Let me tell you all about the Snuza Hero, aka my most used baby product. It is a wearable device that clips onto your babies diaper and detects movement. Specifically, it detects the movement of your baby’s breathing. If 15 seconds pass without detected movement, it vibrates in an attempt to rouse baby. If an additional 5 seconds pass with no movement detected it sounds a VERY loud audible alarm. This same alarm will also sound if it had to rouse the baby with vibration three separate times. It will also alert you if it detects infrequent or weak movement by sounding a low beep with each detected movement. This little movement monitor is responsible for me being able to sleep soundly without waking up in a full on panic mode anytime my babies have slept through a feeding session.
To help it get a really secure grip on our diapers, I usually fold the top of the diaper down so that it has two layers to grab onto. You can also clip it onto the waist band of elastic pants. I generally only do this if I forget to put it on the diaper. I remove Snuza Hero during tummy time or when we are in the car seat for her comfort. Otherwise, it is always on. There are two buttons on the Snuza Hero. Pressing down the left button will turn the unit on. Holding both down at the same time will turn it off. You can also use the right mode button to make it so that it beeps with every breath. The light in the middle of the Snuza Hero will blink green with each detected breath. This little light can easily be seen through clothing and a swaddle in the middle of the night.
Both of my babies have gone to daycare and I love that I can send the Snuza Hero with them. No phone app or base unit is required. It gives me so much peace of mind knowing that even when my tiny babies are sleeping far away from me at daycare, where chaos may be going on, they will be safe. Our daycare teachers love that it is so easy to use.
My son wore our Snuza Hero 24/7 from day 1 at the hospital until around 9 months. At that point, he was rolling around so much during the day that it would continually fall off of his diaper. We continued to have him wear it at night until around 11 months. Fast forward another year and now my daughter is wearing the same Snuza Hero 24/7. We JUST replaced the original battery! Have we had a few false alarms? We sure have. I honestly do not mind a bit. I would take a hundred false alarms over the option of my babies not wearing a monitor. Have we had a real alarm? Yes.
The Snuza Hero alarm sounded while we were staying at my parent’s farm. My son was 8 weeks old at the time. Riley was napping upstairs at my parent’s house and most of my extended family was all downstairs. The alarm went off. I figured it must be a false alarm but I still ran upstairs as fast as I could. When I got up there, the Snuza Hero was perfectly in place. Thankfully, the loud alarm and vibration had done what it was supposed to do. It helped to rouse my sweet baby and it alerted me that there was an issue. We never had another real alarm but I still think of that day and wonder what might have happened if he hadn’t been wearing his Snuza Hero.
I tell all my pregnant friends about the Snuza Hero (heck, I tell most of my non-pregnant friends, too!) because I really believe in this product.
Update: Since originally posting this review, Snuza has created a newer and better model, the Snuza Pico that is 40% smaller than the Snuza Hero.
xoxo,
Katie
