When to stop using a baby monitor, and when to start

No health authority sets an age at which you should stop using a baby monitor. The NHS and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) give advice on where and how your baby sleeps, not on monitors. The practical answer is that you can stop when you no longer need help hearing your child: when they can get out of bed and come to you, or call out loudly enough to reach you wherever you spend the evening. That depends on your home as much as on your child’s age.

How long do you use a baby monitor?

Most of the official guidance you’ll find is about safe sleep in the first year. One public health body that does address monitors is Germany’s Federal Institute of Public Health (BIÖG). On its parents’ portal it says that whether to use a monitor, and for how long, depends on the parents, the home and the child’s development. It recommends one when the child’s room and the parents’ bedroom are far apart, for example on different floors. It also notes that many parents give up the monitor once their child is old enough to come to them at night on their own, and that some use it only while their child falls asleep and switch it off for the night.

That matches how the question usually plays out. There isn’t a birthday when the monitor goes; there’s a stretch of months in which it becomes less useful, and one evening you notice you haven’t switched it on.

What age to start using a baby monitor

Start with where your baby sleeps, because that decides whether you need a monitor at all.

NHS: place your baby in a separate cot or Moses basket in the same room as you for every sleep, for at least the first 6 months.
The Lullaby Trust: stay in the same room as your baby while they sleep for the first six months, day or night.
AAP (2022): share a room with your baby, but not a bed, preferably for at least the first six months.

If you follow this advice, for the first six months it’s you who is within earshot, not a monitor. The monitor comes in once your baby sleeps in a room without you: for many families that’s the evening, when your child goes down at seven and you’re downstairs, and later daytime naps in their own room.

Whenever you start, it doesn’t change the safe sleep rules. The Lullaby Trust points out that there’s no research showing baby monitors help prevent SIDS, that a monitor can never replace a parent’s or carer’s supervision, and that you should follow all safer sleep advice whether you use one or not.

Signs it’s time to stop

You’ll probably recognise several of these before you actually stop:

Your child can get out of bed by themselves and find their way to you, even in the half-dark.
They call out clearly when they need you, and you can hear them from where you sit in the evening.
They mostly sleep through, or settle themselves again after waking briefly.
You check the screen more often than your child actually needs you.
Your child asks what the camera is for, or doesn’t want to be watched. At that point the camera should go; if you still want something, sound alone is enough.

When to stop using a baby monitor at night

The night is usually the first part to go. Once your child sleeps in the room next to yours, you’ll hear a real cry anyway, and a monitor turned up high mostly passes on every rustle and sigh. If that’s waking you more than your child is, turn the sensitivity down or switch the monitor off when you go to bed.

The evening is different. Between bedtime and your own bedtime you may be a floor away, in the kitchen with the dishwasher running, or in the garden. So you may well keep the monitor for the evening long after you’ve stopped needing it at night. Babyfino is made for exactly that stretch, from putting your child to bed until you go to bed yourself. It turns a spare phone into the monitor in your child’s room, audio only with the screen off if you like, so nothing lights up there. It’s coming soon for iPhone and Android.

When to stop using a baby monitor for a toddler

The toddler years bring their own reasons to keep a monitor a little longer, or to bring it back for a while:

Moving from a cot to a bed. In the first weeks, you may want to hear whether your toddler is up and about rather than asleep.
Illness. On nights with a cold or a fever, when your child wakes more often, it can help to switch the monitor back on for a few days.
Somewhere new. Staying with grandparents or on holiday, the rooms are laid out differently and you don’t know what you’ll hear.
A bigger home. If you move to a house with more floors, the old test of “would I hear them?” starts again.

Bedtime itself can also be the issue. If your toddler still needs you there to fall asleep, the problem may not be hearing them later but you dozing off beside them. Our guide to falling asleep while putting your toddler to bed covers that.

Video, privacy and older children

As children get older, a camera in their room raises a question a sound-only monitor doesn’t: do they know they’re being watched, and would they mind? If you keep a monitor for a preschooler, tell them it’s there and consider switching to audio. A sound alarm tells you when they need you; watching them sleep rarely adds anything at that age.

If you use a camera that connects to the internet, it’s also worth knowing how such devices have been compromised in the past and what protects against it. Our guide to whether baby monitors can be hacked explains it.

Is there NHS guidance on when to stop?

Not on monitors specifically. The NHS page on reducing the risk of SIDS doesn’t mention baby monitors at all. Its advice is about how and where your baby sleeps: on their back, in a separate cot or Moses basket in the same room as you for at least the first six months, in a room kept at about 16 to 20 °C. Use that as your starting point, and decide about the monitor based on your home and your child.

Sources

NHS: Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), 2025 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
The Lullaby Trust: Baby monitors, 2026 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
American Academy of Pediatrics: American Academy of Pediatrics Updates Safe Sleep Recommendations: Back is Best, 2022 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
Federal Institute of Public Health (BIÖG), kindergesundheit-info.de: Babyüberwachungsgeräte (in German), 2026 (retrieved 21 October 2026)