As I write this, my infant is upstairs screaming her head off while her dad sings a made-up nursery rhyme to the tune of Epona’s song from Zelda.

And thanks to the Tomy Digital Plus Baby Monitor I can hear it all perfectly.

Tomy spent a long time researching and developing this baby monitor. And they needed to — their last monitors hadn’t been updated for a very long time and were beginning to look decidedly tired next to newer, more fancy-featured monitors.

Good design

You can tell a lot of love, care and attention has gone into making the Digital Plus. Apple’s influence can be felt on the design, with a large white touchwheel providing the controls, and a base station that looks like it’s come off the bottom of a very tiny Mac.

The base station glows with a pleasant LED aura and you can change the colour or have it cycle through the rainbow automatically.

Fully featured

It comes with all the things you’d expect – 2-way talk-back, remote-controlled light, room temperature alert, feeding timer – as well as a few things you don’t always expect such as vibration alert, and a volume control that can be set to mute quiet sounds — and only kick in when the noise goes above your preset levels. This is especially handy for parents with chatty babies. It’s also useful if, like me, you have the constant hum of traffic outside that you don’t really want to amplify into your living room.

Another nice addition is the “richer sounds” docking station, which gives you excellent quality audio once the parent unit is docked. What I really like about this baby monitor is that it only seems to broadcast noises. Other monitors simply broadcast everything, giving you a constant shushing sound of electrical silence. And if you don’t want to hear anything at all, you turn the sound down and watch out for the flashing lights, or switch it to vibrate mode.

No nursery rhymes

Not everyone will be happy to lose the nursery rhymes. My sister used the blinky blonky tunes on her excellent BT 150 Baby Monitor all the time to quieten her baby without having to go in to him herself. And I grew quite attached to the ones on the Leapfrog monitor. The R&D guy at Tomy insisted that their panel of mothers absolutely didn’t want or need nursery rhymes, so maybe it’s just my family who uses them.

This is a great baby monitor. It’s at the top end of the market both in terms of features and price, but if you want a monitor with all the bells and whistles (but no tunes), I think this is one of the best there is.

Gains points for:

• Very easy to use thanks to the dial control
• Excellent audio quality
• Good selection of features

Loses points for:

No tunes. Not a dealbreaker, but they can be useful.

So sensitive it’s almost over-sensitive. The lights flash up every time a car goes past our window, which is distracting.

Tomy Digital Plus Baby Monitor

Available to buy from

Amazon

eBay

Argos

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For those occasions when hearing your baby scream just isn’t quite good enough, Motorola brings you a range of Advanced Digital Baby Monitors so you can watch it holler too.

For many parents, a video monitor is overkill, but if you’re especially nervous of something happening to the fruit of your loins, or if you just like the idea of a fancy bit of tech in the nursery, a video monitor is what you need.

The Motorola range has a definite whiff of Moto about it, with a quirky design that won’t suit everyone. I’d rather have something a little less silver and plastic, but I guess a baby product can be forgiven for looking a little bit cutesy.

Aside from the video features, the monitor is actually fairly low on additional functions. There’s a temperature monitor, a selection of polyphonic ringtones (what is it with baby monitors and Danny Boy?) and an intercom function so you can come over all Great Oz on your poor unsuspecting innocent. What you can’t do is mute the volume, which means you’ll have to listen to every squall, yip, snore and squeak. Possibly not ideal if you’re trying to relax of an evening.

The video quality is very good even in low-level conditions, thanks to the night vision and long range digital signal. The model I reviewed was the top-of-the-range MBP35, which will set you back a not-insignificant £149.99, but cheaper models are available.

Gains points for

• Decent-quality video even in low light
• Very easy to use and set up
• Providing peace of mind to parents with poorly children

Loses points for

Feeling a bit plastic considering the cost
Not having a mute button
Not having a charging dock, which means both units are wed to mains power (unless you want to pop in some batteries).

More details

MBP35 (£149.99) – Large screen video baby monitor

MBP30 (£99.99) – Video baby monitor

MBP15 (£59.99) – Two-way digital baby monitor with temperature monitor

MBP10 (£34.99) – Two-Way Digital baby monitor

(Also available on Baby Monitors Direct)

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There’s nothing quite like having constant access to every grunt, squeak and snore your baby makes, and this LeapFrog Advanced Digital Baby Monitor (£58.79) is specifically designed for that very purpose. It also keeps track of the room temperature in the nursery, plays digital lullabies and provides a pleasing, soft glow so you can see your way round in the dark.

The “parent talkback” is a sure-fire way to freak your poor child out as it lies there wondering how mummy’s voice is coming out of the talky box. Alternatively, you can simply use it to interfere in your partner’s parenting habits when you’re downstairs listening in. There’s a torch, a feeding intervals alarm and an option to change the sound sensitivity so you don’t need to be on call for every single gurgle.

Gains points for

• The soft texture and nursery-friendly design
• Nice range of features
• Remote control functionality that lets you fiddle with the settings from the sofa

Loses points for

Surely we’re past polyphonic lullabies by now (although babies seem to like them – but what do they know?)

LeapFrog Advanced Digital Baby Monitor on Amazon (£58.79)

LeapFrog Advanced Baby Monitor prices on eBay.

Also available on Baby Monitors Direct

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