Note: This is a sponsored post that contains affiliate links. I was compensated for this post, but my opinions are all my own.
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Awhile back I had the opportunity to guest blog over at Owlet Baby Care's blog. I got an Owlet monitor after I had Hazel, and can I just tell you--it has SAVED. MY. SANITY.
When she had RSV last month (which you may have heard about if you follow me on Instagram), I had several nights where it alerted me to problems with her Oxygen levels. Can you just imagine if I'd slept through something really important?? Actually, without it, I probably wouldn't have been sleeping at all. RSV is no joke, peeps. For real. It's scarier than when my son was in the hospital with heart problems (which you can read about below.) I am so grateful that I ran across the Owlet when I did. Keep reading or click over to my post on the Owlet blog HERE to read more about my experience with it.
A couple of other things: You can chat with Owlet parents (like me) on their site! Just click on the little box that says "Have questions? Chat with a parent!" Everyone is so nice and can answer any questions you might have about the Owlet.
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There When It Matters
There When It Matters
Hello! I’m Dani. I am so excited to be able to share a little bit about my experience with Owlet
today, but first a little bit about me: I grew up in Utah, but have lived most of my married life in Wisconsin and New Mexico. We recently moved back to Utah for my son to be closer to a
children’s hospital—which I’ll explain a bit more about later on. I am a stay-at-home mom to three under four, a wife, a bargain shopper, a crafter, and a lover of Diet Coke and Cafe Rio salads.
Let me just start by saying, where has the Owlet been all my children’s lives? As a habitual worrier, I can’t express how nice it would’ve been to be able to utilize the Owlet technology when I had my first daughter. It took us several years, a couple of losses, and several fertility treatments for us to conceive her, and by the time she was born, I was literally the most paranoid mommy on the planet. Was she eating enough? Was she peeing enough? Was she warm enough? Was she breathing? Oh, the breathing…I woke that poor little baby up almost every time I tried to check on her, which was embarrassingly often.
Let me just start by saying, where has the Owlet been all my children’s lives? As a habitual worrier, I can’t express how nice it would’ve been to be able to utilize the Owlet technology when I had my first daughter. It took us several years, a couple of losses, and several fertility treatments for us to conceive her, and by the time she was born, I was literally the most paranoid mommy on the planet. Was she eating enough? Was she peeing enough? Was she warm enough? Was she breathing? Oh, the breathing…I woke that poor little baby up almost every time I tried to check on her, which was embarrassingly often.
My son arrived just eighteen months after my daughter. At his two-week checkup, they found that his heart was racing over 260 BPM. We were rushed to the nearest Pediatric Cardiologist who swiftly admitted us to the PICU at our local hospital. We spent the next two weeks there trying to get his heart rate under control with various combinations of medications, and were finally released with a quick lesson on how to use a stethoscope and our doctor’s card… “just in case.”
I didn’t sleep. I laid awake for nights listening to him breathe. I checked him obsessively with the stethoscope at every diaper change and made my husband confirm that everything sounded normal. I was a mess. We lived our lives (and most especially our nights) like that for the first eighteen months of his life until he was old enough for a procedure that allowed for him to go off the meds and us to breathe a sigh of relief that his body most likely had things under control.
I didn’t sleep. I laid awake for nights listening to him breathe. I checked him obsessively with the stethoscope at every diaper change and made my husband confirm that everything sounded normal. I was a mess. We lived our lives (and most especially our nights) like that for the first eighteen months of his life until he was old enough for a procedure that allowed for him to go off the meds and us to breathe a sigh of relief that his body most likely had things under control.
Enter, child number three. Hazel was born in August of 2015 after a very long and scary
pregnancy (10 weeks of bed rest, a crappy umbilical cord, and a precautionary c-section.) When she was a couple of months old, we knew it was time to start thinking about her eventual transition into her own crib (which we still haven’t done because she treats me like her own personal smorgasbord), and knew we needed a good monitor to help us with the transition. With my other two, we had used a typical video baby monitor, but besides the fact that it was clunky, took up half my nightstand, and really did us little good since we turned the static-y volume off on it most the time, it was also not working properly anymore. So I started doing a little research, and came across the Owlet!
Oh, blessed sleep! Seriously, the first night we had it I got my best night of sleep in months. Of course, the Owlet doesn’t replace my responsibility as a parent to listen for and keep an eye on my baby in the night, but it does make me feel like I’m not the only person keeping an eye on her. The Owlet takes the night shift, and I get some semi-quality shuteye (in three hour increments, because: Smorgasbord).
So why is it so much better than our old video monitor? Well, for me it’s because a video monitor is basically only helpful in telling me if my baby is awake or asleep via their crying/movement. The Owlet offers me something that no other monitor can: pulse oximetry technology that is designed alert me in the event that her oxygen levels or heart rate are concerning…whether I’m actively (or obsessively) checking on her or not. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t help you sleep better.
Oh, blessed sleep! Seriously, the first night we had it I got my best night of sleep in months. Of course, the Owlet doesn’t replace my responsibility as a parent to listen for and keep an eye on my baby in the night, but it does make me feel like I’m not the only person keeping an eye on her. The Owlet takes the night shift, and I get some semi-quality shuteye (in three hour increments, because: Smorgasbord).
So why is it so much better than our old video monitor? Well, for me it’s because a video monitor is basically only helpful in telling me if my baby is awake or asleep via their crying/movement. The Owlet offers me something that no other monitor can: pulse oximetry technology that is designed alert me in the event that her oxygen levels or heart rate are concerning…whether I’m actively (or obsessively) checking on her or not. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t help you sleep better.
Now that I have the Owlet in my life, I don’t know that I could go back. The fact that Hazel is
being monitored while we both sleep gives me so much more confidence that I’m doing all I can
for her as a parent. It gives me permission to get some rest—and I do, because I know the Owlet will be there when it matters.
Want to tell someone you love about Owlet? Just want to let the world know how awesome it is, like I do? Copy the link below and share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever-else-you-use to help spread the word about the coolest baby gadget out there. ;-)
This is soooo awesome!
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