Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
I Found Baby Monitors Under $25 That Actually Work
30
items You just brought the baby home and suddenly realize you need eyes and ears in every room, but the fancy monitors cost more than your stroller. I spent weeks comparing cheap options so you can skip the stress. Grab one before the sleep deprivation mak...
Sections
5
Audio Baby Monitors That Won't Let You Down
Budget Video Monitors Worth the Money
Smart and WiFi Monitors on a Tight Budget
Monitors for Small Spaces and Travel
Accessories That Make Cheap Monitors Better
Audio Baby Monitors That Won't Let You Down
Video felt like overkill when all I really needed was to hear if the baby was crying from the kitchen. These audio monitors picked up every little sound without draining my wallet.
Grab this if you live in an apartment and just need clear sound from one room over. I heard every tiny grunt from the nursery while cooking dinner, and the battery lasted longer than I expected.
VTech DM221 Baby Monitor - Safe Sound & Digital Audio
Keep one unit in the bedroom and one in the living room. Before this, my partner and I kept arguing about who had the monitor. Problem solved for under twenty bucks.
VTech® Safe&Sound® Digital Audio Baby Monitor with 2
Use this one if you want a little screen that shows room temperature. I was paranoid about the nursery being too cold at night and this gave me one less thing to worry about.
VTech DM221 Baby Monitor - Safe Sound & Digital Audio
Perfect for the parent who wanders all over the house and forgets where they left the receiver. Two units means you can be forgetful and still hear the baby.
VTech DM221 Baby Monitor - Safe Sound & Digital Audio
Toss this in your cart if you want something dead simple with no bells and whistles. Took me about 90 seconds to set up while holding a fussy newborn. That says everything.
Safety 1st Crystal Clear Nursery Monitor
Snag this compact one if your nightstand is already buried under burp cloths and water bottles. It's tiny, the range covers my whole house, and the sound quality surprised me for the price.
vtech digital audio baby monitor tm8112
Budget Video Monitors Worth the Money
When my baby started rolling over at 4 months, audio wasn't cutting it anymore. I needed to SEE what was happening without spending $150 on a camera system.
Try this if you want a small screen to peek at the crib without getting out of bed. The night vision actually works. I could see my daughter clear as day at 2 AM.
V-Tech 7" HD Smart Pan & Tilt Video Baby Monitor
Bring this one home if you're tired of monitors dying at midnight. Nineteen hours of battery means I charge it in the morning and forget about it the rest of the day.
VTech VM819 Video Baby Monitor with 19 Hour Battery Life
Get this for a nursery that's close to your bedroom. The picture is sharp for the price, and the two-way talk feature saved me a few trips down the hall at 3 AM.
Babysense Infant Monitor | Video & Smart Baby Monitors
Switch to this if your current cheap monitor has a grainy picture that looks like security footage from 2003. Clear image, decent range, and it was under my budget.
Babysense Infant Monitor | Video & Smart Baby Monitors
Pair this with a wall mount and angle it right over the crib. I finally stopped army-crawling into the nursery to check if the baby was breathing. Worth every penny.
VTech Camera Video Monitor
Use this if you want to zoom in and actually see your baby's face, not just a blob shape. The zoom feature made me feel way less anxious during those first few weeks home.
VTech® RM5254HD 1080p Video Baby Monitor System
Smart and WiFi Monitors on a Tight Budget
My sister kept sending me clips of her baby from her phone and I got jealous. Turns out you can get WiFi camera monitoring without a second mortgage.
Grab this and point it at the crib. It's technically a home camera but half the parents I know use it as a baby monitor. Night vision is ridiculously good for the price.
Wyze Cam v3 Troubleshooting
Try this newer version if you want slightly faster WiFi connection. I set it up during one nap time and had a live feed on my phone before the baby even woke up.
Top Wyze Cam & Security Cameras
Keep this running on your phone while you're doing laundry in the basement. The app alerts you to sound and motion, so I stopped sprinting upstairs every five minutes.
Kasa Cameras 360
Perfect for the parent who wants to talk to the baby through the camera. I sang a lullaby from the kitchen once and it actually worked. Still proud of that moment.
KC105 | Kasa Spot, 24/7 Recording
Snag this if you want to record clips and look back at them. I accidentally captured my son's first time pulling himself up, and I was ugly crying watching the playback.
Tapo cameras
Get this one if you just want a simple live feed without a million app features. Straightforward setup, reliable picture, and it cost me less than a pizza delivery.
Tapo C100 | Home Security Wi-Fi Camera
Monitors for Small Spaces and Travel
Our first trip to grandma's house was a disaster because I forgot the monitor and spent the whole evening hovering over the pack and play. Never again.
Toss this in the diaper bag when you visit family. It's light enough that I forgot it was in there, and it worked perfectly in my mom's guest room.
vtech dm111 digital audio baby monitor with 1 parent unit
Use this at home and then unplug it for trips. I brought it to a hotel room and had a live feed on my phone while we ate dinner downstairs. Sanity preserved.
Safety First Baby Monitor
Bring this for weekend getaways when you need a quick setup. I had it running in an Airbnb within two minutes. My husband was still unpacking the car.
Babysense Infant Monitor | Video & Smart Baby Monitors
Swap your bulky monitor for this compact one if counter space is tight. It fits on a tiny nightstand and the picture quality punches way above its price range.
Leapfrog Remote Access 5" Smart Video Baby Monitor
Try this if you want to pan the camera around the room from your phone. When my toddler started climbing out of the crib, I could follow his escape attempts in real time.
Wyze V3 Camera
Get this for a small nursery where you don't need crazy range. It covers my one-bedroom apartment perfectly and the lullaby feature bought me an extra ten minutes of sleep.
V-Tech 7" HD Smart Pan & Tilt Video Baby Monitor
Accessories That Make Cheap Monitors Better
After buying a budget monitor, I realized a few small add-ons made the whole setup way more functional. These cost almost nothing and saved me real frustration.
Grab this if your dresser is too far from the crib for a good angle. I clipped it to the crib rail and finally got a top-down view without drilling anything into the wall.
AOZTSUN Flexible Clip clamp Mount Compatible
Use this wall mount instead of balancing your camera on a stack of books. Before I got this, the monitor fell twice. My heart can't take that kind of stress on no sleep.
iTODOS Baby Monitor Floor Stand Holder Compatible
Swap out disposable batteries for these if your audio monitor eats through AAs. I was buying batteries every two weeks until a friend told me about these. Wish I'd known sooner.
Eneloop Batteries | Rechargeable AA & AAA from Panasonic
Toss this into your WiFi camera if you want to save clips locally. Storage fills up fast when you're recording all night, and this card is cheap enough to grab two.
32GB microSD Memory Card | High-Speed Storage Solutions
Stick your lightweight camera to the wall without putting holes everywhere. Perfect for renters. My landlord never knew I had a camera setup in the nursery.
Command Strips Adhesive for Picture Hanging
Get this if the outlet is across the room from where you want the camera. I was stretching a 3-foot cord like a tightrope across the nursery floor before this fixed everything.
Cable Matters 5Gbps Long USB 3.0 Extension Cable