A baby monitor was something I hadn't really thought about when I was pregnant, several months into my pregnancy I was visiting a friend, and I looked at their baby monitor, it really showed that I hadn't done my research as I was not aware of all the things they could do!

After much deliberation I decided to opt for the Angel Care AC201.

It has a pad which you place under the mattress which detects the baby's slightest movement (even breathing) and if nothing is detected for 20 seconds, an alarm sounds.

It comes in three parts, the pad which you place under the mattress, the monitor which you plug in your babies room and then the parent part which you can move around the house and place in which ever room you wish.

After a few months, there was the odd occasion where we forgot to take the parent part with, the great thing was that the alarm is loud enough to wake you if you are in a separate room.

It is battery operated (2 x AA which are not included) however there is a mains adapter too which we mainly used. Another good point is that if there is every a power cut, it will automatically switch to using the batteries (if there are some in of course) so there is no need to worry about that.

Setting it up was really it set up, we placed the mat on a piece of wood under the mattress, fed the wire through the slats on the base and around the back (so there was no way of Lauren finding it), plug the monitor into the wall and then off you go.

It cost me around £50 and I think the RRP is about £60

We only had one incident when Lauren first moved into her cot bed where she had wriggled right down to the bottom of the bed and lay horizontally so the monitor could not pick her up. My heart nearly stopped when the alarm sounded, but luckily she was still sound asleep. We used this for nearly two years (even when we turned the cot bed into a bed) as I was still paranoid and this was the only incident we had.

I think this is an excellent buy and a must have for that extra piece of mind.

To be honest, I would use it until she was 18 if I could but my other half thinks that is a bit obsessive!