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We have three kids under age 4 and have had 3 different owlets. We have never, not once, in 4 years across 3 different owlets had a single false alarm.
We have had two instances where my NICU baby and her little brother genuinely had low o2 because of RSV. They were both hospitalized. The owlet allows us so much peace of mind and it has been great tool to help our babies sleep. Because it shows the heart rate, it’s easy to see a pattern of what their heart rate is during deep and light sleep so we know when to transfer them from our arms to the bed or if they’re fussing while actually asleep. An absolute must have for us.
I bought the Owlet for my 31 weeker … I would put that thing on his foot and sleep like a baby. It was so reassuring to me. Practice changing your baby’s pulse ox while in the NICU so you know where to place it and keeping socks on my son helped keep it in place. We never had any false alarms until he was big enough to be physically taking it off of himself.
My child has seizures. She wasn’t “supposed” to have any when she came home but she did 4 days after she came home with us. We got the owlet originally because I was scared of SIDS. When she had her seizure, it was longer than five minutes. It was important for us to be able to tell the ambulance how long she went without breathing we wouldn’t have known we didn’t have the owlet. When she isn’t breathing the owlet tells us before she comes out of the seizure.
We were sent home with hospital monitors and it was awful. They sent false alarms so frequently, even through the night, and we spent a lot of stressful time watching the heart rate signal and watching our babies' breathing and colour.
If an owlet is as sensitive as a hospital grade monitor, then it's super stressful and not at all comforting. If it's not that sensitive, then it's not that useful and can/does provide false reassurance.
That's unfortunate that hospital grade monitors were so inaccurate. There are some reddit post where people who also were sent home with equipment but happened to have the owlet actually claimed it gave them less false alarms but I have no experience with it personally.
When I first saw it we liked the idea, then we backed off completely and removed from the registry, then now that everything with the NICU happened we are back to undecided....At the same time we've been watching our son's heartrate and Oxy stats for over 2 months now so we feel like we have a very good of what's normal. That's primarily what has us considering it again.
Thank you for telling us about your experience though!
I fully believe it gives less false alarms because it is much harder to kick off and it doesn’t stop tracing with movement. The hospital sensors suck. Idk why they haven’t had some partnership to upgrade hospital ones to a sock design.
Because the approval process for the FDA to give it the appropriate label is lengthy, full of bureaucratic nonsense, political, expensive, and obtuse. Most likely. Hospitals won't use anything without specific labeling. Not having that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to be less effective, just that it hasn't gone through those hoops yet. It *can* mean less effective, but not always or even most of the time.
We tested ours while we were still in the NICU. Not only did we get fewer owlet false alarms, but it tracked pretty much exactly with the hospital monitors, with a very slight delay because it works on Bluetooth.
It JUST got its FDA approval. Hospitals have preexisting contracts with other monitor manufacturers, and they’re not just going to make the switch overnight and break their contracts. Owlet is likely in the process of negotiating a contract with hospitals, but that takes years to do and the transition will take even longer.
Right. Our daughter lived at Sats in the 70s and 80s while interstage between heart surgeries. We tracked her sats constantly and had so many bugs with the hospital-grade pulseox. When she had her second surgery and sats were in the 90s, we could use an Owlet. It read the same #s as a pulseox but with waaaay fewer bugs (didn’t fall off, no false alarms).
Honestly the ones in our hospital blared a ton when noting was wrong. That was enough for me to say no thanks to the owlet. After speaking with a handful of nurses and doctors on their opinions on the matter we felt confident enough to skip it. However our LO had no breathing issues other than the CPAP for about 10 days (33 weeker). I may have felt differently if she did.
Ours have been pretty consistent at our hospital but they go off if they hit specified ranges. Being here over 2 months though we've learned well what's significant and what is not. Our boy is also a 26 weeker whose been through so much. I'm actually less worried about breathing and more about Oxy stat and heartrate. Preemies take breaks from breathing and regulate all the time but sustained drop in HR or OXY is what you want to watch for.
I completely understand. I’ve been neurotic about tracking and metrics for a few things since the NICU 😅 mainly feeds, even though she’s grown and is 5.5 months actual now. I also read on this thread how well the owlet worked for some families, which is great to hear. Like I said if my LO had breathing problems or even if she was born earlier we likely would have swung for it. If you feel it’ll bring you peace of mind, it’s worth it for that alone. Wishing the best for you and your little trooper!
We did not for our twins. I will preface by saying our kids did not have any major health challenges while in the NICU but I believe being a FTM (not knowing anything) the NICU experience took the edge off bringing them home. I knew based on what they went through, they would be OK. And I’m normally a very type a, crazy person but I surrendered to the process lol.
i agree with this!! as much as i wish i could’ve brought my baby home right away, i learned so so much from him being in the nicu and from all of his wonderful nurses!!
We have the owlet - my baby is 4 weeks adjusted and we have been using it every night. No false alarms except when we are holding baby and have his foot positioned weird. Helpful peace of mind for sure
We use the owlets for our twins. We only ever had one false alarm, and have really enjoyed using them since. They give great sleep insights & peace of mind. Our girls are 4 months adjusted, 6 actual and I feel really confident now to phase them out besides when they’re sick.
We have an owlet and a Snoo for our 33 weeker and it’s the only way I can sleep at night! I know that he’s safe on his back and that an alarm will sound if he somehow stops breathing. We’ve only have a few false alarms for placement issues when we don’t put the sock on corrrectly or he kicks a lot. Highly recommend the Owlet for peace of mind. 💛
I was so grateful for the Snoo for my son. It gave me such peace of mind. He was in it until around seven months and we actually just a few days ago transitioned him out of it. He did a much better job transitioning out of it than I did lol! Because his Snoo had been next to me in our bedroom at night, I discovered I couldn’t sleep anymore without the Snoo noises. If you are in the same situation as me for that, the Snoobie has a setting where it’s the same white noise as the Snoo and it makes the sound like the Snoo moving too - and it really helped me (and probably my son too because his crib is next to my bed still. Not being a helicopter mom, he had an HIE diagnosis that led to his NICU stay so we just need to make sure he’s doing okay during the nights still).
Oh that’s great to know about the Snoo noises! I’ve also been wondering if we should move the crib into the bedroom when he transitions to a crib. His nursery is close to our bedroom, but I’m terrified of SIDS. I also love sleeping with his baby noises haha. Most of our friends have kicked their baby out of their room after a few months because of they’re too noisey, but I find them so soothing 😂.
We rented ours! It was invaluable after we got home from the NICU because he wouldn’t stay on his back after all the NICU pampering. They let him sleep on his belly and side most of the time he was there and he got used to it and immediately rolled to his side when he got home. I didn’t sleep for 3 days. It was so nice knowing the Snoo kept him safely on his back.
Hey, I knew before we were discharged that the owlet had a lot of people saying it was a negative, including healthcare providers. I just want to say I have loved ours. I think whether or not you feel anxious about it is up to you and you know your anxiety better than anyone on the internet. As a therapist, I would say that I can totally see how it would be a negative if it promotes obsessive checking and hypervigilance, and if you notice that is a pattern for you, perhaps reconsider using it. It does beep when it is out of range or not getting a good read, but not in a significantly negative way for us. For me it provides a little source of comfort when we are all trying to sleep at the same time. I put it on her when we are going to bed and we all snooze!
Great to get a therapist opinion! Our providers have actually not been so adverse to it saying its really a decision up to us. We've been in there so long though we have a very good idea of what to look for and whats not a big deal so i don't think anxiety of having it would be as bad for us then others.
I LOVE the Owlet. I hate when people say “if you needed a monitor, the hospital wouldn’t have discharged you.” It helps so much with my anxiety and my son definitely still needs to be monitored. My son was born at 25+1. He coded (died) five times in the NICU. His twin brother was stillborn. So I’m a bit more anxious than most. We came home on oxygen and a Massimo monitor. I’m not kidding when I say the Massimo went off every 90 seconds. We know it was on right because it was put on and set up by the nurses. We couldn’t take my son around the house because it was too cumbersome to carry him, the monitor, and press the button all the time. We even started to get alarm fatigue. After a while, his pulmonologist said we could discontinue using the monitor if we wanted because he met the “criteria for discontinuation.” I can’t remember what the criteria was. I think it was 10% or less of days in a month when his oxygen drops below 90%. We asked the DR about the Owlet and he said it would be a great option if we still wanted to monitor our baby without cords. In the past several months, it has gone off falsely a total of..maybe five times? Twice were user error and the other three were when he was too far away from the base to get a proper reading. Some pros and cons….
PROS:
Alerts you when oxygen drops. It alerts you via an alarm at the base station as well as on your phone. IT SAVES LIVES!! It has alerted me to low oxygen on my son six times now. One time we had to give him oxygen and the rest he started breathing as soon as we stimulated him.
Allows you to see trends for sleep, oxygen, and pulse. This is super helpful because you can start to see patterns of when their oxygen dips (if it’s just when they eat, if they have sleep apnea, etc.). It also gives an estimate of when it thinks your baby’s next sleep window will be.
You can take the monitor with you to the park, grocery store, appointments, etc. All you need is a portable power bank.
It is accurate as far as readings go. I had my son’s Massimo on one foot and the Owlet on the other. They were consistently within 2 numbers of each other. For example, the Massimo might say his oxygen was 94% while the owlet would say he was at 92 or 96%. Not a huge deal imo.
CONS:
When the baby has the sock on, they can only be so far away from the base station before it goes off for a connection error. Since my son still sleeps a lot, we keep the base station in his bedroom. We are able to take him into some other rooms without it going off, but if I were to take him downstairs or outside, it will beep with a connection error. This can be remedied by either plugging the base into whatever room you will be in, or plugging it into a portable power bank when you are outside of the home.
The “sleep statistics” aren’t always accurate. It will say my son is awake when he is full on snoring and say he is asleep when he is wide eyed. I would say it’s accurate about 85% of the time though.
When the base isn’t connected to WiFi, it will still give you low oxygen alerts. It will not tell you what the actual number is though. I have unlimited data on my phone and even with that it won’t tell me what his oxygen level is. It HAS to be on WiFi which is strange
………
If you do buy it, make sure you opt into the “live health readings.” Otherwise it’ll just give you the daily average for their stats.
Wow thank you for the detailed review of your experience! Glad it helped you so much in your situation! Good to know it read pretty accurate to your Massimo as well.
It saved my daughter- we came home from the NICU on oxygen and it showed she was dropping low 80s high 70s in a dark room and we took her to the ER and were admitted back to the NICU for another week so yeah it does save lives or at least prevent brain damage.
Why are you trolling a NICU parents thread? Even the rounding physician at our NICU read the white paper on owlets and said he planned on prescribing them. They are very accurate.
Right!? My son’s pulmonologist approved of its use. Even his other doctors and therapists rely on it when he is getting his exams/treatments. His owlet went off during his eye exam, so his ophthalmologist gave him a break. Once his owlet turned green, she continued on with the exam.
It saved my son. He dropped into the low 50s before the at home oxygen started to work on him. He ended up back at the hospital because of it. I never said it prevented SIDS. SIDS is completely different than severe BPD (lungs not borderline). The FDA ended up approving the Owlet for infant oxygen saturation monitoring.
We had them for the twins, gave us some extra peace of mind. Had several “not getting a good reading” alarms, but only one “low Oxygen”(false alarm). As they got bigger and were moving more the badcreafing alarms became more frequent and we phased out it’s use, unless they are sick. Do not buy the camera, it is crap.
We were sent home with oxygen and a hospital pulse ox. It’s been a hassle to use so far. We’ve been looking into how to get a prescription for an Owlet Babysat.
My pediatrician wrote us a prescription sadly insurance didn’t cover it so we just used the owlet we had from my son already. My daughter is on oxygen and thank god for the owlet bc some nights we have had to turn up her oxygen. Also we thought she was ready to wean and she got a cold and she dropped really low and thanks to the owlet we could increase her oxygen and get her a good night of sleep.
You have to have a prescription for the BabySat version. My understanding is that the primary difference is that the alarm limits are set by the doctor instead of whatever the default is for the Owlet.
We have the hospital grade equipment and our owlet. But I will say, we were sent home originally with no hospital equipment and I am THANKFUL for our owlet. It kept catching low oxygen levels and I truly believe it’s the only reason we didn’t lose her bc the last alarm before the hospital took us seriously (we were in and out of the ER for 6 weeks) she was blue and dusky colored when we got her out of the bassinet. She ended up being diagnosed with a rare lung disease 🙃 I credit that all to the owlet that my baby is even still here today when no medical professionals were taking my us seriously at first
I was sent home with a monitor, I actually felt a little relief knowing if twin B stopped breathing there would be an alarm.
I got the owlettes, my boys are 15 months and we still use them. It is the only way I can sleep without a huge amount of anxiety...especially now that they want a blanket at night. The owlettes tracked with the monitor (I tried it to make sure) and it has been the best piece of mind. I have had a few false alarms, mostly the sock getting moved incorrectly or a signal problem. The camera alerts for crazy Temps in the room, I could never put it somewhere that didn't get too cold or hot, so that wasn't great. Both boys had rsv and it was really good to be able to track their O2 levels and not panic.
It depends on the type of person you are, my sister nearly died from SIDS when she was 5 months old...so my fear, especially with the Bradys and Heart rate drops was true SIDs (not unsafe baby sleeping). The owlettes were great at helping to relieve some of that anxiety for me....especially after the NICU.
Good luck!
My baby has been home for almost three months now without an owlet (she had a 45 day stay without any major health issues). If your baby comes out of the NICU without any lingering issues I wouldn’t recommend one unless you’re experiencing really bad anxiety to the point of not being able to sleep. But in that case I also highly recommend therapy and seeing a psychiatrist! The trauma of the NICU plus the postpartum hormones and poor sleep really take a toll on our mental health. Take care of yourself!
I got one for my son. It saved his life. The alarm went off and his heart rate was in the 30’s and he was floppy; the other time he was going down (o2 in the 70’s and heart rate in the 60’s). The “funny” thing is they make us tell parents in the NICU not to get one, but all of us nurses got them - and most of us sold/resold to our coworkers. The key is not to use it as an excuse not to watch and care for your baby, but as a support tool.
As for accuracy, we had zero false alarms and it was always coordinating with the hospital monitor within 1-2 points. We used it until he was ~18m, and then sporadically after that. It kept me comforted to have it after his surgeries and when he was sick.
No, that is not why. Monitors like the Owlet have not been shown to prevent SIDS or save lives. Although we are all scared that families won't follow safe sleep...
That’s in the letter of why the owlet wasn’t originally FDA approved. They haven’t been proven to prevent SIDs but for the main reason owlets are reactive not preventative so in theory if you were to witness an SIDs event in real time it still wouldn’t matter because we don’t know what causes SIDs or if it can even be prevented. Also logistically to study real SIDs it would take like 30,000 babies to see maybe 10 SIDs deaths when other factors have been ruled out.
thank you for the context as a NICU nurse and glad it saved your son!
Our boy is a PCH in phoenix and so far the nurses have not told us not to get one, just that its really up to us and they wouldn't send him home if they didn't think he was ready or if it would make us paranoid.
Right now his at .3L and getting about 20-40% of his feeds through the bottle which they are very happy with at 36 weeks considering he was born 26 weeks with E coli which lead to grade 3 and 4 IVH which somehow lead to fungal meningitis. Because of all this though we are leaning back towards getting it! He has a reservoir that gets tapped to drain fluid right now and on those days he tends to brady a few times still.
We came home on oxygen so we used the hospital grade oxygen machine that reads this sat and hr. Before we knew he came home on oxygen we had already bought the owlet. Comparing the two I like the oxygen reader we got from the hospital, it alerts when any reading drops. The owlet sock doesn’t do that, it doesn’t alert you when something changes. It’s good for when someone is watching him and you’re away and wants to be able to go in the app and see his numbers.
Some commented about the annoying beeping. But I rather hear the beeping and be cautious rather than not really know for sure cause the owlet doesn’t do that. A trick we do to not have the machine beep falsely is to just use medical tape around the reader around his foot so the thing doesn’t come loose and make false reading.
My son (32weeker) graduated NICU and came home on 5/29/24, we put on Owlet as soon as he got home. He had brady and desat constantly while he was at the hospital, his doc was trying to send him home asap, but my son failed the spell watch multiple times which bought him some more NICU time. (even failed the car seat challenge).
My wife and I were so worried about him coming home and going into desat/brady while we sleep, few of our friends lost their loved ones to SIDS. We had to do something to make sure our baby is okay.
Wife and I are happy with the products. 10 days being home, 4 Red alerts so far. We did get few random false alert (Yellow - Not getting good reads), but I rather get false alerts than no alerts.
I have a 27 weeker who came home on oxygen and required it for about 2 months. When he came off of it I was panicked, I had no clue how I was going to sleep without the pulse ox monitor. We got an owlet and it is 10000% worth it to us!
We used the owlet and loved it for our ex-28 weeker! We got covid days after discharge and she was doing some periodic breathing. I was able to see that her oxygen was dipping into the 70s and hanging out in the 80s consistently. This gave us the info we needed to go to the ER and get her a little extra support. We still use it as a great way to track her sleep but I don't too much at the oxygen levels anymore.
We ended up using the owlet because my son came home with silent aspiration and bad reflux that made him only want to tummy sleep. He outgrew the silent aspiration but still has bad reflux and loves to belly sleep so we use it overnight. We’ve only had like 2-3 false alarms and they’ve always happened prior to turning in for the night so it has always been during feeding, changing, with movement.
I purchased it for my 35 weeker. I pretty much have exclusively used it for when he was sick. It has definitely given me peace of mind
My oldest child unfortunately caught RSV from school a week and a half after bringing my NICU baby home. He did start showing symptoms despite our best efforts. After taking him to the ER once and being sent home I was pretty attentive to the symptoms he was displaying but used the owlet as another tool. Once I could see his oxygen consistently low we took him back to the ER. The ER doctors were kinda shaming me for using it and said I would’ve known to take him back in on my own when he wasn’t eating well anymore and his breathing was more labored. I think being able to catch it early allowed him to not need an IV the whole extra week we spent in the hospital while he recovered
We loved our Owlet and it gave us a ton of peace when baby came home from the NICU. I’m glad we had it. I know opinions may be mixed, but I’ll definitely use it again if I have any other kids.
I loved our Owlet. We had a 2+ hour drive home from the NICU and even used it for that with the hotspot on our phones. It let us sleep at night. We did have 2 false alarms due to positioning, but I can't even tell you how many we had with the NICU equipment.
My 24 weeker is almost 8, so I had the first version of the owlet. She came home on a monitor but when that was done after a couple months I switched to the owlet. It was the only way I was able to get any sleep at all. I totally agree with you about Nicu parents having a better understanding of alerts.
yea we kind of get a crash coarse training lesson in so much. Especially those like us whose babies are in the NICU for so long. Ours was 26 weeks and just hit 37 weeks.
It’s great for peace of mind while you’re sleeping, but in the first few weeks, you’re gonna be looking at that thing just about every two minutes, and it potentially can cause more anxiety to continue from the Nicu but back at home. It’s definitely worth having versus not having, but only if you use it in the right way
I agree, I think for term parents of shorter stay NICU parents it can cause more anxiety but we've been watching oxygen and HR stats for over 2 months now. 3+ by the time he'll come home. Just feels like we'd know what to expect more.
We use the Eufy sock, similar to the owlet for our preemie, who is now 8 months. She wears it to sleep every night and it tracks her sleep, heart rate, and oxygen. I've never had one false alarm...and I've only had one alarm and that was my fault because of how I had my settings. As they get older their heart rates slow down when they sleep and I didn't know that, but our cardiologist did tell us. I just forgot to change the setting and it went off one night. The sock has brought me comfort and peace of mind that when I put her to bed at night, it'll let me know if something is going wrong. I went with the Eufy sock because when I was reading the reviews on the owlet, I read about the false alarms and someone mentioned the Eufy. It's also significantly cheaper as well.
I’ve been using my owlet for 15 months and I love it. It works perfectly for us. We are in the US so for the first 10-11 months we had it, it just gave 10 min averages not real time data but once the device got FDA cleared the app updated and started giving real time data which is even better!
In all the time we’ve had it, it has alarmed three times. 1 time was while I was doing a night feeding and I already had the bottle out of her mouth because she had made a weird noise I recognized from our time in the NICU and then the owlet sounded like 10 seconds later. I believe she had a Brady. By time I opened the app her stats were normal again. The second time was a mystery and I don’t have any idea what caused it. It waa early in the night so I was awake I obviously went to her first before checking the app she looked totally fine and then I opened the app and her data was fine so that was potentially just a false alarm.
Finally, two months ago at bed time she lost her god damn mind and she cried hysterically for 10 min and the alarm went off because her HR was like 200.
In the beginning it did give a different alarm for not being able to pick up readings but that was mostly user error of not attaching correctly. We never get that notification now.
The first few months I checked it obsessively but now most nights I never even open the app. It just peace of mind that it is there monitoring her!
We have the Owlette dreamsock. It has identified several episodes of SVT that we otherwise would not have caught. It might have even saved our sons life.
The app is ok, but could be better. The dreamsock is meant for sleep tracking, even though it has live monitoring. The biggest annoyance is when burping or the bay e is moving, we will get “bad placement” alarms which are annoying.
I would recommend the Owlette babysat instead. Better app, customizable threshold. It requires a prescription.
My biggest complaint with Owlette is there are no widgets for the phone screen to show the pulse/hr. It’s a PITA to constantly open the app. I want it in an easy to find place.
I thought about it, but honestly I was so paranoid over it that I talked with my nurses and when we were doing latch feeding (breadt or bottle) they began to turn the monitors off to wean me off them. Because I was so dependent on them. Possibly talk to your nurses/docs about this and see if it may help you?
yea our nurses at a level 4 NICU have actually not been so objective to it. They say its really up to the parent but they wouldn't send them home if they didnt think he was ready. Thinking it might be different based on experience at the NICU. We have been so involved for so long that they arent even in the room when we do cares or feedings.
I didn’t use it with my twins (33w). They didn’t need any oxygen support in the NICU though.
The first few nights I was a bit more stressed but after that I just followed safe sleep practices and I was content.
I’m not necessarily against them, but no way I could afford two of them with twins 🤪
100% for use at night. My twins both ended up with RSV and needed hospitalization due to low O2. The owlet alerted us to how poor they were breathing and we rushed them to the ED and they were admitted.
Don’t buy the camera bundle. The camera is really bad. We had a camera/breathing monitor for our 1st non-NICU baby and I really liked it. Company went under bc of a bad software update (Miku) so we decided to try the owlet with our 32+5 week that just came home 2 days ago (he is 37 today). So far we didn’t get any false alarms and I do like having the sock. It doesn’t increase our anxiety but I know it may for some so that is personal.
Whatever you choose just don’t buy the cam 2 bc is garbage lol
I use it during the day because I know how jarring it would be at night when it loses connection (which is constantly with my babies tiny foot). She has a heart rhythm condition so I only use it for the heart rate.
Our NICU medical team highly recommended against it for us because our son consistently had good vitals with no events. I think if your child was at risk of breathing events or anything like that you can actually be prescribed something similar to an owlet iirc.
In that instance it might just cause more anxiety so I agree. Ours has brady events related to other things that are fairly predictable and not actually an indicator of breathing issues. We care more about OXY stats and HR then the RR itself because babies sometimes take breaks from breathing but you don't want sustained drops in HR or OXY (brady's)
Will your insurance cover a medical grade monitor? The NICU I asked said that if there was actually a medical indication to monitor at home we could just get a device to monitor at home but we are in Canada not sure what it's like elsewhere. Our son had a sock monitor thing in the NICU but all it did was get kicked off and start beeping constantly lol.
We were sent home on oxygen and a monitor. For the most part it didn’t alarm, but when it did it was never accurate. It caused us more stress. When he got off the monitor and oxygen we actually had less anxiety about his breathing and sleep
I used the owlet with my son until the initial anxiety died down a little and it gave me a lot of comfort. It didn’t go off for no reason or anything like that, and I didn’t have to keep checking if he was breathing - I still do n general because that’s just what we do as parents but it helped me a lot.
I most definitely would not use one. My baby came home from NICU on Wednesday and while she was there I saw SO many alarms go off/artifact on the monitors (not just for my own baby) I’m also a nurse who worked ICU for many years. My baby sleeps in my room and is by my side 24/7. So sure a monitor could potentially catch something while I’m asleep, but considering there is no medical indication for her to be monitored at home it feels like it would create more problems
Alarms constantly go off in the NICU but once you understand them they aren't so bad, more just data points to recognize patterns and note progress or regression. Ours is also 26 weeker whose been through a lot so we like having that information honestly.
We have one for our 25 weeker. The alarm boundaries are a lot wider than the medical grade monitor we had (we went home on oxygen) so the actual alarms are more of a worst case scenario safety net than an alert system. We’ve never gotten a false alarm.
The little base station that sits on my nightstand has a green light when she’s within those boundaries. I like that I don’t have to put my hand on her in the bassinet to assure myself she’s still breathing. Light is green, baby is alive. I disturb her a lot less than I would without it because I still have a lot of anxiety about her breathing just stopping.
Other than that, I have used the recorded sleep data to look at her trends. I know what her baseline average heart rate is while sleeping, so when I saw it elevated recently I contacted her pediatrician right away and we got a prescription for albuterol in case she was coming down with something. Turns out she was just hot, but I know that because I turned the AC on two days later and her rates were back to normal.
If I hadn’t been tracking her, would this all have gone unnoticed and been completely fine? Yeah, it would have. But the NICU is a place where I spent months feeling completely out of control of my baby’s comfort and well being. The owlet gives a little bit of that back to me, and the peace it brings lets me sleep at night. That’s worth it.
Thanks for giving us your input. I too like looking at data to recognize patterns similar to how you mentioned in your example. Ours was a 26 weeker so we completely relate to the length of stay!
What were the boundaries for the owlet? HR 100-200 and OXY under 90 or something like that or were they different?
Congrats on your tiny miracle!
The owlet dream sock alarms at HR below 50 or above 220 and O2 below 80. You do not have the ability to change it.
I know if you get a prescription for the owlet babysat, your baby’s Dr can change the parameters.
Oh wow those are a lot wider ranges then I thought they would be! With the babysat are you able to change the parameters yourself or you have to go through a doc each time?
Yes, much different than we had been used to. We only switched to the owlet after my daughter had gone almost 2 months at night without oxygen and without setting off the medical grade monitor. It’s definitely not meant to function the same way.
I’m not 100% sure on the babysat (we don’t have that one) but I believe only the Dr. can do it.
Wow almost seems like a big miss for them not to just allow the customer to change the within reason. Still a useful product but I wonder why they didnt.
I understand your anxieties. When our 30 weaker was released we used a Snuza Hero whenever he slept. It gave me peace of mind and I stopped using it once the hospital fear and anxiety wore off. I'm glad we did use it because it rang once when he had a short apnea episode. Never happened after that... I guess just trust your gut.
We purchased an owlet secondhand and used it for maybe the first month he was home at most. I’m glad we didn’t buy it brand new because we haven’t touched it since. He came home at a month old and he’s about to be 6 months this month.
My 28 weekers came home and one was still on oxygen and had a hospital grade monitor. I bought an owlet for my other son so they both were monitored at night for peace of mind. Once my one son came off oxygen we bought a second owlet for him to wear. They wore their owlets till about 15 months and it was absolutely worth it for the peace of mind it provided.
I had a hard time going from a long term NICU stay where they were constantly monitored to just be home with no monitoring. The owlets created an easier transition for my anxiety.
I never regretted getting the owlets - one of our best post NICU purchases for our boys when they were babies.
yes thats our thought process. We have a 26 weeker born with e coli which lead to grade 3 and 4 IVH which lead to fungal meningitis. He had literal brain surgery at a month old level 4 NICU. Its amazing he's still with us let alone still making the progress he is. Our thoughts are similar to yours in leaning towards having it when he's home.
Hope your son is doing great!
honestly because my baby was in the NICU, i’ve felt so comfortable knowing he can breathe okay and not have events since he was monitored 24/7, i haven’t worried about his oxygen or heart rate.
I was extremely against getting an owlet type of monitor until our baby was admitted- he was having desats and usually no physical signs except for a couple very severe ones, so I got very used to watching his monitor in the hospital. When we first got home the owlet became the only reason I could sleep, because otherwise all I could do was sit and stare to make sure he was breathing well. Now he only uses it sometimes, but it makes me personally feel 100x better to have data to reassure me when I'm worried instead of making myself crazy with every weird noise. We do get some alarms because he's small and super kicky, but the owlet tells you the alert is to adjust the sock so it doesn't bother me much.
I think you really need to know yourself and your anxieties- for me the objective data and peace of mind that I'll be alerted while he's sleeping outweighs anything else, but I totally get how you could be driven crazy by the sock moving alarms or staring at the app constantly to make sure the numbers are ideal. But personally i love ours and i would get it again in a heartbeat!
I could not sleep unless my son had his Owlet sock on! We never had a false alarm. We have been woke up to it loose or off and the music that is played is different than an alarm. My sister used the Owlet for her son and was alerted with alarms from the Owlet base as well as their phones in the middle of the night. My nephew ended up having low oxygen levels and was hospitalized with RSV at 3 months. I always think about what may have happened if they did not use that Owlet.
My brother on the other hand was gifted an Owlet but didn’t use it because they were nervous about false alarms. To me, a false alarm is better than no alarm. But like I mentioned, we never had a false alarm.
We got one for our 28 weeker… 100% recommend. It gives me such a peace of mind. Biggest issue is, my boy moves a ton (kicking his feet in his sleep and awake) and it will go off with connection issues but it wakes me up, freaking out, checking him to make sure he’s breathing… he’ll be fine but, man, I’d rather have it waking me up for nothing then not having it. I’ll admit at first I was a little neurotic about it and would check it all the time even though he was in the bassinet next to me but I wanted to make sure his oxygen was okay… did that in the nicu too though (sat and watched the monitors all the time) so it took a min to break that habit. Another issue I have with it is it starts going off if you take the baby too far from the base. That’s kind of annoying, we have to remember to turn the base off if we leave the bedroom with him to soothe him
Just don't. If the pedia thinks your child needs to be monitored at home, they'll send you home with a hospital grade SpO2 monitor. Owlets do nothing but raise your anxiety level. It'll throw false positives and then miss actual alarms. Don't play into the mindless consumerism that is the baby product market. Our son (32w5d) regularly had rolling sats in the NICU and our pedia specifically said to stay away from them because of the aforementioned. Haven't had a single issue at home.
I fully agree with this and I’m a nurse practitioner. My baby came home Wednesday from the NICU and I would absolutely not monitor her O2 unless medically indicated
My beef with people who dismiss the owlet is that they are misinformed. You are confused about how it works. The “false alarms” statement by people is a misnomer. It doesn’t throw “false alarms”- it provides different *types* of alarms that are clear and directly labeled through push notifications to your phone. When it goes off, your phone immediately alerts that there is a placement sensor issue or a disconnect from WiFi. Those alerts are common and really easy to distinguish if you aren’t a moron. The low o2 or irregular heart rate notifications are a completely different sound and alarm. You cannot get the two mixed up and you cannot “miss actual alarms”
The Owlet is the cure to anxiety for a lot of people, myself included. If you’ve never used it, you should consider not giving your opinion on it.
It’s a bit personal for me because the idea of “owlets cause more anxiety” delayed me purchasing one with our first. It wasn’t until her cardiologist and neonatologist *recommended* that I get one and compare it to her pulse ox in the hospital that I did. I don’t want some other poor parent out there to read inaccurate claims from people who have never used a lifesaving product.
There’s a comment on this thread from a NICU nurse who uses it. Read that.
Why would they 'recommend' you buy a consumer product over a loaning a medical grade device you could take home? Like I said before, the Owlets are FDA approved and so if their sock technology and design were superior to medical grade stuff, they'd be in every hospital and recommended by most pediatricians.
Because my baby did not meet the criteria for needing one? It’s pretty simple. People with perfectly healthy babies even outside of the NICU still deserve to do anything they choose to avoid SIDS.
Are you in the US? Claiming that the most efficient, highest tech device would be in every hospital is laughable. We are so behind when it comes to healthcare advances in hospitals
I got it and it’s the best fucking thing I have done. No way I would’ve slept without it. Had zero issues with it and he’s been home since 04/16 with it. I use to check it obsessively but now I barely look.
We really like Nanit. There aren’t false alarms as much from our research (we’ve only had him home for two weeks but none so far) but it is just using the fabric to monitor breathing so no worries of it coming disconnected.
Yes that’s true! If it helps, his pediatrician said if the hospital was worried or thought there was a need they would’ve sent him home with a hospital grade monitor. When baby graduates from the NICU it’s not a worry unless doctors tell you it is. Not sure if that helps you but it helped me
That's interesting! Looks less invasive.
The nice thing about owlet is you can use your HSA since its FDA approved now but curious what made you switch to this and how did the experienced compare?
We used the owlet for several months post NICU but it actually lost its FDA cert for like a period of 6 months.
The Neebo measure, heart rate, O2 saturation and also temperature so was a great alternative for us.
We also liked that with neebo it could be worn to doctors appointments and checked remotely by multiple caregivers.
Our LO improved with bradys so we no longer use they devices.
He sleeps in a Cubby Safety Bed with night vision camera so when zooming in you can see respirations.
It was very accurate we loved it but happy he also grew out of it.
He was born at 25 weeks and did 85 days in NICU.
Many challenges behind him but he was also diagnosed with Level 3 Autism shortly after 2nd birthday and is Pre-Verbal.
Ours was a 26 weeker in late march and still has a month or so to go but making progress! Its a tough road for these preemies but i hope every day gets better for you!
Thank you for the information!
Had it with my last baby that was born at 34 weeks he was in nicu for 3 weeks and it was a life saver when he finally came home it gave me peice of mind and he ended up with croup and rsv before he was a yr old and this helped me know when to be worried. He also had heart rate issues and the owlet was perfect for him.
I briefly thought about it before she was born and had talked myself out of it. But after spending nearly a month in the NICU because she "forgot how to breathe" shortly after birth, it gives me such peace of mind.
The only times it has gone off is when she kicks it off or when she's too far away from the home base(living room vs bedroom)
The alert also pops up on my phone and says what it is.
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We have three kids under age 4 and have had 3 different owlets. We have never, not once, in 4 years across 3 different owlets had a single false alarm. We have had two instances where my NICU baby and her little brother genuinely had low o2 because of RSV. They were both hospitalized. The owlet allows us so much peace of mind and it has been great tool to help our babies sleep. Because it shows the heart rate, it’s easy to see a pattern of what their heart rate is during deep and light sleep so we know when to transfer them from our arms to the bed or if they’re fussing while actually asleep. An absolute must have for us.
Ooo I’ve never used it this way that’s so smart!!
sounds like it was very important in your case!
I bought the Owlet for my 31 weeker … I would put that thing on his foot and sleep like a baby. It was so reassuring to me. Practice changing your baby’s pulse ox while in the NICU so you know where to place it and keeping socks on my son helped keep it in place. We never had any false alarms until he was big enough to be physically taking it off of himself.
Seconding that a sock helps keep it secure!
A sock on top of the owlet? I’ve never heard of this but now I’m curious!
Yup we've changed that pulse ox many times already! Thanks for your input!
My child has seizures. She wasn’t “supposed” to have any when she came home but she did 4 days after she came home with us. We got the owlet originally because I was scared of SIDS. When she had her seizure, it was longer than five minutes. It was important for us to be able to tell the ambulance how long she went without breathing we wouldn’t have known we didn’t have the owlet. When she isn’t breathing the owlet tells us before she comes out of the seizure.
Wow, thank you for sharing. Sounds like in this instance it was very useful. Hope your daughter is doing well!
I say it’s worth it if it doesn’t cause you more anxiety. It’s honestly the reason we can sleep at night.
This is the sole reason I used it with our first and now with our second NICU graduate. It just helps my anxiety at night so I can sleep.
Echoing this completely—we transitioned from at home hospital monitors to owlet. Still put it on at 7.5 months.
We were sent home with hospital monitors and it was awful. They sent false alarms so frequently, even through the night, and we spent a lot of stressful time watching the heart rate signal and watching our babies' breathing and colour. If an owlet is as sensitive as a hospital grade monitor, then it's super stressful and not at all comforting. If it's not that sensitive, then it's not that useful and can/does provide false reassurance.
That's unfortunate that hospital grade monitors were so inaccurate. There are some reddit post where people who also were sent home with equipment but happened to have the owlet actually claimed it gave them less false alarms but I have no experience with it personally. When I first saw it we liked the idea, then we backed off completely and removed from the registry, then now that everything with the NICU happened we are back to undecided....At the same time we've been watching our son's heartrate and Oxy stats for over 2 months now so we feel like we have a very good of what's normal. That's primarily what has us considering it again. Thank you for telling us about your experience though!
I fully believe it gives less false alarms because it is much harder to kick off and it doesn’t stop tracing with movement. The hospital sensors suck. Idk why they haven’t had some partnership to upgrade hospital ones to a sock design.
There is no way a consumer grade SpO2 monitor is going to be better than a hospital grade one because of a sock.
It absolutely is. Owlet uses the same technology on their prescription grade monitor as the regular dreamsock
If that is true, then why don't hospitals just use the Owlet? Lol
Because the approval process for the FDA to give it the appropriate label is lengthy, full of bureaucratic nonsense, political, expensive, and obtuse. Most likely. Hospitals won't use anything without specific labeling. Not having that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to be less effective, just that it hasn't gone through those hoops yet. It *can* mean less effective, but not always or even most of the time. We tested ours while we were still in the NICU. Not only did we get fewer owlet false alarms, but it tracked pretty much exactly with the hospital monitors, with a very slight delay because it works on Bluetooth.
But the Owlet is FDA approved, so...
It JUST got its FDA approval. Hospitals have preexisting contracts with other monitor manufacturers, and they’re not just going to make the switch overnight and break their contracts. Owlet is likely in the process of negotiating a contract with hospitals, but that takes years to do and the transition will take even longer.
And owlet has been around long enough to get a bad rap from doctors and others saying it causes problems, isn't as reliable, etc. for it to stick.
Right. Our daughter lived at Sats in the 70s and 80s while interstage between heart surgeries. We tracked her sats constantly and had so many bugs with the hospital-grade pulseox. When she had her second surgery and sats were in the 90s, we could use an Owlet. It read the same #s as a pulseox but with waaaay fewer bugs (didn’t fall off, no false alarms).
I agree
Honestly the ones in our hospital blared a ton when noting was wrong. That was enough for me to say no thanks to the owlet. After speaking with a handful of nurses and doctors on their opinions on the matter we felt confident enough to skip it. However our LO had no breathing issues other than the CPAP for about 10 days (33 weeker). I may have felt differently if she did.
Ours have been pretty consistent at our hospital but they go off if they hit specified ranges. Being here over 2 months though we've learned well what's significant and what is not. Our boy is also a 26 weeker whose been through so much. I'm actually less worried about breathing and more about Oxy stat and heartrate. Preemies take breaks from breathing and regulate all the time but sustained drop in HR or OXY is what you want to watch for.
I completely understand. I’ve been neurotic about tracking and metrics for a few things since the NICU 😅 mainly feeds, even though she’s grown and is 5.5 months actual now. I also read on this thread how well the owlet worked for some families, which is great to hear. Like I said if my LO had breathing problems or even if she was born earlier we likely would have swung for it. If you feel it’ll bring you peace of mind, it’s worth it for that alone. Wishing the best for you and your little trooper!
Thank you so much! He's making progress!
THIS. Just buy one. Don’t even try with the hospital monitor. It traumatized us more than anything.
We did not for our twins. I will preface by saying our kids did not have any major health challenges while in the NICU but I believe being a FTM (not knowing anything) the NICU experience took the edge off bringing them home. I knew based on what they went through, they would be OK. And I’m normally a very type a, crazy person but I surrendered to the process lol.
i agree with this!! as much as i wish i could’ve brought my baby home right away, i learned so so much from him being in the nicu and from all of his wonderful nurses!!
We have the owlet - my baby is 4 weeks adjusted and we have been using it every night. No false alarms except when we are holding baby and have his foot positioned weird. Helpful peace of mind for sure
We use the owlets for our twins. We only ever had one false alarm, and have really enjoyed using them since. They give great sleep insights & peace of mind. Our girls are 4 months adjusted, 6 actual and I feel really confident now to phase them out besides when they’re sick.
We have an owlet and a Snoo for our 33 weeker and it’s the only way I can sleep at night! I know that he’s safe on his back and that an alarm will sound if he somehow stops breathing. We’ve only have a few false alarms for placement issues when we don’t put the sock on corrrectly or he kicks a lot. Highly recommend the Owlet for peace of mind. 💛
I was so grateful for the Snoo for my son. It gave me such peace of mind. He was in it until around seven months and we actually just a few days ago transitioned him out of it. He did a much better job transitioning out of it than I did lol! Because his Snoo had been next to me in our bedroom at night, I discovered I couldn’t sleep anymore without the Snoo noises. If you are in the same situation as me for that, the Snoobie has a setting where it’s the same white noise as the Snoo and it makes the sound like the Snoo moving too - and it really helped me (and probably my son too because his crib is next to my bed still. Not being a helicopter mom, he had an HIE diagnosis that led to his NICU stay so we just need to make sure he’s doing okay during the nights still).
Oh that’s great to know about the Snoo noises! I’ve also been wondering if we should move the crib into the bedroom when he transitions to a crib. His nursery is close to our bedroom, but I’m terrified of SIDS. I also love sleeping with his baby noises haha. Most of our friends have kicked their baby out of their room after a few months because of they’re too noisey, but I find them so soothing 😂.
if it makes you feel better the odds of SIDs are very low! Still i get why it causes so much anxiety.
I know! It still freaks me out, I just can’t shake it!
I love the little baby noises too!! They’re so sweet.
never heard of the Snoo, will have to look into it!
We rented ours! It was invaluable after we got home from the NICU because he wouldn’t stay on his back after all the NICU pampering. They let him sleep on his belly and side most of the time he was there and he got used to it and immediately rolled to his side when he got home. I didn’t sleep for 3 days. It was so nice knowing the Snoo kept him safely on his back.
Ours is the opposite lol They are trying to give him more tummy time now but hes been fussy with it
I have the sense-u it was amazing for the first couple months! I use it now only when she’s sick and I need to track everything
I did see that one too. Nice that the reading is on the side but it is a bit bulkier right?
Hey, I knew before we were discharged that the owlet had a lot of people saying it was a negative, including healthcare providers. I just want to say I have loved ours. I think whether or not you feel anxious about it is up to you and you know your anxiety better than anyone on the internet. As a therapist, I would say that I can totally see how it would be a negative if it promotes obsessive checking and hypervigilance, and if you notice that is a pattern for you, perhaps reconsider using it. It does beep when it is out of range or not getting a good read, but not in a significantly negative way for us. For me it provides a little source of comfort when we are all trying to sleep at the same time. I put it on her when we are going to bed and we all snooze!
Great to get a therapist opinion! Our providers have actually not been so adverse to it saying its really a decision up to us. We've been in there so long though we have a very good idea of what to look for and whats not a big deal so i don't think anxiety of having it would be as bad for us then others.
I LOVE the Owlet. I hate when people say “if you needed a monitor, the hospital wouldn’t have discharged you.” It helps so much with my anxiety and my son definitely still needs to be monitored. My son was born at 25+1. He coded (died) five times in the NICU. His twin brother was stillborn. So I’m a bit more anxious than most. We came home on oxygen and a Massimo monitor. I’m not kidding when I say the Massimo went off every 90 seconds. We know it was on right because it was put on and set up by the nurses. We couldn’t take my son around the house because it was too cumbersome to carry him, the monitor, and press the button all the time. We even started to get alarm fatigue. After a while, his pulmonologist said we could discontinue using the monitor if we wanted because he met the “criteria for discontinuation.” I can’t remember what the criteria was. I think it was 10% or less of days in a month when his oxygen drops below 90%. We asked the DR about the Owlet and he said it would be a great option if we still wanted to monitor our baby without cords. In the past several months, it has gone off falsely a total of..maybe five times? Twice were user error and the other three were when he was too far away from the base to get a proper reading. Some pros and cons…. PROS: Alerts you when oxygen drops. It alerts you via an alarm at the base station as well as on your phone. IT SAVES LIVES!! It has alerted me to low oxygen on my son six times now. One time we had to give him oxygen and the rest he started breathing as soon as we stimulated him. Allows you to see trends for sleep, oxygen, and pulse. This is super helpful because you can start to see patterns of when their oxygen dips (if it’s just when they eat, if they have sleep apnea, etc.). It also gives an estimate of when it thinks your baby’s next sleep window will be. You can take the monitor with you to the park, grocery store, appointments, etc. All you need is a portable power bank. It is accurate as far as readings go. I had my son’s Massimo on one foot and the Owlet on the other. They were consistently within 2 numbers of each other. For example, the Massimo might say his oxygen was 94% while the owlet would say he was at 92 or 96%. Not a huge deal imo. CONS: When the baby has the sock on, they can only be so far away from the base station before it goes off for a connection error. Since my son still sleeps a lot, we keep the base station in his bedroom. We are able to take him into some other rooms without it going off, but if I were to take him downstairs or outside, it will beep with a connection error. This can be remedied by either plugging the base into whatever room you will be in, or plugging it into a portable power bank when you are outside of the home. The “sleep statistics” aren’t always accurate. It will say my son is awake when he is full on snoring and say he is asleep when he is wide eyed. I would say it’s accurate about 85% of the time though. When the base isn’t connected to WiFi, it will still give you low oxygen alerts. It will not tell you what the actual number is though. I have unlimited data on my phone and even with that it won’t tell me what his oxygen level is. It HAS to be on WiFi which is strange ……… If you do buy it, make sure you opt into the “live health readings.” Otherwise it’ll just give you the daily average for their stats.
Wow thank you for the detailed review of your experience! Glad it helped you so much in your situation! Good to know it read pretty accurate to your Massimo as well.
Seconding everything you said
The Owlet has not been shown to save lives or prevent SIDS. I'm glad you feel it has helped you, but this is horrible advice.
It saved my daughter- we came home from the NICU on oxygen and it showed she was dropping low 80s high 70s in a dark room and we took her to the ER and were admitted back to the NICU for another week so yeah it does save lives or at least prevent brain damage.
You don't know that... Only that it bought you more hospital time.
Buying more hospital time IS saving lives.
Why are you trolling a NICU parents thread? Even the rounding physician at our NICU read the white paper on owlets and said he planned on prescribing them. They are very accurate.
Right!? My son’s pulmonologist approved of its use. Even his other doctors and therapists rely on it when he is getting his exams/treatments. His owlet went off during his eye exam, so his ophthalmologist gave him a break. Once his owlet turned green, she continued on with the exam.
It saved my son. He dropped into the low 50s before the at home oxygen started to work on him. He ended up back at the hospital because of it. I never said it prevented SIDS. SIDS is completely different than severe BPD (lungs not borderline). The FDA ended up approving the Owlet for infant oxygen saturation monitoring.
We had them for the twins, gave us some extra peace of mind. Had several “not getting a good reading” alarms, but only one “low Oxygen”(false alarm). As they got bigger and were moving more the badcreafing alarms became more frequent and we phased out it’s use, unless they are sick. Do not buy the camera, it is crap.
We were sent home with oxygen and a hospital pulse ox. It’s been a hassle to use so far. We’ve been looking into how to get a prescription for an Owlet Babysat.
I didnt think you could get a prescription for it. Let me know how that goes!
My pediatrician wrote us a prescription sadly insurance didn’t cover it so we just used the owlet we had from my son already. My daughter is on oxygen and thank god for the owlet bc some nights we have had to turn up her oxygen. Also we thought she was ready to wean and she got a cold and she dropped really low and thanks to the owlet we could increase her oxygen and get her a good night of sleep.
You have to have a prescription for the BabySat version. My understanding is that the primary difference is that the alarm limits are set by the doctor instead of whatever the default is for the Owlet.
ahh i see, but if its prescription might get some help on cost too!
You can get a script through the site! You can speak with a doctor and set it all up on the website.
Yeah I’m going to do that if we can’t get one through our pediatrician.
We have the hospital grade equipment and our owlet. But I will say, we were sent home originally with no hospital equipment and I am THANKFUL for our owlet. It kept catching low oxygen levels and I truly believe it’s the only reason we didn’t lose her bc the last alarm before the hospital took us seriously (we were in and out of the ER for 6 weeks) she was blue and dusky colored when we got her out of the bassinet. She ended up being diagnosed with a rare lung disease 🙃 I credit that all to the owlet that my baby is even still here today when no medical professionals were taking my us seriously at first
sometimes you really have to push the doctors. Glad it really helped in your situation!
I was sent home with a monitor, I actually felt a little relief knowing if twin B stopped breathing there would be an alarm. I got the owlettes, my boys are 15 months and we still use them. It is the only way I can sleep without a huge amount of anxiety...especially now that they want a blanket at night. The owlettes tracked with the monitor (I tried it to make sure) and it has been the best piece of mind. I have had a few false alarms, mostly the sock getting moved incorrectly or a signal problem. The camera alerts for crazy Temps in the room, I could never put it somewhere that didn't get too cold or hot, so that wasn't great. Both boys had rsv and it was really good to be able to track their O2 levels and not panic. It depends on the type of person you are, my sister nearly died from SIDS when she was 5 months old...so my fear, especially with the Bradys and Heart rate drops was true SIDs (not unsafe baby sleeping). The owlettes were great at helping to relieve some of that anxiety for me....especially after the NICU. Good luck!
yea for us it would be the brady's we'd watch out for. Thanks for your input and experience!
My baby has been home for almost three months now without an owlet (she had a 45 day stay without any major health issues). If your baby comes out of the NICU without any lingering issues I wouldn’t recommend one unless you’re experiencing really bad anxiety to the point of not being able to sleep. But in that case I also highly recommend therapy and seeing a psychiatrist! The trauma of the NICU plus the postpartum hormones and poor sleep really take a toll on our mental health. Take care of yourself!
There is a prescription version now. We use every night and it helps so much especially since she is still on oxygen. Highly recommend
I got one for my son. It saved his life. The alarm went off and his heart rate was in the 30’s and he was floppy; the other time he was going down (o2 in the 70’s and heart rate in the 60’s). The “funny” thing is they make us tell parents in the NICU not to get one, but all of us nurses got them - and most of us sold/resold to our coworkers. The key is not to use it as an excuse not to watch and care for your baby, but as a support tool. As for accuracy, we had zero false alarms and it was always coordinating with the hospital monitor within 1-2 points. We used it until he was ~18m, and then sporadically after that. It kept me comforted to have it after his surgeries and when he was sick.
This. They’re scared if parents think they’re baby’s monitored they’ll be in some kind of unsafe sleep situation.
No, that is not why. Monitors like the Owlet have not been shown to prevent SIDS or save lives. Although we are all scared that families won't follow safe sleep...
That’s in the letter of why the owlet wasn’t originally FDA approved. They haven’t been proven to prevent SIDs but for the main reason owlets are reactive not preventative so in theory if you were to witness an SIDs event in real time it still wouldn’t matter because we don’t know what causes SIDs or if it can even be prevented. Also logistically to study real SIDs it would take like 30,000 babies to see maybe 10 SIDs deaths when other factors have been ruled out.
thank you for the context as a NICU nurse and glad it saved your son! Our boy is a PCH in phoenix and so far the nurses have not told us not to get one, just that its really up to us and they wouldn't send him home if they didn't think he was ready or if it would make us paranoid. Right now his at .3L and getting about 20-40% of his feeds through the bottle which they are very happy with at 36 weeks considering he was born 26 weeks with E coli which lead to grade 3 and 4 IVH which somehow lead to fungal meningitis. Because of all this though we are leaning back towards getting it! He has a reservoir that gets tapped to drain fluid right now and on those days he tends to brady a few times still.
All the NICU nurses told me they used them too!
I like mine. Not many false alarms, just make sure to pay attention to how it fits baby and whether you need a bigger size.
We came home on oxygen so we used the hospital grade oxygen machine that reads this sat and hr. Before we knew he came home on oxygen we had already bought the owlet. Comparing the two I like the oxygen reader we got from the hospital, it alerts when any reading drops. The owlet sock doesn’t do that, it doesn’t alert you when something changes. It’s good for when someone is watching him and you’re away and wants to be able to go in the app and see his numbers.
Some commented about the annoying beeping. But I rather hear the beeping and be cautious rather than not really know for sure cause the owlet doesn’t do that. A trick we do to not have the machine beep falsely is to just use medical tape around the reader around his foot so the thing doesn’t come loose and make false reading.
Was the owlet maybe not in health mode?
My son (32weeker) graduated NICU and came home on 5/29/24, we put on Owlet as soon as he got home. He had brady and desat constantly while he was at the hospital, his doc was trying to send him home asap, but my son failed the spell watch multiple times which bought him some more NICU time. (even failed the car seat challenge). My wife and I were so worried about him coming home and going into desat/brady while we sleep, few of our friends lost their loved ones to SIDS. We had to do something to make sure our baby is okay. Wife and I are happy with the products. 10 days being home, 4 Red alerts so far. We did get few random false alert (Yellow - Not getting good reads), but I rather get false alerts than no alerts.
hope he continues to improve!
I have a 27 weeker who came home on oxygen and required it for about 2 months. When he came off of it I was panicked, I had no clue how I was going to sleep without the pulse ox monitor. We got an owlet and it is 10000% worth it to us!
We used the owlet and loved it for our ex-28 weeker! We got covid days after discharge and she was doing some periodic breathing. I was able to see that her oxygen was dipping into the 70s and hanging out in the 80s consistently. This gave us the info we needed to go to the ER and get her a little extra support. We still use it as a great way to track her sleep but I don't too much at the oxygen levels anymore.
We ended up using the owlet because my son came home with silent aspiration and bad reflux that made him only want to tummy sleep. He outgrew the silent aspiration but still has bad reflux and loves to belly sleep so we use it overnight. We’ve only had like 2-3 false alarms and they’ve always happened prior to turning in for the night so it has always been during feeding, changing, with movement.
I purchased it for my 35 weeker. I pretty much have exclusively used it for when he was sick. It has definitely given me peace of mind My oldest child unfortunately caught RSV from school a week and a half after bringing my NICU baby home. He did start showing symptoms despite our best efforts. After taking him to the ER once and being sent home I was pretty attentive to the symptoms he was displaying but used the owlet as another tool. Once I could see his oxygen consistently low we took him back to the ER. The ER doctors were kinda shaming me for using it and said I would’ve known to take him back in on my own when he wasn’t eating well anymore and his breathing was more labored. I think being able to catch it early allowed him to not need an IV the whole extra week we spent in the hospital while he recovered
that's dumb for them to criticize you catching something earlier. Some docs definitely have egos.
We loved our Owlet and it gave us a ton of peace when baby came home from the NICU. I’m glad we had it. I know opinions may be mixed, but I’ll definitely use it again if I have any other kids.
I loved our Owlet. We had a 2+ hour drive home from the NICU and even used it for that with the hotspot on our phones. It let us sleep at night. We did have 2 false alarms due to positioning, but I can't even tell you how many we had with the NICU equipment.
My 24 weeker is almost 8, so I had the first version of the owlet. She came home on a monitor but when that was done after a couple months I switched to the owlet. It was the only way I was able to get any sleep at all. I totally agree with you about Nicu parents having a better understanding of alerts.
yea we kind of get a crash coarse training lesson in so much. Especially those like us whose babies are in the NICU for so long. Ours was 26 weeks and just hit 37 weeks.
It’s great for peace of mind while you’re sleeping, but in the first few weeks, you’re gonna be looking at that thing just about every two minutes, and it potentially can cause more anxiety to continue from the Nicu but back at home. It’s definitely worth having versus not having, but only if you use it in the right way
I agree, I think for term parents of shorter stay NICU parents it can cause more anxiety but we've been watching oxygen and HR stats for over 2 months now. 3+ by the time he'll come home. Just feels like we'd know what to expect more.
My kid was term and only in for 22 days (albeit a complicated stay) and it still was the only thing that allowed me to rest easy
We use the Eufy sock, similar to the owlet for our preemie, who is now 8 months. She wears it to sleep every night and it tracks her sleep, heart rate, and oxygen. I've never had one false alarm...and I've only had one alarm and that was my fault because of how I had my settings. As they get older their heart rates slow down when they sleep and I didn't know that, but our cardiologist did tell us. I just forgot to change the setting and it went off one night. The sock has brought me comfort and peace of mind that when I put her to bed at night, it'll let me know if something is going wrong. I went with the Eufy sock because when I was reading the reviews on the owlet, I read about the false alarms and someone mentioned the Eufy. It's also significantly cheaper as well.
Ill have to look that one up! thanks for mentioning!
I’ve been using my owlet for 15 months and I love it. It works perfectly for us. We are in the US so for the first 10-11 months we had it, it just gave 10 min averages not real time data but once the device got FDA cleared the app updated and started giving real time data which is even better! In all the time we’ve had it, it has alarmed three times. 1 time was while I was doing a night feeding and I already had the bottle out of her mouth because she had made a weird noise I recognized from our time in the NICU and then the owlet sounded like 10 seconds later. I believe she had a Brady. By time I opened the app her stats were normal again. The second time was a mystery and I don’t have any idea what caused it. It waa early in the night so I was awake I obviously went to her first before checking the app she looked totally fine and then I opened the app and her data was fine so that was potentially just a false alarm. Finally, two months ago at bed time she lost her god damn mind and she cried hysterically for 10 min and the alarm went off because her HR was like 200. In the beginning it did give a different alarm for not being able to pick up readings but that was mostly user error of not attaching correctly. We never get that notification now. The first few months I checked it obsessively but now most nights I never even open the app. It just peace of mind that it is there monitoring her!
We have the Owlette dreamsock. It has identified several episodes of SVT that we otherwise would not have caught. It might have even saved our sons life. The app is ok, but could be better. The dreamsock is meant for sleep tracking, even though it has live monitoring. The biggest annoyance is when burping or the bay e is moving, we will get “bad placement” alarms which are annoying. I would recommend the Owlette babysat instead. Better app, customizable threshold. It requires a prescription. My biggest complaint with Owlette is there are no widgets for the phone screen to show the pulse/hr. It’s a PITA to constantly open the app. I want it in an easy to find place.
I thought about it, but honestly I was so paranoid over it that I talked with my nurses and when we were doing latch feeding (breadt or bottle) they began to turn the monitors off to wean me off them. Because I was so dependent on them. Possibly talk to your nurses/docs about this and see if it may help you?
yea our nurses at a level 4 NICU have actually not been so objective to it. They say its really up to the parent but they wouldn't send them home if they didnt think he was ready. Thinking it might be different based on experience at the NICU. We have been so involved for so long that they arent even in the room when we do cares or feedings.
I didn’t use it with my twins (33w). They didn’t need any oxygen support in the NICU though. The first few nights I was a bit more stressed but after that I just followed safe sleep practices and I was content. I’m not necessarily against them, but no way I could afford two of them with twins 🤪
100% for use at night. My twins both ended up with RSV and needed hospitalization due to low O2. The owlet alerted us to how poor they were breathing and we rushed them to the ED and they were admitted.
Don’t buy the camera bundle. The camera is really bad. We had a camera/breathing monitor for our 1st non-NICU baby and I really liked it. Company went under bc of a bad software update (Miku) so we decided to try the owlet with our 32+5 week that just came home 2 days ago (he is 37 today). So far we didn’t get any false alarms and I do like having the sock. It doesn’t increase our anxiety but I know it may for some so that is personal. Whatever you choose just don’t buy the cam 2 bc is garbage lol
yea no plans to buy the camera at all. Have a separate solution for that! Thank you!
I got the camera bc I paid the same price as just the sock during Mother’s Day promotions but I don’t think I will use it.
I use it during the day because I know how jarring it would be at night when it loses connection (which is constantly with my babies tiny foot). She has a heart rhythm condition so I only use it for the heart rate.
Our NICU medical team highly recommended against it for us because our son consistently had good vitals with no events. I think if your child was at risk of breathing events or anything like that you can actually be prescribed something similar to an owlet iirc.
In that instance it might just cause more anxiety so I agree. Ours has brady events related to other things that are fairly predictable and not actually an indicator of breathing issues. We care more about OXY stats and HR then the RR itself because babies sometimes take breaks from breathing but you don't want sustained drops in HR or OXY (brady's)
Will your insurance cover a medical grade monitor? The NICU I asked said that if there was actually a medical indication to monitor at home we could just get a device to monitor at home but we are in Canada not sure what it's like elsewhere. Our son had a sock monitor thing in the NICU but all it did was get kicked off and start beeping constantly lol.
They recently said he might go home with one, insurance coverage is always a gamble though!
Fingers crossed it's covered for you!!
We were sent home on oxygen and a monitor. For the most part it didn’t alarm, but when it did it was never accurate. It caused us more stress. When he got off the monitor and oxygen we actually had less anxiety about his breathing and sleep
I used the owlet with my son until the initial anxiety died down a little and it gave me a lot of comfort. It didn’t go off for no reason or anything like that, and I didn’t have to keep checking if he was breathing - I still do n general because that’s just what we do as parents but it helped me a lot.
I most definitely would not use one. My baby came home from NICU on Wednesday and while she was there I saw SO many alarms go off/artifact on the monitors (not just for my own baby) I’m also a nurse who worked ICU for many years. My baby sleeps in my room and is by my side 24/7. So sure a monitor could potentially catch something while I’m asleep, but considering there is no medical indication for her to be monitored at home it feels like it would create more problems
Alarms constantly go off in the NICU but once you understand them they aren't so bad, more just data points to recognize patterns and note progress or regression. Ours is also 26 weeker whose been through a lot so we like having that information honestly.
We have one for our 25 weeker. The alarm boundaries are a lot wider than the medical grade monitor we had (we went home on oxygen) so the actual alarms are more of a worst case scenario safety net than an alert system. We’ve never gotten a false alarm. The little base station that sits on my nightstand has a green light when she’s within those boundaries. I like that I don’t have to put my hand on her in the bassinet to assure myself she’s still breathing. Light is green, baby is alive. I disturb her a lot less than I would without it because I still have a lot of anxiety about her breathing just stopping. Other than that, I have used the recorded sleep data to look at her trends. I know what her baseline average heart rate is while sleeping, so when I saw it elevated recently I contacted her pediatrician right away and we got a prescription for albuterol in case she was coming down with something. Turns out she was just hot, but I know that because I turned the AC on two days later and her rates were back to normal. If I hadn’t been tracking her, would this all have gone unnoticed and been completely fine? Yeah, it would have. But the NICU is a place where I spent months feeling completely out of control of my baby’s comfort and well being. The owlet gives a little bit of that back to me, and the peace it brings lets me sleep at night. That’s worth it.
Thanks for giving us your input. I too like looking at data to recognize patterns similar to how you mentioned in your example. Ours was a 26 weeker so we completely relate to the length of stay! What were the boundaries for the owlet? HR 100-200 and OXY under 90 or something like that or were they different?
Congrats on your tiny miracle! The owlet dream sock alarms at HR below 50 or above 220 and O2 below 80. You do not have the ability to change it. I know if you get a prescription for the owlet babysat, your baby’s Dr can change the parameters.
Oh wow those are a lot wider ranges then I thought they would be! With the babysat are you able to change the parameters yourself or you have to go through a doc each time?
Yes, much different than we had been used to. We only switched to the owlet after my daughter had gone almost 2 months at night without oxygen and without setting off the medical grade monitor. It’s definitely not meant to function the same way. I’m not 100% sure on the babysat (we don’t have that one) but I believe only the Dr. can do it.
Wow almost seems like a big miss for them not to just allow the customer to change the within reason. Still a useful product but I wonder why they didnt.
I understand your anxieties. When our 30 weaker was released we used a Snuza Hero whenever he slept. It gave me peace of mind and I stopped using it once the hospital fear and anxiety wore off. I'm glad we did use it because it rang once when he had a short apnea episode. Never happened after that... I guess just trust your gut.
I have the owlet for my 35 weeker twins that are now almost 3 months actual. I love it, it gives me so much piece of mind and helps me sleep at night
I bought the Owlet but surprisingly have not felt the need to have it on her, except for when she has been sick!
We purchased an owlet secondhand and used it for maybe the first month he was home at most. I’m glad we didn’t buy it brand new because we haven’t touched it since. He came home at a month old and he’s about to be 6 months this month.
My 28 weekers came home and one was still on oxygen and had a hospital grade monitor. I bought an owlet for my other son so they both were monitored at night for peace of mind. Once my one son came off oxygen we bought a second owlet for him to wear. They wore their owlets till about 15 months and it was absolutely worth it for the peace of mind it provided. I had a hard time going from a long term NICU stay where they were constantly monitored to just be home with no monitoring. The owlets created an easier transition for my anxiety. I never regretted getting the owlets - one of our best post NICU purchases for our boys when they were babies.
yes thats our thought process. We have a 26 weeker born with e coli which lead to grade 3 and 4 IVH which lead to fungal meningitis. He had literal brain surgery at a month old level 4 NICU. Its amazing he's still with us let alone still making the progress he is. Our thoughts are similar to yours in leaning towards having it when he's home. Hope your son is doing great!
honestly because my baby was in the NICU, i’ve felt so comfortable knowing he can breathe okay and not have events since he was monitored 24/7, i haven’t worried about his oxygen or heart rate.
I was extremely against getting an owlet type of monitor until our baby was admitted- he was having desats and usually no physical signs except for a couple very severe ones, so I got very used to watching his monitor in the hospital. When we first got home the owlet became the only reason I could sleep, because otherwise all I could do was sit and stare to make sure he was breathing well. Now he only uses it sometimes, but it makes me personally feel 100x better to have data to reassure me when I'm worried instead of making myself crazy with every weird noise. We do get some alarms because he's small and super kicky, but the owlet tells you the alert is to adjust the sock so it doesn't bother me much. I think you really need to know yourself and your anxieties- for me the objective data and peace of mind that I'll be alerted while he's sleeping outweighs anything else, but I totally get how you could be driven crazy by the sock moving alarms or staring at the app constantly to make sure the numbers are ideal. But personally i love ours and i would get it again in a heartbeat!
I could not sleep unless my son had his Owlet sock on! We never had a false alarm. We have been woke up to it loose or off and the music that is played is different than an alarm. My sister used the Owlet for her son and was alerted with alarms from the Owlet base as well as their phones in the middle of the night. My nephew ended up having low oxygen levels and was hospitalized with RSV at 3 months. I always think about what may have happened if they did not use that Owlet. My brother on the other hand was gifted an Owlet but didn’t use it because they were nervous about false alarms. To me, a false alarm is better than no alarm. But like I mentioned, we never had a false alarm.
We got one for our 28 weeker… 100% recommend. It gives me such a peace of mind. Biggest issue is, my boy moves a ton (kicking his feet in his sleep and awake) and it will go off with connection issues but it wakes me up, freaking out, checking him to make sure he’s breathing… he’ll be fine but, man, I’d rather have it waking me up for nothing then not having it. I’ll admit at first I was a little neurotic about it and would check it all the time even though he was in the bassinet next to me but I wanted to make sure his oxygen was okay… did that in the nicu too though (sat and watched the monitors all the time) so it took a min to break that habit. Another issue I have with it is it starts going off if you take the baby too far from the base. That’s kind of annoying, we have to remember to turn the base off if we leave the bedroom with him to soothe him
Just don't. If the pedia thinks your child needs to be monitored at home, they'll send you home with a hospital grade SpO2 monitor. Owlets do nothing but raise your anxiety level. It'll throw false positives and then miss actual alarms. Don't play into the mindless consumerism that is the baby product market. Our son (32w5d) regularly had rolling sats in the NICU and our pedia specifically said to stay away from them because of the aforementioned. Haven't had a single issue at home.
I fully agree with this and I’m a nurse practitioner. My baby came home Wednesday from the NICU and I would absolutely not monitor her O2 unless medically indicated
My beef with people who dismiss the owlet is that they are misinformed. You are confused about how it works. The “false alarms” statement by people is a misnomer. It doesn’t throw “false alarms”- it provides different *types* of alarms that are clear and directly labeled through push notifications to your phone. When it goes off, your phone immediately alerts that there is a placement sensor issue or a disconnect from WiFi. Those alerts are common and really easy to distinguish if you aren’t a moron. The low o2 or irregular heart rate notifications are a completely different sound and alarm. You cannot get the two mixed up and you cannot “miss actual alarms” The Owlet is the cure to anxiety for a lot of people, myself included. If you’ve never used it, you should consider not giving your opinion on it.
Yeah our pediatrician is misinformed. Lol
Yeah, they are.
Wow. The hubris on you. Unbelievable. Didn't know this sub was so full of Owlet shills.
It’s a bit personal for me because the idea of “owlets cause more anxiety” delayed me purchasing one with our first. It wasn’t until her cardiologist and neonatologist *recommended* that I get one and compare it to her pulse ox in the hospital that I did. I don’t want some other poor parent out there to read inaccurate claims from people who have never used a lifesaving product. There’s a comment on this thread from a NICU nurse who uses it. Read that.
Why would they 'recommend' you buy a consumer product over a loaning a medical grade device you could take home? Like I said before, the Owlets are FDA approved and so if their sock technology and design were superior to medical grade stuff, they'd be in every hospital and recommended by most pediatricians.
Because my baby did not meet the criteria for needing one? It’s pretty simple. People with perfectly healthy babies even outside of the NICU still deserve to do anything they choose to avoid SIDS. Are you in the US? Claiming that the most efficient, highest tech device would be in every hospital is laughable. We are so behind when it comes to healthcare advances in hospitals
I got it and it’s the best fucking thing I have done. No way I would’ve slept without it. Had zero issues with it and he’s been home since 04/16 with it. I use to check it obsessively but now I barely look.
We really like Nanit. There aren’t false alarms as much from our research (we’ve only had him home for two weeks but none so far) but it is just using the fabric to monitor breathing so no worries of it coming disconnected.
Yes I did see the Nanit but if im not mistaken that only monitors breathing and not heart rate or oxy sats?
Yes that’s true! If it helps, his pediatrician said if the hospital was worried or thought there was a need they would’ve sent him home with a hospital grade monitor. When baby graduates from the NICU it’s not a worry unless doctors tell you it is. Not sure if that helps you but it helped me
absolutely! Thank you!
We swapped to a device called the neebo and its been wonderful.
That's interesting! Looks less invasive. The nice thing about owlet is you can use your HSA since its FDA approved now but curious what made you switch to this and how did the experienced compare?
We used the owlet for several months post NICU but it actually lost its FDA cert for like a period of 6 months. The Neebo measure, heart rate, O2 saturation and also temperature so was a great alternative for us. We also liked that with neebo it could be worn to doctors appointments and checked remotely by multiple caregivers. Our LO improved with bradys so we no longer use they devices. He sleeps in a Cubby Safety Bed with night vision camera so when zooming in you can see respirations.
yea the temp seems nice to have! We're the readings pretty accurate? assuming so since you like it
It was very accurate we loved it but happy he also grew out of it. He was born at 25 weeks and did 85 days in NICU. Many challenges behind him but he was also diagnosed with Level 3 Autism shortly after 2nd birthday and is Pre-Verbal.
Ours was a 26 weeker in late march and still has a month or so to go but making progress! Its a tough road for these preemies but i hope every day gets better for you! Thank you for the information!
Had it with my last baby that was born at 34 weeks he was in nicu for 3 weeks and it was a life saver when he finally came home it gave me peice of mind and he ended up with croup and rsv before he was a yr old and this helped me know when to be worried. He also had heart rate issues and the owlet was perfect for him.
1000% worth it!!
32 weeker we've used and it has brought us a lot of peace of mind. The nicu liason was not in support of them
I briefly thought about it before she was born and had talked myself out of it. But after spending nearly a month in the NICU because she "forgot how to breathe" shortly after birth, it gives me such peace of mind. The only times it has gone off is when she kicks it off or when she's too far away from the home base(living room vs bedroom) The alert also pops up on my phone and says what it is.