Putting your baby to sleep is a uniquely concerning experience. Are they warm? Are they cold? Did you buy the right sleep sack? Are they on their back? Wait, they’re breathing, right?! But, as any parent will say, it’s an adventure, and sometimes there’s a magical moment that makes up for the scary times when you wonder why they’re crying for three hours straight when nothing seems to be wrong.
TikTok user @girlmomma20g was delighted to see her eight-month-old baby girl actually put the baby monitor on herself. This would be impressive on its own since, you know, she’s a baby! But then she got her face right in front of the camera, which proves she’s got even more skills. Babies typically love rolling around, sitting up, and standing in their cribs. Hopefully they don’t practice at 2 a.m., but that’s out of a new parent’s control. However, not all of them can turn a monitor on.
Since there’s nothing more darling than a baby having fun in their crib (besides them sleeping through the night), it goes without saying that commenters were excited to chat about this video. One TikTok user wrote, “the close up of his mouth and then proceeding to EAT the camera.” The mom replied that since her daughter loves putting any object in her mouth, she was shocked she didn’t do the same thing to the entire monitor. Others joked that the baby was making her own episode of MTV’s Cribs. What a fun throwback. Another told their own story of a baby gone wild after hours: “My daughter tore the camera off of the wall and unplugged it, she’s 10 months. She scares me.”
The mom added a second video with audio from Joe Exotic on Tiger King, aka that pandemic show everyone loved and shudders to remember now: “I called for help twice! Not a f*ck you, how ya doing, nothing!”
Although baby monitors are of course a way to keep little ones safe since parents can easily hear them and respond overnight, getting too tech-happy can cause more apprehension than peacefulness. As a new dad wrote in NY Magazine, parents can put a monitor on their baby and find out details about how hot or cold they are, their breathing, and their heart rate. Sounds good… in theory. But, naturally, there is such a thing as too much information, and these aren’t necessary.
Parents might be obsessing over regular baby monitors enough, anyway. According to a Full Spectrum Insights study, 83% of 1,000 parents of children younger than two years old set up baby monitors in their daughter or son’s rooms. One in four female respondents look at the monitor every minute and one in three male respondents do the same thing. Dr. Rebecca Schrag Hershberg told Parents.com that it could be a smart idea to get rid of the monitor when a child is three, four, or five. That makes sense, although it’s sad to imagine no longer getting treated to that sweet little face getting close to the screen.
To all the new parents out there, wait until you find your own little one performing an amazing feat in their crib. And it’s only a matter of time before they’re a chaotic toddler surprising you even more… and still making you tired. There’s no getting around that.
