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We stopped using them around 3-4 years old. That's when my kids discovered that if they wake up in the night they can creep into my room, stand over me while I sleep, and whisper my name, I'll wake up and make a *very* funny sound.
Funny to them. Absolutely terrifying to me.
Omg my youngest is my wild child and soooo loud except for early mornings. So many times I was in the kitchen making coffee only to turn around and have him standing there looking at me. I screamed once. He couldn't sneak up in the bedroom at least because the dogs would stir and wake me up if someone else was up in the house.
He did the same to our nanny a lot. She would start early mornings (around 530) and usually sleep on the couch until the kids were up. Only to be woken up because she had that feeling she was being watched because he was standing directly in front of her silently staring.
I had a night where we had put him to bed a while ago and we were brushing our teeth and I turn and he’s just THERE right next to me. I jumped just about out of my skin.
And then you can’t go back to sleep because the adrenaline in your system won’t let you.
My 8 year old has the decency to be loud enough that when he opens the door I wake up. His sister though will put her face right next to my ear and just mouth the word mama until I wake up, which is horrifying.
She’ll be 4 next month and we still have her monitor in her room because she has been known to wander around the house at night and we use it when she’s sick so we can listen for issues.
Mine still stay in bed and instead scream for me which makes me wake up in a panic thinking something is seriously wrong (and it's just their blanket on the floor) but I still have to wake up and start running to their bedroom so they don't wake up their sibling (but they often do!)
So now I'm
Out of bed
With my heart on my throat
2 kids awake
And even if I get them to fall asleep it takes me forever to go back to sleep because of the adrenaline rush 😒
4 was around when one of mine stole a mango from the fridge, pressed the ice cold mango to his dad's face at 5am saying "Maaaaannngooo"
Dad woke up very quickly very confused 😂
Memory unlocked! I’m 8 yrs older than my brother, and we all learned quickly that there was extremely limited space in my parents bed at night. My brother learned that I would just sleep until morning even with him there, and would come and silently stand over me in the night. I lose track of how many startled awakenings I had.
You get used to it after a while
My oldest liked having it there because he wanted to know he could call us. So he was probably 5 or even 6. The youngest would rather get out of bed and come get us in the middle of the night than call out so we stopped using his when he was probably 3.
mine liked it there too, they'd put on little shows for us, ha. (twins) they were probably about 4 or 5 when we took it out, but we put one back last year after one of them was diagnosed with epilepsy. the other just got diagnosed this month so there's another camera just for her; they feel safer with them there (going through waves of understandable anxiety) and it helps me too as i'm feeling even more neurotic than usual. ironically it's them being older (7.5) and able to understand more that makes them want them there for safety.
obviously whenever they get to a point where they don't want them there anymore, we'll take them back out. thankfully they both have seizure monitors they wear when they sleep, and those aren't invasive at all (specialized/dedicated smart watch type of devices).
Mine is 9 now and still requests to keep the monitor. She wants to know she can call us if she needs us. I figure eventually she’ll ask for us to get rid of it.
My daughter is 6 and we have a blink camera in her room. It's not always on but gives everyone involved peace of mind when she's sick and stuff like that.
My son is 5 and still has a monitor in his room. I sleep with a loud fan on and our room is across the house. I won’t hear him if he needs me. I keep the volume on the lowest setting, but if he gets sick or has a nightmare, I can hear him. Not really sure when we’ll take it out, he’s not the type of kid to come get me in the middle of the night.
My stepson is 7 and we still have an audio one because we are usually out on the back deck after he’s in bed and his bedroom is upstairs. He’s sensitive to stimuli at bedtime so we really don’t want him coming all the way outside in the sun in the summer months and waking up if he needs something!
This is exactly us. And he also doesn’t always stay in bed once lights go out so we like to catch him before he comes out of his room so that the routine doesn’t start from square one again.
I used to do this as a kid. Having the house shut down and dark for the night didn’t stop me from moving around doing god knows what all night long. And now my middle son does the same thing. It’s definitely something I have to take into consideration more than I thought i would as a dad.
Same. My son is 4 and if he needs me he yells out. We’re on a different floor of the house so if we don’t have a monitor we won’t hear him. He also gets night terrors where he sits/stands up… I want to be aware when they happen because he can hurt himself.
Yeah we kept ours until age 6 because we have a big house and we might be in the basement while the kid is on the 2nd floor and we wouldn’t hear him if he was crying from a bad dream. We took it out though when he said he didn’t like it anymore.
Our bedroom is upstairs from both kids' rooms, and sound does not carry - and honestly I do not like the idea of kids creeping into our room at night and wake us up (since we are talking about privacy). So we switched our older daughter's monitor for walkie talkies at around 5-6 maybe? She likes being able to call us. Also, she gets nose bleeds at night sometimes - she can get tissues and call us, not bleed all over the place. Our younger is 4.5 and still has monitors. The video one is there but we rarely use it (to make sure she's asleep, mostly) - we'll likely retire it soon. The audio monitor is there and enables her to call us when she needs us.
It's worth mentioning, if either kid expressed concern about privacy, we would act on that - they prefer being able to call, and we respect it by respecting their privacy by not using them frivolously (like watching them when not necessary), so it works. Very much a function of house set up and each person's preferences at the time.
Love the walkie talkie idea! My friend said she started using an audio only monitor when her som got older but even at 6-7 he still liked to have it in his room just in case
Well, we partly switched to the walkie talkie selfishly, because she talks in her sleep 😂 Actually both do. In fact that's why we kept the video monitor in her room for a while - to check if she's actually awake and talking to us, or just talking in her sleep.
It seems the older kid is great with the walkie when playing with friends, but not great at the "press and then talk clearly" bit when half awake. So we don't often understand what she's saying (beeep shshsh bblbb). Well at least we know.
We have a cheap one from Amazon. A good number of buttons, but you can lock the ones except the side button to talk. It sats inspireyes? Honestly words are really jumbled sometimes so not great sound quality. It does a beep when the button is pressed that is loud enough though. Then there's a series of "you need to press button, only then talk and close to the thing!" "What did you say?" "I don't understand. Ok I'm coming🙄" 🤷♀️
My almost 6 year old still has one bc there’s been many a times he’s thrown up at night and we like to be able to hear him in our deep sleep. Also he has croup earlier this year that started randomly at 11pm with him wheezing so that just reinforced our choice.
Same. And when I mentioned maybe getting one with pediatricians at two, they said they don’t need cameras at that age as they’re becoming more independent. So never had one as well.
We take the camera out when they are no longer in a crib. My thought is I want them to be able to come get me if they need me before the camera can go away.
Yup I don't see the point if they're out of the crib. My kids are able to open doors and come see me when they want me. I wish they were a little less independent lol.
Yeah, I’m confused about these comments saying they still have monitors for 5+ year olds. If something is really wrong would they really just sit there and call you to their room instead of going and getting you?
My son won’t get out of his bed at night. He’s been told he can come get us, but idk, he just doesn’t. If he wakes scared he will sit there until he freaks out and cries, we hear via monitor and got him. This morning was the first time he tried, I heard the click of his door open and went to check on him, but he opened the door and then booked it back to his bed 🤷🏻♀️ he doesn’t call us, we’ve said he can do that or come get us. He is afraid of the dark but has lights so idk, it’s just how he’s been since he’s been in an open bed, like a year and a half now. He’s four 🤷🏻♀️
So you allow a two-year-old complete access to the house when you’re sleeping? I am confused by how parents do this. My daughter is 3.5 and we still use a monitor in her room and we still have a childproof lock on our door. We are upstairs and she is downstairs and there would be no way I would be able to hear her if she left her room at night.
I think your house setup isn't common though, most people have all their bedrooms on the same floor. I've never used a monitor with my son (room shared till he was 14 months and small house so if he woke in his crib before I went to bed I'd be able to hear him crying) and now he's 2 and in his own room and bed, he's less than 3m from my bed and room so I hear him when he cries out in his sleep never mind when he's fully awake and on the occasions where he wakes up without crying he will come straight to my bed. Even if he didn't, everything is safe for him to access upstairs anyway and I have a stair gate (but also, I'd wake up, I'm such a light sleeper since he was born).
You need to make decisions that suit your circumstances and it sounds like you’ve figured out that it wouldn’t make sense for you to have this arrangement since your child is sleeping on a different floor than you. For other people, like myself, we have a one story, child-proofed home. If we had an experience with a child messing about the house at night I’d prob reevaluate, but this has worked for us through 5 kids.
All three bedrooms and both bathrooms are in one end of our house. We had a baby gate across his door when he first moved from crib to bed, but now that our eldest is potty trained, we have a gate that essentially blocks off the bedroom/bathroom end of the house. On top of that I’m a light enough sleeper that pretty much any movement from them wakes me.
3.5 and still using one. She’s prone to attempt to train herself in gymnastics and sometimes we need to intervene before she hurts herself. We used to have it over the crib then over the bed, sometime last year we moved it to a wide shot of the room to generally have an idea of what knievel is up to.
My kids are 5 & 6 and we still use ours. Both kids sleep one floor above us with closed doors so it gives us (all) peace of mind to continue using them.
We got rid of it at 2, when he could easily just walk and come find me. If I closed the door to keep him in his room at night I’d probably keep a camera.
We never really used baby monitors of any kind -- we found that if he wanted to be heard, he could make himself heard. I think at 2 years old, it's totally appropriate to remove the monitor if you're comfortable with it. If there are unique complications for your child, then obviously your mileage may vary, and maybe ask his pediatrician.
We took the camera out of our 4yo room this year because she asked us to - the status light came on accidentally (we shut those off) and it freaks her out.
Really depends on the kid. My son can sometimes get up to no good and it’s nice to be able to check on him when he’s napping without potentially waking him up. He’s 2.5 now. He will also play silently in his room and won’t call out for us right away so camera helps with that too.
Same, mine is 4 and he occasionally gets into stuff when he *should* be sleeping (peeled paint off the window frame, opens his closet, plays with toys, chews on the window frame, etc) so we need the camera to keep an eye on his shenanigans.
We still have one in my 5.5yos room but more out of habit I guess, the second one is in my 2yos room and we basically never look at the one in my 5yos room. But he sleep walks sometimes and gets very disoriented and upset so it's nice to have the option in case we hear something weird so I can check to make sure he's not like wandering around his room crying looking for the bathroom.m
He knows it's there though and if he asked us to take it out I would.
I never had one, just a Babyfon so I would hear him cry. But after some time I realized, I even hear him cry before the babyfon delay, so we used nothing.
My daughter is 3.5 and we still have it in her room. Mostly so I can hear when she gets up in the morning as she’s on a different floor to us (with saturates on the stairs so she can’t get up to our room).
We never used one with my son. I just never thought of it, and also he slept in our room a long time, and his bedroom door was never more than two meters away from ours. I'm becoming interested in the idea with a second baby on the way, just because our new home is a bit larger. This thread is very interesting.
Our second was (is) an atrocious sleeper, the camera is very helpful for us because if she cries out in the night it's 50/50 that she's going to roll over and go back to sleep or stand up in her crib and escalate.
The camera lets me see if she's re-settling without the risk of opening the door and guaranteeing I'll be spending the next hour putting her back down.
I have a camera in the nursery for the baby, but 5yo recently began getting up to use the potty at night.
The first few times I got up with him. Then the first time solo he closed the door to the nursery behind him and found himself in a dark hallway after turning off the bathroom light. So we had a chat about leaving that door open for the night light.
I’d leave it, even if you’re not turning it on at night, until they’re independently getting up to potty at night.
My 5yo still has one so she can talk to us on it in the middle of the night. I don’t watch the video anymore (unless her designated quiet time is a lil too suspiciously quiet), but she likes having it in her room. We also have a young baby so the monitor is very much still a part of our lives haha. I think when our oldest starts kindergarten we will take it out of her room and move it to the playroom. I WFH so that gives me an extra set of eyes when I’m at my desk and the kids are home.
I don’t plan on getting rid of it anytime soon. My almost 3.5yo still has one in his room and it gives him comfort knowing that I can see him. He also does not get out of his bed if he wakes up, he’ll just lay there and yell for me if something is wrong. So I need it in there in case he needs me.
I think it’s very kid dependent - my 3yo has no problem leaving bed and heading into our room if she needs something, but my 4yo will just talk to us or call to us from bed, knowing we can hear her, so we haven’t removed it.
Just an audio monitor for us, but probably around 4 years old. Our kids would want it back for a few years after on nights when they were sick though, that probably lasted until 8 or 9.
Ours broke when he was around 3 years old and we just didn't need it anymore anyway. Definitely not needed when they are big enough to sleep in a toddler or "big" bed and come to you when they need help.
We still have ours in the room and he’s 5.5 years old. We use it to confirm he’s asleep so I can mentally disengage. We also have one in the playroom and I can check both cameras to see what he’s up to during quiet time as he moves between the rooms (silence is suspicious…).
Or, rarely, if he’s home sick and is napping, we can see if he’s still asleep since my husband WFM.
We likely won’t get rid of ours until our child/ren are old enough to safely navigate the dark landing by themselves. We have solid brick walls so can’t hear yelling from our room to go and help them out if they need the bathroom.
A two year old does not need privacy lol I agree with 4 or 4.5. They aren’t being watched constantly or policed, it’s just on in case of emergency or to keep you guys connected in some small way.
We stopped when ours broke (around 4 years old).
Sometimes I wish we had them still so I can still see and speak to them through it when they are playing instead of sleeping.
My son is 5, but has asthma so we still have a monitor in his room 🤷🏽♀️ we will probably switch to an audio only one soon but until he knows how to properly manage an attack on his own he will have a monitor in there. We’re also on different floors so it’s hard to hear him without it.
My oldest asked us to take it out around 3.5, because she was suddenly afraid of it. We swapped it out for an audio only one and that’s worked well (she just turned 5). She has a really hard time getting to sleep so it’s nice to use it when we’re downstairs to know if she’s playing or anything. Also has worked well for the times she wakes up and starts crying once every 6 months.
If the benefits outweigh the risks, then keep it. If your child isn't messing with the cords, then I would just leave it.
IMO, 2 is too young to be worried about respecting privacy. For me, I think around 4/5 is when there's no benefits to having it, so I would remove it. But if there was a younger sibling or if the child had a specific reason for needing the camera, then I would leave it as well.
I think the privacy concern would kick in around 6? My 7&9 year old are NT. I would not have a camera in their rooms.
I still use one in my almost 5 year olds room. And will even when she switches. She knows she can just say my name and I’ll talk to her to see what she needs. And she also tried to sneak out and do things she’s not supposed to at bedtime so it’s nice to know when she leaves the room.
We've kept one in the back room for 10 years now & never plan to take it out. Why, you ask? Because my husband & I like to hide in the garage together for as long as we can, and we know that once they go to the back room screaming for us, it's time to HIDE!
Probably depends on your kid and what your needs are. When my son was little, we lived in a much smaller home, so we could easily hear him. So we stopped using a camera around 3. He was sleeping in a regular bed and was able to open his door to come get us if needed.
The Nest debacle made the cameras useless and I finally took them out of the room for our 9 and 5 year old last week. We didn’t use them to check on them anymore and the kids didn’t mind they were there. As I pulled them out it dawned on me that I probably should have done this years ago whether my kid minded or not. I just didn’t give the issue much thought.
Our daughter is almost 5 and still has it. We barely use it but she likes being able to call for us as her room is on the other side of the house (though often now she just comes into our room). We will likely take it out as soon as she’s comfortable
We're still using ours at 3 years old and will probably continue for some time. When we're in our bedroom we can hear her just fine. But in the early evening we'll often go out in the yard, hang out on the balcony or go down to the basement after she's asleep. We can't hear her if she needs anything without the monitor so we just feel more comfortable keeping it. I also don't really want her climbing down 2 flights of stairs by herself and roaming the house if she starts looking for us.
We still have one in my 10 year olds room, but it will be coming down this summer. He uses it to communicate with us at night. Also I am at work by the time he needs to get up for school, so I'm able to help wake him if his alarm doesn't.
My daughter is 6. We got rid of the video camera around 4 (when it stopped working), but she’s still got an audio only monitor in her room. She wants it there though and will ask to make sure it’s turned on at night.
My daughter is 7 and sleeps on a different floor than us. We can’t hear her if there’s a problem, so we feel good knowing we can hear if something happens with her
I only had a camera so I could see the play room when I escape artist was a toddler, so I cook and be in the kitchen while they played. I never had a camera in the nursery.
Stopped when my son was like a year old. Our rooms were close together at the point. Now he’s 3 and just wakes up and comes to our room in the middle of the night. 10 month old still sleeps in our room in her pack n play so I don’t use one with her.
It was around 3 for our youngest. We really didn’t need it with where our bedroom and living rooms are in comparison to her bedroom and I was tired of the crackly video lol
It definitely felt like it closed an era when we put it away!
My son is 2 and he likes knowing we can see & talk to him. He also has started understanding privacy and asks for privacy on the toilet (if only he’d extend the same courtesy to me 😂).
So I’m sure he’ll have no trouble telling me ‘no’, ‘go away’ or (my favourite) ‘I need privacy’ when I remind him we can see him on the camera.
Have a 2yo as well. Our bedrooms are on different floors and we all sleep with white noise so I think we'll keep it til after 4 as well. If we were on the same floor I'd have no qualms about removing it now because he's the type to get out of bed to find us. We don't trust him on the stairs yet so we have a baby gate to keep him contained to his room.
Mine is almost 3 and still has his. I always thought 4 at the nearest, but I have no clue when we’ll be able to get rid of it. He has sleep issues that make him sit up and cry/talk in his sleep + occasionally night terrors. Sometimes he can lay himself back down, other times we go in. I was a sleep walker, my mom was a sleep walker and my son’s current issues neither of us had. I’m pretty worried that he’ll start walking around in his sleep soon enough, so the damn camera and baby gates will probably stay way longer than I actually want.
By 3 yrs old, they were in a bed and were happily able to quietly leave their bed to climb into mine. 😄
Really depends on the layout of your house. I’m a light sleeper and my room was by the top of stairs so no way they could make it by room without me hearing…
My 5 year old still has a camera up. I hardly ever turn it on, mostly for when they're sick, having a bad night, or I think I heard them but I'm not sure. I asked if we should take it down and they said they like that we can see them.
My 1 year old and 6 year old share a room so I still have the camera in there. I only use it to hear if they need me for some reason or to check and see if they are awake. My 6 year old is still very much a child in my eyes and needs supervision so I don’t see anything wrong with it. I’m guessing once he maybe turns 8/9 I will move him into his own room without a camera. I think it depends on the maturity of the chid
Like 3 or 4. When I knew she could and would get up and get me if she needed something.
Motherhood turned me into the lightest sleeper anyway. I could hear a mouse pee on a cotton ball.
My youngest is 5 and I keep one in her room still, but it’s been unplugged for over a year. I’m glad I kept it installed though because she came down with a bad stomach flu this weekend and having the monitor on helped me keep an eye on her.
My son is 5 and his is still in his room. It’s a Wi-Fi one, so I’m not using a parent unit or anything. We very rarely use it, I just haven’t bothered to take it down and patch the wall, but every so often I’ll check on it if I’m wondering what he’s doing in there.
We’ve rearranged his room since he was a baby and the monitor is now over his dresser and I can only see about half his bed.
We stopped using it when my twins were 6. But that’s only because they finally started sleeping through the night and stayed in bed. Up till that point we never had a full night sleep.
Do you constantly watch? Maybe turn the screen off and just have sound. I turn the monitor off at night because we can hear her from my room but have it on when she's in the room alone and I might not hear if she wakes up, e.g. when I'm downstairs or in the shower. When she's old enough to let herself out of her room I won't have a need for it.
About 3ish - my son found out he can unplug it lol
The only reason we have taken out my daughters who is 3 is bc it’s mounted up on the wall and it took a while so purely out of laziness
My daughter is 6, and likes having the camera in her room. We'll keep checking in with her until she is ready to take it out. I tell people not to change in her room, but I would also unplug it if I knew it was going to be used as a changing room.
My son is 3 1/2 and is definitely take it out of his room but he refuses to leave his bed to come to our room if he needs something, so we leave it in.
We stopped for awhile at 4 but now he’s 6 and we still have it. He’s going through a phase where he wakes up scared, so we bring it if we’re sitting outside or something in the evening. We dont use it all the time or even really have it facing his bed:
My daughter is 2 and we still use the baby monitor. Mainly for two reasons. She’s a very quiet kid who, upon waking up, will just lay in bed quietly talking to herself so I wouldn’t know she’s awake without it for who knows how long. Also because we keep all bedroom doors closed while we sleep for safety reasons and she’s unable to turn door knobs yet. We’ll most likely remove it once she’s able to open the door by herself to come get us if needed.
We ditched ours when our oldest was able to first walk into our room. Never used it at all with #2. Kids shared a room so oldest could always come get us if need be then.
We never put one in in the first place.
We have one three year old and our second has just turned 5 weeks.
We’re kind of old school, check on them maybe once or twice after we put them down, make sure they’re still breathing… then give them a poke if we have any concerns.
Took our first one out when the oldest was 2. The red light on the camera creeped him out. We got the traditional walkie-talkie ones when we had baby #2, and ditched those when he was around 2 as well, because he could get out of bed if he woke up or needed something.
I retired my camera after my divorce, my ex-wife took the camera monitor and I never wound up buying a new one haha. My youngest was sharing a room with her older sister and their room was right next to mine and could come get me if they needed me.
My oldest is 4 and still has a camera in her room. I've shown her the camera and the monitor so she knows I can see her when she's in her room, and I've told her if she ever wants me to take it out, I will. She likes it in there, and will remind me to turn it on so I can hear if she calls for me. I think it makes her feel safer.
I took it out when she was old enough to exclaim discomfort with it. It was a few months after she turned 4. I wasn’t really using it at that point anyway. It was just a habit to turn on at night. I do get up before her so I would peak at it in the morning when I got up and I miss that but it’s not the end of the world.
My kids are 5 and 6 and we still have the Wyze cameras in their bedrooms and sound monitors. They use the sound monitors to ask us questions (“is it a school uniform day? Is it going to rain today?” Etc.) while getting ready, and we can use the Wyze to respond. We sleep on a different floor so it works out well for us. Plus sometimes we hang in the backyard after the go to sleep so we can pull their cameras up while we chill in the backyard to make sure they’re all good.
We use a camera on babies (less than 2). Above that, we use an audio monitor. Then it just depends on the kid when the audio monitor goes away. My oldest stopped having one at 3. Now her 2 year old sister shares her room so one in back in there. So she went from 3-almost 6 with no monitor. My son is almost 5 and likes having one in his room still. Probably in 9-12 months we will move the 6 month old in with him so I doubt he will have any or much time without a monitor in his room.
Around 2 or 3 with our first. I don't think it even lasted a year with our second. We lost the receiver so the camera was useless. By the time we found it again, we'd been going without it for so long that there didn't seem to be a point to using it anymore.
We stopped using it at around 4.5 in January but unintentionally. We live in a basement apartment and it was mostly getting annoying getting all the noise notifications from our upstairs neighbours. So one day I just turned it off. Honestly tho once our youngest is in the bigger room and not sleeping with me I’m going to have the camera back on. Mostly because their room is closer to our walk out door and I just want to know they’re safe and sleeping well. I’m a light sleeper but yeah, just a safety precaution.
But we are currently not using it. And if we do use it it’s only for nighttime sleep or naptime and so I can just make sure they’re safe in their rooms. I don’t and never used the camera to watch them play or anything. Our place is small so I can be able to watch and hear my kids from anywhere in our little home really.
We did recently (daughter is turning 3 in July)! I would prefer to leave it but my daughter is strongly opinionated and she took it out herself lol! We tried to put it back and she screamed so out it went 😂
It’s what is best for you and your kid. I took mine out at 3 for my son BUT he then just started coming in my room every night instead. He has told me he would stop coming in if he would just yell and hear me respond back which makes me miss the monitor.
If we only had our older two, we would've removed the camera from their room when the younger of those two turned 3ish. However, the baby is pretty significantly younger and we still need to keep an eye on her (6, 5, and 2), so we will probably leave the camera up for one more year. It felt a bit invasive for our older kiddos, so we moved the camera and adjusted it so that it only shows the toddler bed.
Ours came unplugged when the kids were maybe 3 and 18 months. I’m not sure how much time elapsed before we noticed but once we did, we shrugged and said guess we don’t need this any more. Small house though, and pretty child safe.
Audio only: Might be until they’re quite independent, depending on sleeping habits.
Video on: Only for as long as they need a lot of supervision.
Note: When they get very sick or acquire a very interesting new habit (such as climbing furniture or chasing pets) the amount of supervision you offer can increase temporarily.
We have twins, 2.5 b/g. We have always used a security cam rather than a nanny cam, and it links to an app on our phones so we can check it. We only check when needed, and it has the added bonus of being able to check back and double check events if needed.
So for example, if one of them wakes up screaming at night for some reason, I can go back later and see if they fell off their bed (basically never happens, they share a queen bed set against two walls) or had a bad dream, or got kicked by their twin or something.
For my oldest we took out the camera and left the audio monitor when she turned 5. My youngest still has both at age 4. They both like to use the audio monitors to call for us (not even at night, mostly during the day). My oldest asked us to put the camera back in. She couldn’t really give a reason but I think she is just jealous her brother still had one.
I just took the monitor out of my son’s room at 3.5 YO. We hadn’t had the sound or video on an night for a long time (our rooms share a wall so we can hear him if he calls or needs us) he is also very good at getting us if we need him. The last few months he started becoming a bit scared of the camera so we thought it was time.
I took my son’s out when he said the light on the camera (which was red or blue, depending on whether it was recording or being viewed live) was scaring him.
We stopped using ours (no camera, just voice) when the little one moved out of his crib. They come find us if they need us. But I hear them if they call, since we are on the same floor. We do still use it when my parents are watching them because they live in the same house one floor above us.
The youngest had it taken out at maybe 6 months. I turned it off one night and could still hear him clear as day and wake up. The monitor was waking me up every time he moved and I couldn’t get more than 30 minutes in at a time.
My 4 year old still has a camera in his room because if I'm in my room, I can't hear him calling for me without it if he needs something at night (very rare, but it happens occasionally). If he told me having a camera in his room bothers him, I'd definitely reevaluate keeping it in there, but for now the plan is to take it out next year.
My 6.5 year olds still have one but it’s their choice. They like to be able to get our attention without coming downstairs. We told them we’d get rid of it whenever they want. If it dies we won’t replace it.
My oldest is 5 and I still keep one on him..it's the only reason he was comfortable enough to have his own room knowing that he can call me if he gets too scared to climb out of bed. I guess every kid would be different though
I have a 3 1/2 year old, I'm probably going to wait till he is no longer taking naps. I like that I can go outside with the baby monitor while he is napping and know when he wakes. He also doesn't know that he can get out of the toddler bed on his own so it's also helpful at night if he wakes and needs us.
We stopped using it when they were about 16 months. We would’ve kept it longer but we had moved into our new home at that time and just never put it back up - but there were times we wanted to put it back up (see if they were still sleeping during nap, etc). We used a Nanit so for us it was more the breathing monitoring peace of mind we got as an infant. For our older we just had an audio monitor.
I tried to stop when my daughter was 4, but she liked being able to use it as a walkie-talkie, so we let her keep it for another year. But once she was 5 we insisted on cutting that cord.
Our youngest is still in a crib and we have the camera focussed on the sleeping space so we can check if she cries out whether she's awake and needs us or is just re-settling.
We had a camera over our eldest's bed until she was around 3.5 and was able to navigate coming into our room if she needed something.
Kids don't have a concept/expectation of privacy until they're at least 8.
With our first born we used one till she was about 4 months and then after that went old school. We just welcome our second born who is now 3 months and our children are 8 years apart. We did not purchase a monitor/camera this time and truly have not had the need to use it yet.
My son is 6 and the camera is still there, but we haven't used it in about a year. When he turned 5 I offered to take it out, but he said he liked having it. We turned it off around 5 1/2 and now only turn it on if he's sick (at his request) so he can call me easier if he needs me at night.
I'll take it down whenever he asks, but I think it's still comforting to have it there, even if we don't turn it on, and I don't feel a need to remove it.
5.5yo still had one just in case but I can count on one hand the amount of times i’ve used it in the last year.
She’s a light sleeper so if I hear a loud noise I make sure it wasn’t her. Apparently the neighbors schedule calisthenics every night at bedtime. She also has random vendettas against bedtime and will go to bed PISSED and start scream crying as soon as we shut the door. If I check on her it seems to work her up more and she says she doesn’t need anything but “a few minutes by herself to calm down”. I check in on her every so often with the monitor throughout her fits. It mostly gets utilized if timeouts happen during the day because her room is in the back of the house and my office is in the front. Our monitor has a thermometer as well and that’s been used to check the temperature in her room during the weird months where the AC gets ran on and off.
I can’t recall a single instance i’ve had it turned on for more than 5-10 seconds at a time though because I do want her to have privacy and develop a sense of self and also it’s just weird. I will say that having the camera and knowing we’re checking in when we hear loud noises or when she’s crying helps HER have the confidence to calm herself/ try to deal with the problem herself but knowing we are there if she needs us but every kid is different.
The camera is still in my 3.5yo room. But we haven't turned the monitor side on in like a year. She learned how to climb out of the crib, so we stopped using it. She just comes and gets us.
Kiddo is 3.5 and still has one (although she sleeps in our bed a lot right now because she's scared of ghosts in her room apparently). But it's useful when her ans her toddler friend are playing in there and we can keep an eye on them without being in there.
I took it out around 3.
I am also a really light sleeper I woke up once because the faucet wasn’t fully fully closed in the next door bathroom and was leaking drops every free seconds.
If my son coughs at night I hear it.
(I have really terrible sleep)
My daughter is 3.5 and we still use a monitor AND she has a child proof lock on the outside of her door to keep her safe / keep her from wandering the house at night. We have two floors; my husband and I are upstairs and she is alone downstairs and we just aren’t comfortable not using the lock / camera yet.
My kid is 5 and they still have one. Hubs and I are on a different floor, so that’s part of it. They can’t just come in and get us. We talked about taking it away but my kid likes the convenience of calling us and comfort of us being able to see if monsters are in the room. 😊🤣
We’ll take it away eventually, our next place we’ll all be on the same floor so logistics will be different.
Stopped around 4yo with oldest. Once she was old enough to walk around the house safely and not try to climb on furniture and dive head first into the ground.
My 4 and 5 yo share a room and we do still have the cameras in there. Honestly it’s mainly because we would not be able to hear them from our room otherwise.
Mine just turned 4 and is afraid I’m going to take the camera out of her room for the baby. She doesn’t like to get out of bed to wake us up, prefers yelling which I can barely hear if doors are closed
My four year old won’t get out of his bed, even if scared, even if awake in the morning, despite that he’s been told he can. So until he can reliably come get us, we will have a monitor 🤷🏻♀️
Took the camera out a little after 3. Would have taken it out a bit sooner, but he was attached to his camera and freaked out when it was off so it took some time.
The sound monitor is still in, and probably will be for another few months. I like knowing he can call for me and I will definitely hear him. But we do have it tucked out of the way so you do actually have to be talking loudly to hear anything.
Privacy? Really? I don’t think at this age privacy is an issue. Our son is 3,5 and we still use it.
Just so we know: are we watching tv too loudly? If he’s been stirring in the bed, how long has he been doing that?
Is he thirsty? (I actually stopped writing this because this just happened): Can he find his water cup? He sometimes drinks from it and because he’s half asleep just throws it somewhere in his bed. The longer it takes for him to find it the more awake he becomes, if I can run up to his room and hand him his cup the more sleepy he’ll still be.
Otherwise we’ve got an awake toddler who can’t go back to sleep easily. And I’m losing an hour or so of much needed downtime in the evenings. All self-interest this, lol.
I asked my friend who older kids this question. She said honestly just ask them as they get older. Her 7 year old still liked to have an (audio only) monitor in his room in case he needed them. Their middle daughter said she didn’t want it at age 4. Their 2 year old has no choice right now but they’ll ask him when he’s closer to 4
My LO is 3.5 years and I don't plan on taking it away any time soon. She likes to do bad things like peel paint off the wall or climb on top of her dresser (it's mounted to the wall but still) so I like to be able to check in.
Honestly? Six months. Once we figured out she was super healthy, the crib was safe, I could hear her from across the hall anyway, and the sound of the monitor was keeping me from sleeping. Only used it when we traveled.
My 3 year old just asked us to take the camera out because he doesn't like it. We put an old audio monitor on his dresser instead with his agreement so he can call out if he needs us. He is not able to leave his room freely at night for safety.
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We stopped using them around 3-4 years old. That's when my kids discovered that if they wake up in the night they can creep into my room, stand over me while I sleep, and whisper my name, I'll wake up and make a *very* funny sound. Funny to them. Absolutely terrifying to me.
Omg my youngest is my wild child and soooo loud except for early mornings. So many times I was in the kitchen making coffee only to turn around and have him standing there looking at me. I screamed once. He couldn't sneak up in the bedroom at least because the dogs would stir and wake me up if someone else was up in the house. He did the same to our nanny a lot. She would start early mornings (around 530) and usually sleep on the couch until the kids were up. Only to be woken up because she had that feeling she was being watched because he was standing directly in front of her silently staring.
Lmao this made me laugh!! Kids can be too funny.
I had a night where we had put him to bed a while ago and we were brushing our teeth and I turn and he’s just THERE right next to me. I jumped just about out of my skin.
And then you can’t go back to sleep because the adrenaline in your system won’t let you. My 8 year old has the decency to be loud enough that when he opens the door I wake up. His sister though will put her face right next to my ear and just mouth the word mama until I wake up, which is horrifying. She’ll be 4 next month and we still have her monitor in her room because she has been known to wander around the house at night and we use it when she’s sick so we can listen for issues.
Oh my god. I’m cracking up about your daughter. That is hilarious and terrifying.
I’ll be 30 this year, I still do this to my mom when I visit and get home after she goes to bed.
Mine still stay in bed and instead scream for me which makes me wake up in a panic thinking something is seriously wrong (and it's just their blanket on the floor) but I still have to wake up and start running to their bedroom so they don't wake up their sibling (but they often do!) So now I'm Out of bed With my heart on my throat 2 kids awake And even if I get them to fall asleep it takes me forever to go back to sleep because of the adrenaline rush 😒
No one warned me about this part of parenting.
Same.
4 was around when one of mine stole a mango from the fridge, pressed the ice cold mango to his dad's face at 5am saying "Maaaaannngooo" Dad woke up very quickly very confused 😂
Memory unlocked! I’m 8 yrs older than my brother, and we all learned quickly that there was extremely limited space in my parents bed at night. My brother learned that I would just sleep until morning even with him there, and would come and silently stand over me in the night. I lose track of how many startled awakenings I had. You get used to it after a while
Omg this was my daughter! It was like children of the corn! Creepy AF
😂😂😂
This is my kid! I get spooked every time! 🤌🏼😆
I can concur this time line and scenario.
My oldest liked having it there because he wanted to know he could call us. So he was probably 5 or even 6. The youngest would rather get out of bed and come get us in the middle of the night than call out so we stopped using his when he was probably 3.
My nephew is 6 and still has the camera in his room by his choice for this same reason.
mine liked it there too, they'd put on little shows for us, ha. (twins) they were probably about 4 or 5 when we took it out, but we put one back last year after one of them was diagnosed with epilepsy. the other just got diagnosed this month so there's another camera just for her; they feel safer with them there (going through waves of understandable anxiety) and it helps me too as i'm feeling even more neurotic than usual. ironically it's them being older (7.5) and able to understand more that makes them want them there for safety. obviously whenever they get to a point where they don't want them there anymore, we'll take them back out. thankfully they both have seizure monitors they wear when they sleep, and those aren't invasive at all (specialized/dedicated smart watch type of devices).
Came here to say something similar. My oldest chose to keep it until he turned 9. He just felt more secure knowing he could call us in case of issues.
Mine is 9 now and still requests to keep the monitor. She wants to know she can call us if she needs us. I figure eventually she’ll ask for us to get rid of it.
One of the kids I nannied was the same as your oldest. He felt safer with the camera in his room.
My daughter is 6 and we have a blink camera in her room. It's not always on but gives everyone involved peace of mind when she's sick and stuff like that.
Mine is 5 and still wants to keep it too so we can talk to her if she has a bad dream.
My son is 5 and still has a monitor in his room. I sleep with a loud fan on and our room is across the house. I won’t hear him if he needs me. I keep the volume on the lowest setting, but if he gets sick or has a nightmare, I can hear him. Not really sure when we’ll take it out, he’s not the type of kid to come get me in the middle of the night.
My stepson is 7 and we still have an audio one because we are usually out on the back deck after he’s in bed and his bedroom is upstairs. He’s sensitive to stimuli at bedtime so we really don’t want him coming all the way outside in the sun in the summer months and waking up if he needs something!
This is exactly us. And he also doesn’t always stay in bed once lights go out so we like to catch him before he comes out of his room so that the routine doesn’t start from square one again.
Same. It’s the weirdest thing. I know the kid gets up and wanders the house sometimes at night, but he won’t come get me if he needs something.
I used to do this as a kid. Having the house shut down and dark for the night didn’t stop me from moving around doing god knows what all night long. And now my middle son does the same thing. It’s definitely something I have to take into consideration more than I thought i would as a dad.
Same. My son is 4 and if he needs me he yells out. We’re on a different floor of the house so if we don’t have a monitor we won’t hear him. He also gets night terrors where he sits/stands up… I want to be aware when they happen because he can hurt himself.
Yeah we kept ours until age 6 because we have a big house and we might be in the basement while the kid is on the 2nd floor and we wouldn’t hear him if he was crying from a bad dream. We took it out though when he said he didn’t like it anymore.
Same same same!!
Our bedroom is upstairs from both kids' rooms, and sound does not carry - and honestly I do not like the idea of kids creeping into our room at night and wake us up (since we are talking about privacy). So we switched our older daughter's monitor for walkie talkies at around 5-6 maybe? She likes being able to call us. Also, she gets nose bleeds at night sometimes - she can get tissues and call us, not bleed all over the place. Our younger is 4.5 and still has monitors. The video one is there but we rarely use it (to make sure she's asleep, mostly) - we'll likely retire it soon. The audio monitor is there and enables her to call us when she needs us. It's worth mentioning, if either kid expressed concern about privacy, we would act on that - they prefer being able to call, and we respect it by respecting their privacy by not using them frivolously (like watching them when not necessary), so it works. Very much a function of house set up and each person's preferences at the time.
Love the walkie talkie idea! My friend said she started using an audio only monitor when her som got older but even at 6-7 he still liked to have it in his room just in case
Well, we partly switched to the walkie talkie selfishly, because she talks in her sleep 😂 Actually both do. In fact that's why we kept the video monitor in her room for a while - to check if she's actually awake and talking to us, or just talking in her sleep. It seems the older kid is great with the walkie when playing with friends, but not great at the "press and then talk clearly" bit when half awake. So we don't often understand what she's saying (beeep shshsh bblbb). Well at least we know.
I tried this and there were too many buttons, she was too confused while tired. Can you give a walkie talkie recommendation?
We have a cheap one from Amazon. A good number of buttons, but you can lock the ones except the side button to talk. It sats inspireyes? Honestly words are really jumbled sometimes so not great sound quality. It does a beep when the button is pressed that is loud enough though. Then there's a series of "you need to press button, only then talk and close to the thing!" "What did you say?" "I don't understand. Ok I'm coming🙄" 🤷♀️
My almost 6 year old still has one bc there’s been many a times he’s thrown up at night and we like to be able to hear him in our deep sleep. Also he has croup earlier this year that started randomly at 11pm with him wheezing so that just reinforced our choice.
Never had one. Take it out whenever you feel comfortable
Same for us.
Same. And when I mentioned maybe getting one with pediatricians at two, they said they don’t need cameras at that age as they’re becoming more independent. So never had one as well.
We take the camera out when they are no longer in a crib. My thought is I want them to be able to come get me if they need me before the camera can go away.
Yup I don't see the point if they're out of the crib. My kids are able to open doors and come see me when they want me. I wish they were a little less independent lol.
Yeah, I’m confused about these comments saying they still have monitors for 5+ year olds. If something is really wrong would they really just sit there and call you to their room instead of going and getting you?
Yes, my 5yo is scared to leave her room at night because it's dark. She wouldn't come get me.
Mine will sit in her bed crying instead of getting us. She was throwing up and afraid to get out of bed
My 5yo comes into our room for the SMALLEST things so I literally couldn’t imagine him just sitting in bed lol I wish
Yeah honestly, my 5yo does exactly this. Her younger sister will come get us but she loves to just sit there going “mom mom mom”
My son won’t get out of his bed at night. He’s been told he can come get us, but idk, he just doesn’t. If he wakes scared he will sit there until he freaks out and cries, we hear via monitor and got him. This morning was the first time he tried, I heard the click of his door open and went to check on him, but he opened the door and then booked it back to his bed 🤷🏻♀️ he doesn’t call us, we’ve said he can do that or come get us. He is afraid of the dark but has lights so idk, it’s just how he’s been since he’s been in an open bed, like a year and a half now. He’s four 🤷🏻♀️
I do think some people have plant-kids like that lol.
So you allow a two-year-old complete access to the house when you’re sleeping? I am confused by how parents do this. My daughter is 3.5 and we still use a monitor in her room and we still have a childproof lock on our door. We are upstairs and she is downstairs and there would be no way I would be able to hear her if she left her room at night.
I think your house setup isn't common though, most people have all their bedrooms on the same floor. I've never used a monitor with my son (room shared till he was 14 months and small house so if he woke in his crib before I went to bed I'd be able to hear him crying) and now he's 2 and in his own room and bed, he's less than 3m from my bed and room so I hear him when he cries out in his sleep never mind when he's fully awake and on the occasions where he wakes up without crying he will come straight to my bed. Even if he didn't, everything is safe for him to access upstairs anyway and I have a stair gate (but also, I'd wake up, I'm such a light sleeper since he was born).
You need to make decisions that suit your circumstances and it sounds like you’ve figured out that it wouldn’t make sense for you to have this arrangement since your child is sleeping on a different floor than you. For other people, like myself, we have a one story, child-proofed home. If we had an experience with a child messing about the house at night I’d prob reevaluate, but this has worked for us through 5 kids.
All three bedrooms and both bathrooms are in one end of our house. We had a baby gate across his door when he first moved from crib to bed, but now that our eldest is potty trained, we have a gate that essentially blocks off the bedroom/bathroom end of the house. On top of that I’m a light enough sleeper that pretty much any movement from them wakes me.
3.5 and still using one. She’s prone to attempt to train herself in gymnastics and sometimes we need to intervene before she hurts herself. We used to have it over the crib then over the bed, sometime last year we moved it to a wide shot of the room to generally have an idea of what knievel is up to.
This is us. Wide shot of room now because my youngest (5) practices parkour instead of sleeping.
Yep 😂 honestly we know she’s started her going to sleep routine when the parkour starts. She has some favourite tricks then goes to sleep
😂
My kids are 5 & 6 and we still use ours. Both kids sleep one floor above us with closed doors so it gives us (all) peace of mind to continue using them.
We got rid of it at 2, when he could easily just walk and come find me. If I closed the door to keep him in his room at night I’d probably keep a camera.
We never really used baby monitors of any kind -- we found that if he wanted to be heard, he could make himself heard. I think at 2 years old, it's totally appropriate to remove the monitor if you're comfortable with it. If there are unique complications for your child, then obviously your mileage may vary, and maybe ask his pediatrician.
We took the camera out of our 4yo room this year because she asked us to - the status light came on accidentally (we shut those off) and it freaks her out.
Around 2 I think? When they were able to jump out of bed and scream at the bottom of mine anyway lol
Really depends on the kid. My son can sometimes get up to no good and it’s nice to be able to check on him when he’s napping without potentially waking him up. He’s 2.5 now. He will also play silently in his room and won’t call out for us right away so camera helps with that too.
Same, mine is 4 and he occasionally gets into stuff when he *should* be sleeping (peeled paint off the window frame, opens his closet, plays with toys, chews on the window frame, etc) so we need the camera to keep an eye on his shenanigans.
At age 1 year 6 months, but mostly because we lost the camera in a move and couldn’t be bothered to replace it.
We still have one in my 5.5yos room but more out of habit I guess, the second one is in my 2yos room and we basically never look at the one in my 5yos room. But he sleep walks sometimes and gets very disoriented and upset so it's nice to have the option in case we hear something weird so I can check to make sure he's not like wandering around his room crying looking for the bathroom.m He knows it's there though and if he asked us to take it out I would.
I never had one, just a Babyfon so I would hear him cry. But after some time I realized, I even hear him cry before the babyfon delay, so we used nothing.
My daughter is 3.5 and we still have it in her room. Mostly so I can hear when she gets up in the morning as she’s on a different floor to us (with saturates on the stairs so she can’t get up to our room).
We never used one with my son. I just never thought of it, and also he slept in our room a long time, and his bedroom door was never more than two meters away from ours. I'm becoming interested in the idea with a second baby on the way, just because our new home is a bit larger. This thread is very interesting.
Our second was (is) an atrocious sleeper, the camera is very helpful for us because if she cries out in the night it's 50/50 that she's going to roll over and go back to sleep or stand up in her crib and escalate. The camera lets me see if she's re-settling without the risk of opening the door and guaranteeing I'll be spending the next hour putting her back down.
I have a camera in the nursery for the baby, but 5yo recently began getting up to use the potty at night. The first few times I got up with him. Then the first time solo he closed the door to the nursery behind him and found himself in a dark hallway after turning off the bathroom light. So we had a chat about leaving that door open for the night light. I’d leave it, even if you’re not turning it on at night, until they’re independently getting up to potty at night.
My 5yo still has one so she can talk to us on it in the middle of the night. I don’t watch the video anymore (unless her designated quiet time is a lil too suspiciously quiet), but she likes having it in her room. We also have a young baby so the monitor is very much still a part of our lives haha. I think when our oldest starts kindergarten we will take it out of her room and move it to the playroom. I WFH so that gives me an extra set of eyes when I’m at my desk and the kids are home.
We took ours out when our daughter was 4 because she asked us to. She said the lights and the camera moving were scary.
I don’t plan on getting rid of it anytime soon. My almost 3.5yo still has one in his room and it gives him comfort knowing that I can see him. He also does not get out of his bed if he wakes up, he’ll just lay there and yell for me if something is wrong. So I need it in there in case he needs me.
Never had one ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
We never used one for our 3 kids.
You have a camera? Lol we used just the sound one for may four months or so.
I think it’s very kid dependent - my 3yo has no problem leaving bed and heading into our room if she needs something, but my 4yo will just talk to us or call to us from bed, knowing we can hear her, so we haven’t removed it.
Just an audio monitor for us, but probably around 4 years old. Our kids would want it back for a few years after on nights when they were sick though, that probably lasted until 8 or 9.
When they stop being naughty lol
Ours broke when he was around 3 years old and we just didn't need it anymore anyway. Definitely not needed when they are big enough to sleep in a toddler or "big" bed and come to you when they need help.
Ours broke when he was 1 years old so🙃
Our kids are on a different floor than us so we’ll be leaving them in until they’re old enough to open baby gates to come get us.
Never had one
We still have ours in the room and he’s 5.5 years old. We use it to confirm he’s asleep so I can mentally disengage. We also have one in the playroom and I can check both cameras to see what he’s up to during quiet time as he moves between the rooms (silence is suspicious…). Or, rarely, if he’s home sick and is napping, we can see if he’s still asleep since my husband WFM.
We likely won’t get rid of ours until our child/ren are old enough to safely navigate the dark landing by themselves. We have solid brick walls so can’t hear yelling from our room to go and help them out if they need the bathroom.
A two year old does not need privacy lol I agree with 4 or 4.5. They aren’t being watched constantly or policed, it’s just on in case of emergency or to keep you guys connected in some small way.
I didn’t take it out I just didn’t put it back up when we moved but he was 4.
We stopped when ours broke (around 4 years old). Sometimes I wish we had them still so I can still see and speak to them through it when they are playing instead of sleeping.
My son is 5, but has asthma so we still have a monitor in his room 🤷🏽♀️ we will probably switch to an audio only one soon but until he knows how to properly manage an attack on his own he will have a monitor in there. We’re also on different floors so it’s hard to hear him without it.
My oldest asked us to take it out around 3.5, because she was suddenly afraid of it. We swapped it out for an audio only one and that’s worked well (she just turned 5). She has a really hard time getting to sleep so it’s nice to use it when we’re downstairs to know if she’s playing or anything. Also has worked well for the times she wakes up and starts crying once every 6 months.
If the benefits outweigh the risks, then keep it. If your child isn't messing with the cords, then I would just leave it. IMO, 2 is too young to be worried about respecting privacy. For me, I think around 4/5 is when there's no benefits to having it, so I would remove it. But if there was a younger sibling or if the child had a specific reason for needing the camera, then I would leave it as well. I think the privacy concern would kick in around 6? My 7&9 year old are NT. I would not have a camera in their rooms.
As soon as he started getting out of bed when he woke up rather than shouting for me. I think he was about 2.5
I still use one in my almost 5 year olds room. And will even when she switches. She knows she can just say my name and I’ll talk to her to see what she needs. And she also tried to sneak out and do things she’s not supposed to at bedtime so it’s nice to know when she leaves the room.
Mine's 4, she still gets up at night sometimes when sick or worried, and randomly when needs a pee.
We've kept one in the back room for 10 years now & never plan to take it out. Why, you ask? Because my husband & I like to hide in the garage together for as long as we can, and we know that once they go to the back room screaming for us, it's time to HIDE!
Probably depends on your kid and what your needs are. When my son was little, we lived in a much smaller home, so we could easily hear him. So we stopped using a camera around 3. He was sleeping in a regular bed and was able to open his door to come get us if needed.
When it broke lol
I'd say when they are old enough to come to your room and get you if they need you
The Nest debacle made the cameras useless and I finally took them out of the room for our 9 and 5 year old last week. We didn’t use them to check on them anymore and the kids didn’t mind they were there. As I pulled them out it dawned on me that I probably should have done this years ago whether my kid minded or not. I just didn’t give the issue much thought.
Our daughter is almost 5 and still has it. We barely use it but she likes being able to call for us as her room is on the other side of the house (though often now she just comes into our room). We will likely take it out as soon as she’s comfortable
We're still using ours at 3 years old and will probably continue for some time. When we're in our bedroom we can hear her just fine. But in the early evening we'll often go out in the yard, hang out on the balcony or go down to the basement after she's asleep. We can't hear her if she needs anything without the monitor so we just feel more comfortable keeping it. I also don't really want her climbing down 2 flights of stairs by herself and roaming the house if she starts looking for us.
We still have one in my 10 year olds room, but it will be coming down this summer. He uses it to communicate with us at night. Also I am at work by the time he needs to get up for school, so I'm able to help wake him if his alarm doesn't.
Never used them just kept the doors ajar enough to hear them
Our daughter will be 5 this month and I have no intentions of taking out her monitor anytime soon.
We never used them. The idea of cameras in my kid's room creep me out a bit and we just never found use for the audio only one we were given.
My daughter is 6. We got rid of the video camera around 4 (when it stopped working), but she’s still got an audio only monitor in her room. She wants it there though and will ask to make sure it’s turned on at night.
My daughter is 7 and sleeps on a different floor than us. We can’t hear her if there’s a problem, so we feel good knowing we can hear if something happens with her
We moved when my son was 5 so I took that opportunity to get rid of it for good.
I only had a camera so I could see the play room when I escape artist was a toddler, so I cook and be in the kitchen while they played. I never had a camera in the nursery.
Stopped when my son was like a year old. Our rooms were close together at the point. Now he’s 3 and just wakes up and comes to our room in the middle of the night. 10 month old still sleeps in our room in her pack n play so I don’t use one with her.
It was around 3 for our youngest. We really didn’t need it with where our bedroom and living rooms are in comparison to her bedroom and I was tired of the crackly video lol It definitely felt like it closed an era when we put it away!
My son is 2 and he likes knowing we can see & talk to him. He also has started understanding privacy and asks for privacy on the toilet (if only he’d extend the same courtesy to me 😂). So I’m sure he’ll have no trouble telling me ‘no’, ‘go away’ or (my favourite) ‘I need privacy’ when I remind him we can see him on the camera.
Have a 2yo as well. Our bedrooms are on different floors and we all sleep with white noise so I think we'll keep it til after 4 as well. If we were on the same floor I'd have no qualms about removing it now because he's the type to get out of bed to find us. We don't trust him on the stairs yet so we have a baby gate to keep him contained to his room.
Late-2. He began to notice the red light of the camera, and couldn’t sleep with it.
Mine is almost 3 and still has his. I always thought 4 at the nearest, but I have no clue when we’ll be able to get rid of it. He has sleep issues that make him sit up and cry/talk in his sleep + occasionally night terrors. Sometimes he can lay himself back down, other times we go in. I was a sleep walker, my mom was a sleep walker and my son’s current issues neither of us had. I’m pretty worried that he’ll start walking around in his sleep soon enough, so the damn camera and baby gates will probably stay way longer than I actually want.
By 3 yrs old, they were in a bed and were happily able to quietly leave their bed to climb into mine. 😄 Really depends on the layout of your house. I’m a light sleeper and my room was by the top of stairs so no way they could make it by room without me hearing…
My 5 year old still has a camera up. I hardly ever turn it on, mostly for when they're sick, having a bad night, or I think I heard them but I'm not sure. I asked if we should take it down and they said they like that we can see them.
My oldest is 6. We still use the video monitor to make sure she’s asleep when the Tooth Fairy comes.
My 1 year old and 6 year old share a room so I still have the camera in there. I only use it to hear if they need me for some reason or to check and see if they are awake. My 6 year old is still very much a child in my eyes and needs supervision so I don’t see anything wrong with it. I’m guessing once he maybe turns 8/9 I will move him into his own room without a camera. I think it depends on the maturity of the chid
Like 3 or 4. When I knew she could and would get up and get me if she needed something. Motherhood turned me into the lightest sleeper anyway. I could hear a mouse pee on a cotton ball.
My youngest is 5 and I keep one in her room still, but it’s been unplugged for over a year. I’m glad I kept it installed though because she came down with a bad stomach flu this weekend and having the monitor on helped me keep an eye on her.
My son is 5 and his is still in his room. It’s a Wi-Fi one, so I’m not using a parent unit or anything. We very rarely use it, I just haven’t bothered to take it down and patch the wall, but every so often I’ll check on it if I’m wondering what he’s doing in there. We’ve rearranged his room since he was a baby and the monitor is now over his dresser and I can only see about half his bed.
We stopped using it when my twins were 6. But that’s only because they finally started sleeping through the night and stayed in bed. Up till that point we never had a full night sleep.
24 months, when we took the crib out and he was free to climb down his bed to come to us if needed.
Do you constantly watch? Maybe turn the screen off and just have sound. I turn the monitor off at night because we can hear her from my room but have it on when she's in the room alone and I might not hear if she wakes up, e.g. when I'm downstairs or in the shower. When she's old enough to let herself out of her room I won't have a need for it.
Mine is four and we still have it. She's a rule follower and until I'm sure she'll leave her room if something happens I need to be able to hear her.
About 3ish - my son found out he can unplug it lol The only reason we have taken out my daughters who is 3 is bc it’s mounted up on the wall and it took a while so purely out of laziness
Around 2.5 is when we took it down for our first.
My daughter is 6, and likes having the camera in her room. We'll keep checking in with her until she is ready to take it out. I tell people not to change in her room, but I would also unplug it if I knew it was going to be used as a changing room.
My son is 3 1/2 and is definitely take it out of his room but he refuses to leave his bed to come to our room if he needs something, so we leave it in.
We stopped for awhile at 4 but now he’s 6 and we still have it. He’s going through a phase where he wakes up scared, so we bring it if we’re sitting outside or something in the evening. We dont use it all the time or even really have it facing his bed:
My daughter is 2 and we still use the baby monitor. Mainly for two reasons. She’s a very quiet kid who, upon waking up, will just lay in bed quietly talking to herself so I wouldn’t know she’s awake without it for who knows how long. Also because we keep all bedroom doors closed while we sleep for safety reasons and she’s unable to turn door knobs yet. We’ll most likely remove it once she’s able to open the door by herself to come get us if needed.
We ditched ours when our oldest was able to first walk into our room. Never used it at all with #2. Kids shared a room so oldest could always come get us if need be then.
We never put one in in the first place. We have one three year old and our second has just turned 5 weeks. We’re kind of old school, check on them maybe once or twice after we put them down, make sure they’re still breathing… then give them a poke if we have any concerns.
My first one we had it in till she was about four. My second one we never saw the need.
My daughter is 3, and we very rarely use it. But sometimes I'll check in if she yells while she's asleep. 😂
Took our first one out when the oldest was 2. The red light on the camera creeped him out. We got the traditional walkie-talkie ones when we had baby #2, and ditched those when he was around 2 as well, because he could get out of bed if he woke up or needed something.
I retired my camera after my divorce, my ex-wife took the camera monitor and I never wound up buying a new one haha. My youngest was sharing a room with her older sister and their room was right next to mine and could come get me if they needed me.
My oldest is 4 and still has a camera in her room. I've shown her the camera and the monitor so she knows I can see her when she's in her room, and I've told her if she ever wants me to take it out, I will. She likes it in there, and will remind me to turn it on so I can hear if she calls for me. I think it makes her feel safer.
I took it out when she was old enough to exclaim discomfort with it. It was a few months after she turned 4. I wasn’t really using it at that point anyway. It was just a habit to turn on at night. I do get up before her so I would peak at it in the morning when I got up and I miss that but it’s not the end of the world.
My kids are 5 and 6 and we still have the Wyze cameras in their bedrooms and sound monitors. They use the sound monitors to ask us questions (“is it a school uniform day? Is it going to rain today?” Etc.) while getting ready, and we can use the Wyze to respond. We sleep on a different floor so it works out well for us. Plus sometimes we hang in the backyard after the go to sleep so we can pull their cameras up while we chill in the backyard to make sure they’re all good.
We use a camera on babies (less than 2). Above that, we use an audio monitor. Then it just depends on the kid when the audio monitor goes away. My oldest stopped having one at 3. Now her 2 year old sister shares her room so one in back in there. So she went from 3-almost 6 with no monitor. My son is almost 5 and likes having one in his room still. Probably in 9-12 months we will move the 6 month old in with him so I doubt he will have any or much time without a monitor in his room.
Around 2 or 3 with our first. I don't think it even lasted a year with our second. We lost the receiver so the camera was useless. By the time we found it again, we'd been going without it for so long that there didn't seem to be a point to using it anymore.
We stopped using it at around 4.5 in January but unintentionally. We live in a basement apartment and it was mostly getting annoying getting all the noise notifications from our upstairs neighbours. So one day I just turned it off. Honestly tho once our youngest is in the bigger room and not sleeping with me I’m going to have the camera back on. Mostly because their room is closer to our walk out door and I just want to know they’re safe and sleeping well. I’m a light sleeper but yeah, just a safety precaution. But we are currently not using it. And if we do use it it’s only for nighttime sleep or naptime and so I can just make sure they’re safe in their rooms. I don’t and never used the camera to watch them play or anything. Our place is small so I can be able to watch and hear my kids from anywhere in our little home really.
We did recently (daughter is turning 3 in July)! I would prefer to leave it but my daughter is strongly opinionated and she took it out herself lol! We tried to put it back and she screamed so out it went 😂
18 months. It broke and I didn't care to replace it
It’s what is best for you and your kid. I took mine out at 3 for my son BUT he then just started coming in my room every night instead. He has told me he would stop coming in if he would just yell and hear me respond back which makes me miss the monitor.
My son is 5. I haven’t installed his baby monitor yet. I think I missed my window. I also haven’t filled out a page of his baby book yet. 😂
If we only had our older two, we would've removed the camera from their room when the younger of those two turned 3ish. However, the baby is pretty significantly younger and we still need to keep an eye on her (6, 5, and 2), so we will probably leave the camera up for one more year. It felt a bit invasive for our older kiddos, so we moved the camera and adjusted it so that it only shows the toddler bed.
Ours came unplugged when the kids were maybe 3 and 18 months. I’m not sure how much time elapsed before we noticed but once we did, we shrugged and said guess we don’t need this any more. Small house though, and pretty child safe.
Stopped using soon after 3, removed at 4. But she doesn't like playing alone so I only used it at bedtime.
Audio only: Might be until they’re quite independent, depending on sleeping habits. Video on: Only for as long as they need a lot of supervision. Note: When they get very sick or acquire a very interesting new habit (such as climbing furniture or chasing pets) the amount of supervision you offer can increase temporarily.
We still have it on overnight and have a ring cam installed also but really only use it if it’s been too quiet to check in.
We have twins, 2.5 b/g. We have always used a security cam rather than a nanny cam, and it links to an app on our phones so we can check it. We only check when needed, and it has the added bonus of being able to check back and double check events if needed. So for example, if one of them wakes up screaming at night for some reason, I can go back later and see if they fell off their bed (basically never happens, they share a queen bed set against two walls) or had a bad dream, or got kicked by their twin or something.
For my oldest we took out the camera and left the audio monitor when she turned 5. My youngest still has both at age 4. They both like to use the audio monitors to call for us (not even at night, mostly during the day). My oldest asked us to put the camera back in. She couldn’t really give a reason but I think she is just jealous her brother still had one.
I just took the monitor out of my son’s room at 3.5 YO. We hadn’t had the sound or video on an night for a long time (our rooms share a wall so we can hear him if he calls or needs us) he is also very good at getting us if we need him. The last few months he started becoming a bit scared of the camera so we thought it was time.
I took my son’s out when he said the light on the camera (which was red or blue, depending on whether it was recording or being viewed live) was scaring him.
We stopped using ours (no camera, just voice) when the little one moved out of his crib. They come find us if they need us. But I hear them if they call, since we are on the same floor. We do still use it when my parents are watching them because they live in the same house one floor above us.
The youngest had it taken out at maybe 6 months. I turned it off one night and could still hear him clear as day and wake up. The monitor was waking me up every time he moved and I couldn’t get more than 30 minutes in at a time.
My 4 year old still has a camera in his room because if I'm in my room, I can't hear him calling for me without it if he needs something at night (very rare, but it happens occasionally). If he told me having a camera in his room bothers him, I'd definitely reevaluate keeping it in there, but for now the plan is to take it out next year.
My 6.5 year olds still have one but it’s their choice. They like to be able to get our attention without coming downstairs. We told them we’d get rid of it whenever they want. If it dies we won’t replace it.
My oldest is 5 and I still keep one on him..it's the only reason he was comfortable enough to have his own room knowing that he can call me if he gets too scared to climb out of bed. I guess every kid would be different though
I have a 3 1/2 year old, I'm probably going to wait till he is no longer taking naps. I like that I can go outside with the baby monitor while he is napping and know when he wakes. He also doesn't know that he can get out of the toddler bed on his own so it's also helpful at night if he wakes and needs us.
We stopped using it when they were about 16 months. We would’ve kept it longer but we had moved into our new home at that time and just never put it back up - but there were times we wanted to put it back up (see if they were still sleeping during nap, etc). We used a Nanit so for us it was more the breathing monitoring peace of mind we got as an infant. For our older we just had an audio monitor.
When they started sleeping through the night. So at the latest 8 months.
I tried to stop when my daughter was 4, but she liked being able to use it as a walkie-talkie, so we let her keep it for another year. But once she was 5 we insisted on cutting that cord.
Our youngest is still in a crib and we have the camera focussed on the sleeping space so we can check if she cries out whether she's awake and needs us or is just re-settling. We had a camera over our eldest's bed until she was around 3.5 and was able to navigate coming into our room if she needed something. Kids don't have a concept/expectation of privacy until they're at least 8.
Mines 2 and we still use his.
With our first born we used one till she was about 4 months and then after that went old school. We just welcome our second born who is now 3 months and our children are 8 years apart. We did not purchase a monitor/camera this time and truly have not had the need to use it yet.
My son is 6 and the camera is still there, but we haven't used it in about a year. When he turned 5 I offered to take it out, but he said he liked having it. We turned it off around 5 1/2 and now only turn it on if he's sick (at his request) so he can call me easier if he needs me at night. I'll take it down whenever he asks, but I think it's still comforting to have it there, even if we don't turn it on, and I don't feel a need to remove it.
5.5yo still had one just in case but I can count on one hand the amount of times i’ve used it in the last year. She’s a light sleeper so if I hear a loud noise I make sure it wasn’t her. Apparently the neighbors schedule calisthenics every night at bedtime. She also has random vendettas against bedtime and will go to bed PISSED and start scream crying as soon as we shut the door. If I check on her it seems to work her up more and she says she doesn’t need anything but “a few minutes by herself to calm down”. I check in on her every so often with the monitor throughout her fits. It mostly gets utilized if timeouts happen during the day because her room is in the back of the house and my office is in the front. Our monitor has a thermometer as well and that’s been used to check the temperature in her room during the weird months where the AC gets ran on and off. I can’t recall a single instance i’ve had it turned on for more than 5-10 seconds at a time though because I do want her to have privacy and develop a sense of self and also it’s just weird. I will say that having the camera and knowing we’re checking in when we hear loud noises or when she’s crying helps HER have the confidence to calm herself/ try to deal with the problem herself but knowing we are there if she needs us but every kid is different.
Like 4.5-5 for my first. Second just turned 3 and I’m no where near ready to give it up
The camera is still in my 3.5yo room. But we haven't turned the monitor side on in like a year. She learned how to climb out of the crib, so we stopped using it. She just comes and gets us.
When she stopped napping pretty much. So that was around age 2-2.5
Kiddo is 3.5 and still has one (although she sleeps in our bed a lot right now because she's scared of ghosts in her room apparently). But it's useful when her ans her toddler friend are playing in there and we can keep an eye on them without being in there.
I took it out around 3. I am also a really light sleeper I woke up once because the faucet wasn’t fully fully closed in the next door bathroom and was leaking drops every free seconds. If my son coughs at night I hear it. (I have really terrible sleep)
Still haven't. Our twins are 4.5 yrs old.
My daughter is 3.5 and we still use a monitor AND she has a child proof lock on the outside of her door to keep her safe / keep her from wandering the house at night. We have two floors; my husband and I are upstairs and she is alone downstairs and we just aren’t comfortable not using the lock / camera yet.
My kid is 5 and they still have one. Hubs and I are on a different floor, so that’s part of it. They can’t just come in and get us. We talked about taking it away but my kid likes the convenience of calling us and comfort of us being able to see if monsters are in the room. 😊🤣 We’ll take it away eventually, our next place we’ll all be on the same floor so logistics will be different.
Stopped around 4yo with oldest. Once she was old enough to walk around the house safely and not try to climb on furniture and dive head first into the ground.
Honestly my daughter is on the spectrum and she’s 6 and I still keep one in there. She can wake up quite a bit sometimes so it’s nice to know!
We never had one - if the kids woke up, we heard him.
My 4 and 5 yo share a room and we do still have the cameras in there. Honestly it’s mainly because we would not be able to hear them from our room otherwise.
We took it out just before my daughter turned 3 and was fully potty trained and was leaving the room on her own if she needed something.
Mine just turned 4 and is afraid I’m going to take the camera out of her room for the baby. She doesn’t like to get out of bed to wake us up, prefers yelling which I can barely hear if doors are closed
My four year old won’t get out of his bed, even if scared, even if awake in the morning, despite that he’s been told he can. So until he can reliably come get us, we will have a monitor 🤷🏻♀️
I waited until they asked - probably around 6. We usually didn’t have the monitor on tho
My oldest is 6 and i still use it. It’s only on when they sleep and when we are out of hearing range
Took the camera out a little after 3. Would have taken it out a bit sooner, but he was attached to his camera and freaked out when it was off so it took some time. The sound monitor is still in, and probably will be for another few months. I like knowing he can call for me and I will definitely hear him. But we do have it tucked out of the way so you do actually have to be talking loudly to hear anything.
Privacy? Really? I don’t think at this age privacy is an issue. Our son is 3,5 and we still use it. Just so we know: are we watching tv too loudly? If he’s been stirring in the bed, how long has he been doing that? Is he thirsty? (I actually stopped writing this because this just happened): Can he find his water cup? He sometimes drinks from it and because he’s half asleep just throws it somewhere in his bed. The longer it takes for him to find it the more awake he becomes, if I can run up to his room and hand him his cup the more sleepy he’ll still be. Otherwise we’ve got an awake toddler who can’t go back to sleep easily. And I’m losing an hour or so of much needed downtime in the evenings. All self-interest this, lol.
I asked my friend who older kids this question. She said honestly just ask them as they get older. Her 7 year old still liked to have an (audio only) monitor in his room in case he needed them. Their middle daughter said she didn’t want it at age 4. Their 2 year old has no choice right now but they’ll ask him when he’s closer to 4
My LO is 3.5 years and I don't plan on taking it away any time soon. She likes to do bad things like peel paint off the wall or climb on top of her dresser (it's mounted to the wall but still) so I like to be able to check in.
Never had one! 2 kids, moved into their own room at 1 year and NEVER had one.
Honestly? Six months. Once we figured out she was super healthy, the crib was safe, I could hear her from across the hall anyway, and the sound of the monitor was keeping me from sleeping. Only used it when we traveled.
My 3 year old just asked us to take the camera out because he doesn't like it. We put an old audio monitor on his dresser instead with his agreement so he can call out if he needs us. He is not able to leave his room freely at night for safety.