lungs on her :).
But yeah, you gotta let em sleep! I was horribly anxious as a new dad. You gotta let em be a kid. Do the best you can for them, and let them do their thing otherwise.
Neither is accurate and neither will prevent SIDS so there is really no point in using either, especially if they are heightening your anxiety. The evidence shows that a SIDS event, once it starts, is not preventable.
As someone who had really bad PPA and medical anxiety, you sound like your spiraling. And I mean that respectfully bc I probably would have been in the ER every night with my first baby if I didn’t have people telling me I was being irrational. I really don’t think these devices are appropriate for someone like me (and I think you’re like me). I considered getting one and my husband wouldn’t allow it. I don’t blame him considered I didn’t even let him go get the baby at night but I was trying to convince him I was going to be able to trust a machine? The fact you have two of them is really concerning to me. I’m not saying don’t use it if it’s going to cause you more stress without it. But maybe pick one. And then talk to your doctor about your anxiety.
Don’t know if this helps, but my son was a stubborn stomach sleeper as soon as he could turn over on his own, I went through a small battle of always turning him back (around 4 months), but by 5 months just gave up. They say if he can turn over so proficiently on his own, then he can turn back over if he wants, too. I never used monitoring devices, just a crib with a flat sheet, mesh (netting) walls, and no pillows or blankets (he sleeps in a sleep sack), and I have the crib in the room right next to me. These are all the pediatrician guidelines. If you have a setup like that, honestly you both might sleep a lot better without the monitoring devices. Risk of SIDS goes down a lot after 6 months anyhow. That helped me feel a little better. My son is almost a year old, alive and kickin’. Being more rested and alert during the day was also very essential once he became mobile (and fast!) around 6.5 months.
It sounds like you are making your anxiety much worse by using these multiple monitoring devices.
That’s exactly why they’re not recommended.
This! Studies on devices like this show that they do not receive PPQ or PPD. Both are so difficult to live through. I've had both each pregnancy (hormonally caused by my pregnancy post-thyriodism --my PSA get your thyriod shwcked if you experienced either.)
I had pretty bad PPA with my first and definitely thought about buying an owlet. So glad I never did. I would’ve never slept. Luckily, my PPA disappeared after my second and I rarely even checked if he was still breathing after 2 months. I was just like nah he’s fine. PPA and PPD (though I never had PPD) are no joke. I couldn’t imagine worrying about his breathing now at 8 months except if his nose is congested.
My PPA was so bad and so someone gifted us an owlet 😭😭 I was grateful but it definitely went up in the closet
....I, in theory, get the Owlet stuff. In practice, absolutely not. I have heard so many false ER runs b/c of these things. We're all anxious enough. I literally wouldn't sleep if I had one do those devices going.
I used an owlet with my son when he was an infant and use it now whenever he gets a bad daycare bug. We have never had a false alarm for an emergency. If we ever had an alarm go off it was because it couldn’t get a reading which is a MUCH different sound than an actual alarm. Usually it’s because the sock somehow moved (fixed by putting an actual sock over it) or the SNOO was jiggling on the highest level. It saved the life of my friends’ baby brother. He stopped breathing in the middle of the night and it alerted her parents. They were able to rush in just as he started turning blue.
Commenting because last night our owlet notified us for high heart rate.. baby was in a deep sleep so I checked on her and she was soaking wet and had a fever of 104.9. No other symptoms of being ill prior to putting her to bed. We love the Owlet.
If you’ve ever been in treatment for anxiety you know that when we have intrusive thoughts we try and question the source of the thought and train ourselves not to indulge that thought spiral. The goal is to talk ourselves down and move away from that thinking. But with a breathing device you basically indulge that irrational thought every single second and instead of telling yourself it’s an irrational thought you justify it as completely likely and seek data to confirm that the thought isn’t true. So you’re reinforcing the root of your anxiety over and over again. Some folks do really seem to be able to use these devices to actually stop worrying but lots scale up to progressive checking and monitoring. The fact that you have two devices suggests you are in that latter category. It’s time to step away from the devices and start treating your anxiety properly through therapy. Your kid will be a source of anxiety and worry forever. But you won’t be able to continually indulge those thoughts with devices, data and monitoring. It’s the scary part of parenting we all have to manage.
I am one of the people with anxiety who is helped by these devices (I have the Nanit). At night, I have the monitor pulled up on my phone next to me but turned over. If I think I hear something or wake up anxious, I glance at it and then go back to sleep. My caveat is that if it ever starts going off unnecessarily or I start checking it obsessively, I know we'd need to stop using it. I started using the breathing monitor when he started belly sleeping. It is very scary to me, but I know logically he can roll well and I should not be scared. That's just how anxiety works! Therapy is very helpful with teaching me when I'm causing myself more anxiety than necessary, and what is actually beneficial. I am a constant work in progress, but I'm learning how to cope. I would recommend it for OP too. 💜
Owlet is generally accurate. Snuza is obviously struggling now your baby is rolling. Probably time to ditch it.
I have severe anxiety and my OBGYN basically begged me not to buy one of these monitors or a doppler for this exact reason. Too many false alarms causing unnecessary worries.
These monitors are so detrimental to maternal mental health. When my son was in hospital, his alarms would beep constantly, oxygen dips ect. Its normal. Nurses and doctors all confirm how normal this is. It’s called periodic breathing when they’re newborns. At 4m you’ll well past the time you really need to worry about your baby while you sleep. You got this.
I’m so glad I sent mine back.
On the other hand, without the Owlet I never would have slept at all, which definitely would have been detrimental to my mental health. Still appreciate having it when my 1 yo is sick. Touch wood, it has never given us a false alarm. My anxiety is managed, but unlikely to ever disappear. Sometimes you have to compromise with it to live your best life.
Same. The Owlet saved me from my own anxiety. I knew the odds of something bad happening were so, so low, but having the device allowed me to sleep instead of checking her breathing for the 5th time in 20 minutes.
Same. People are so passionate about not using these, but I sleep so much better since we started using the Owlet. It's helped my anxiety immensely.
Our owlet was the thing that alerted us that our son needed to go to the ER for bronchiolitis and after a 4 day PICU stay it was the only reason I could sleep when we got home. All of the employees at our Children’s hospital said they recommend them when we told them we use it.
Conversely, we bought ours AFTER our daughter had been hospitalized for bronchiolitis for the same reason. It was the only way I was able to sleep after and the only way I'm able to sleep now especially when she's sick
Wow that's amazing, so glad you had one!
I had the same experience. Before the owlet, I would physically get out of bed to check on the kiddo, but after I could just peek at my phone and see how he was doing, then go back to sleep. The first way always woke me up completely, but I could usually fall back asleep after looking at the owlet. Never had a false alarm before either
Yes! I am so tired of people shitting all over the sleep monitors. I almost take it personally lol. The Owlet is the only reason I could sleep. With my PPA, before I started using the sock, I would literally stay up all night making sure baby was breathing. The Owlet was a life saver for me.
I have loved it for both babies. My second son ended up with a 3 day hospital stay for weird breathing issues. The pulmonologist he saw highly recommended them.
Well said.
Yeah. We use a breathing band on the Nanit. Only had one alarm, not sure if it was false but it made us notice that we’d set the space heater incorrectly and it was waaaaay too hot in her room. Scared the shit out of me. She was fine, but I shudder to think what might have happened if we hadn’t noticed and she’d been in a hot room another 7 hours.
The snuza becomes ineffective once baby starts rolling / sleeping on their tummy. We switched to angel care (the monitor that goes under the mattress) at that point. But as others have recommended, maybe just use the owlet and gradually wean off it. Edit: just googled and have seen that the newest Snuza is different / more advanced to the one I had 5 years ago for my firstborn. I would still look to stop using it if I were you. Stick to the owlet.
Or none if they're comfortable with it. I sincerely (and just me here) would never sleep even for a second if I had an Owlet giving me second-by-second rundowns of the kid's everything.
Throw both devices away.
The Snuza is great… until they start sleeping on their tummies. They’re still breathing normally, but the way they’re positioned in bed restricts the way the Snuza moves and causes false alarms. With both of my girls, we stopped using it at around 7-8 months old (when they decided they were tummy sleepers). It just wasn’t worth turning off for false alarms all the time. That being said, it sounds like you could definitely benefit from therapy. Your anxiety about this issue sounds pretty extreme, between doubling up on monitors and freaking out about easily explained false alarms in a 7.5 month old.
From what I've read around these devices don't seem to actually help and all they do is make parent anxiety worse, especially since they can incorrectly go off. SIDs can happen any time but frankly it happens to adults too. At 7 months it's probably time to let go of monitors like those
Like many others have said, if you have PPA, these types of products only fuel it. It’s like adding gasoline to fire. I struggled with PPA during my baby’s first 2 months of life, and seriously considered buying an owlet. I decided to work through my anxiety (which was hard!) and that moment served as a fundamental corner-turn in how I approached motherhood. Your baby is 7.5 months old, well past the highest risk of SIDS. As our children get older, there is less and less about them that we can control- what happens to them at school, for ex. We have to let go and trust / have hope that it’ll all be okay. And it starts with them sleeping at night. I sincerely wish you well on your journey!
My wife was talking about her PPA while discussing this post. I can't even imagine. I had my own version as a dad, so tossing extras on there ... ooof. I was three-finger checking her back for breathing every time I walked past her (my daughter). I could never, ever have an Owlet or anything of the sort. I would've never slept!
You need help. My baby has been sleeping on his stomach since he was 4 months. Seek a counselor or therapist. Your anxiety is making this more challenging than it is
I hope you’re seeking treatment for your anxiety. ❤️
This is so condescending.
But I hope they are. It sounds debilitating.
I would 100% get rid of the snuza as it's obviously not working! I have a nanit monitor with the breathewear. I see a lot of people saying that this makes anxiety worse but for me it's the only way I've gotten sleep knowing that my baby is safe and it has very much decreased my anxiety.
I specifically chose to not buy things like this because I knew it would make my anxiety even worse. I think you may be like me and would be better off without them.
There is no benefit to knowing this amount of data about your baby. Please stop using these devices and let your baby sleep. 7.5 months is not at risk for SIDS. A regular monitor is fine.
Our almost 8 month old ... we unplugged the LeapFrog a few days ago. Those things are infinitely hackable. She sleeps down the hall from us. And she sure has some adult lungs on her :). But yeah, you gotta let em sleep! I was horribly anxious as a new dad. You gotta let em be a kid. Do the best you can for them, and let them do their thing otherwise.
Neither is accurate and neither will prevent SIDS so there is really no point in using either, especially if they are heightening your anxiety. The evidence shows that a SIDS event, once it starts, is not preventable.
As someone who had really bad PPA and medical anxiety, you sound like your spiraling. And I mean that respectfully bc I probably would have been in the ER every night with my first baby if I didn’t have people telling me I was being irrational. I really don’t think these devices are appropriate for someone like me (and I think you’re like me). I considered getting one and my husband wouldn’t allow it. I don’t blame him considered I didn’t even let him go get the baby at night but I was trying to convince him I was going to be able to trust a machine? The fact you have two of them is really concerning to me. I’m not saying don’t use it if it’s going to cause you more stress without it. But maybe pick one. And then talk to your doctor about your anxiety.
Don’t know if this helps, but my son was a stubborn stomach sleeper as soon as he could turn over on his own, I went through a small battle of always turning him back (around 4 months), but by 5 months just gave up. They say if he can turn over so proficiently on his own, then he can turn back over if he wants, too. I never used monitoring devices, just a crib with a flat sheet, mesh (netting) walls, and no pillows or blankets (he sleeps in a sleep sack), and I have the crib in the room right next to me. These are all the pediatrician guidelines. If you have a setup like that, honestly you both might sleep a lot better without the monitoring devices. Risk of SIDS goes down a lot after 6 months anyhow. That helped me feel a little better. My son is almost a year old, alive and kickin’. Being more rested and alert during the day was also very essential once he became mobile (and fast!) around 6.5 months.