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Sleep. That thing that parents of new babies (and well, older babies!) can only dream of. Actually, I say that, but I am sitting here feeling pretty snug that after three pretty crap sleepers, I finally have a good sleeper. ‘ve just gone and jinxed that, haven’t I? In all seriousness, Elizabeth is golden in the night. She is on the verge of sleeping through I think, and even when she does wake up, she has a quick feed and is straight back to sleep.

Because I am breastfeeding her, we made a decision quite early on that we would bed-share, following all of the guidelines to make sure it was safe. However, there are nights where she will quite happily go down in her co-sleeper cot and stay there until she wakes up for her first feed at around 2 am. Those are the nights where I get less sleep.

When she is in bed with me, she is curled up in the crook of my arm, as per the safe bed-sharing guidelines, and I can feel every breath and every moment. When she is the cot, it feels like a million miles away, even though she is within an arms reach. I wake up multiple times and hold my breath so I can hear her breaths, or squint in the light of my phone to see her little chest rising and falling. I find it really hard to sleep well those nights – but the Snuza Hero portable baby monitor helps.

I had uhmmed and ahhed about one of those monitors that you put in their cot with them, but dismissed them as being too faffy. However, this monitor is far from it, and what I love is that you can take it anywhere, so if she is downstairs having a nap in her Moses basket while I work, I can pop it on her. It’s tiny, and clips onto the front of her nappy.

What is the Snuza Hero portable baby monitor?

The Snuza Hero portable baby monitor is a certified medical device that monitors your baby’s breathing and will alert you if it stops or slows down too much. You get an alert if your baby’s breathing is 8 per minute or less and there is a vibration stimulus for the baby if breathing stops for 15 seconds. The alarm then sounds another 5 seconds later if there has been no breathing.

Because it is small and portable, when she comes into bed with me, I can whip it off, as it is not suitable for bed-sharing. It does mean underdoing her babygrow and vest, but as she is awake anyway, it’s no big deal. However, having to clip it under their clothes might be a pain if you wanted to take it off without disturbing them too much.

I was a little bit concerned about how comfortable it would be but it doesn’t seem to bother at all. However, she is a sound sleeper – whether a wriggly baby or an older baby would find it quite as comfortable or whether it would stay attached, I don’t know, but so far, it works for Elizabeth!

Thankfully, we haven’t heard the alarm go off properly yet and I hope we never will, but we tested it out on and even the deepest of sleepers wouldn’t miss it if it did go off!

I think for new parents, particularly those who may need a little reassurance at night time, perhaps if they sleep in separate rooms, this is a handy little gadget. At the moment, the Snuza Hero portable baby monitor costs just under £70 on Amazon.

*We were sent this product free of charge for the purpose of this review. All words and opinions are our own and have not been influenced in any way.