Use a Kasa Cam to Check Your Baby and Never Disturb Another Nap

It's hard to strike a balance—being properly attentive when you're dead exhausted and also not disturbing your new family member unnecessarily. I'm a first-time mother, so the desire to check on my little Sophia is incessant.

As much as I want to rest when she finally gets to sleep, after a few minutes, I can't fight back the desire to check on her, make sure she's still sleeping soundly, make sure she's breathing okay, and all those other things we worry about far too much. She's perfectly healthy, but I still can't help but worry.

My parents gave me traditional, audio only baby monitor at the shower. It's what they used with me, so they figured it would be more than enough. I turned out just fine with audio-only, but that was back in the early 90s—it's been nearly 30 years since these were in fashion.

I happily accepted the gift, of course, but starting tentatively at this glorified walkie-talkie isn't really enough to give me peace of mind. Amid the sleepless nights of getting up to change her, feed her, and burp her, my husband started researching video baby monitoring systems.

It just made more sense. He was also concerned about the lack of a camera on the system from my parents, since it's quite common now to have a video feed coming from the nursery. I can't even begin to count how many times one of us would check on her only to find that she was absolutely fine and sleeping peacefully... until we opened the door, which manages to squeak no matter how much oil we add to it and how carefully we push it open.

After shopping around, we settled on the Kasa Cam by TP-Link. There are a ton of home security cameras and baby monitoring systems around, so it was hard to choose one. However, since the Kasa Cam is by TP-Link and they're essentially the Band-Aid of home wi-fi devices, we decided this one would be a good choice. A little bit of brand reassurance never hurt. Plus, since it has a sleek design and not a goofy, bright colored baby monitor look, we can use it more like a security camera once Sophia is grown and we have no further need of it in her room.

That's a long way off though. The Kasa Cam works with Alexa, which is fantastic, as we already had an Alexa hub in our home since long before Sophia was born. We can just speak to Alexa and say "Alexa, check on Sophia," and just like that, the screen of our Alexa hub will come alive with the video feed from the nursery.

To make things even better than a traditional audio monitor, the Kasa Cam is able to recognize movement and send notifications to our phones. We know immediately when Sophia wakes up.

The Kasa Cam will save two days of video on its cloud storage for free. If you want to hold on to everything, you can upgrade that, but I've found that just the two days are plenty. Plus, you can always download the video if you really want to hold on to it.

While the camera is supposed to be all business, I've actually caught some adorable short videos of Sophia playing with her favorite cat plushie that she likes to sleep with. We were very careful about choosing a plushie that'd be safe for her to cuddle up with and in the video, she just woke up and started petting it like a real cat. It was adorable!

Comes in Handy

Since the new mom life isn't hard enough, I recently came down with a dreadful cold. I've handed as many care tasks as I can over to my husband since the absolute last thing I want is for poor little Sophia to catch what I have. The Kasa Cam has been absolutely indispensable these past few days in particular—I've been one big sneeze and I've sounded like a monster with my sore throat.

Regardless, I still want to keep a close eye on Sophia, without risking exposure to my cold. Being able to open up the app on my phone and see her in real time is exactly what I needed. The video quality is fantastic at 1080p and the night vision is solid.

Unfortunate colds aside, the Kasa Cam is useful all the time. Sophia is an incredibly light sleeper, sometimes just the sound of socks on the carpet will wake her up. It's quite remarkable, since I feel like such footsteps scarcely make a sound. Fortunately, now that I can check on her without getting out of bed and make sure she's still sleeping peacefully, I've been getting a lot more sleep as well.

With any luck, perhaps getting a little more sleep at night will help me kick this cold a little faster!

The camera has a hinge on it that allows it to be set at any angle you need. While this is handy for customizing your view, it's also great because it gives when pulled on. There have been a few times where I've been holding her and she's tried to grab the camera. Fortunately, thanks to the bolt at the base that lets it go back and forth, it's just titled a little bit rather than fallen over on the floor. I don't know if they had grabby babies in mind when they made this camera, but it's helpful!

The added benefit of recording every moment of your child's life is a fun bonus. The camera serves its main purpose as a surveillance device, but I like to save occasional days of recording just so I have something to remember how small she used to be. Sometimes, when we're playing, I'll turn the camera around to record that too. The quality is good enough for both keeping an eye on her and for capturing memories.