Baby monitors work in adjoining hotel rooms

Here's how Sara solved the kid-in-a-hotel-room bedtime situation:

When I realized I had booked *adjoining* rooms at our hotel instead of *interconnected* rooms I was slightly panicked -- was someone going to be stuck in a dark motel room starting at 8:30 every evening (reading in the bathroom the only escape?).  I threw in our baby monitor with the hope that it would work through the hotel room walls.  It did, and it was great -- we were able to put the baby to bed, wait for her to fall asleep, and retire to the adjoining room until it was time for us to go to sleep.

I suspect other people do all the time, but it had never occurred to me.

Tags: Family travel, Parenting

Comments

[Brian]

I have a horror story involving the "adjoining room" vacation plan that should serve as a warning.

We booked a room connected to my parents and put our son to bed in our room while we stayed up in the adjoining room. For security as much as out of habit, we locked the front door of our room with the deadbolt.

This was a hotel on the beach, where it turned out to be fairly pleasant, if windy, with the windows open. While we talked, a gust came through the window and blew shut the adjoining door, which, to our horror, evidently locked by default, *from the other side*!

At first, I wasn't too worried, because I didn't realize our room was deadbolted shut, but I began to freak out a tad when I realized that our son was locked in the room next door, without any way for us to get to him.

I rushed down to the front desk and frantically explained the situation. Thankfully, the manager on duty was skilled with a credit card and nonchalantly picked the lock on the adjoining door.

My son never woke up throughout this ordeal, for which I was quite grateful. The trauma of the possibility was enough, thank you very much.

[Brian]

Just realized that semantics might be confusing to people reading my comment after the original post. "Adjoining" actually does mean "interconnected." Rooms next to each other without a connecting door are simply "adjacent."

[Serrina]

I was able to sit and relax in the sun with the use of our baby monitor during naps! Yes! Traveling with a 5 mo. old can be a vacation!
Just ask for your hotel room to be on the side of the pool, closest to the pool/beach, etc so your wireless leash doesn't fall short!

[Jill]

We've had cabins at state parks that were close enough to use the baby monitor. Not only for the baby either-- "We're back from hiking, if anyone wants to come over for a watermelon!" Walkie talkies would have worked for that purpose, but our baby couldn't quite use them yet!

[rosemary]

We always get a 2 bedroom suite, as for me having extra doors connecting to the hallway always make me nervous. I always bring the baby monitors too, they work well there.

[Jack]

When we travel in the UK, we tend to stay in pubs (many UK pubs also run bed & breakfast accomodation). With a decent radius (about 20m, I think) to the baby monitor coverage, it meant that we could put our daughter to bed, go downstairs, have a couple of beers and a meal, and chill out - while only renting a single room.

[Christian Pearce]

An alternative to the baby monitor is to use the hotel phones. What you do is call the second room and put both phones on speaker. Then you mute the room in which you need to listen. Make sure you turn up the volume.

Another alternative is to use a cell phone. A lot of services have free minutes calling in your family or after 7. So simply call the second cell phone and put the first one on speaker or use an ear piece and carry it around. This is good for the sleeping child in the car seat. When you arrive at the grandparents house you don't have to wake her up, you simple wait for the cries.

I have used both of this hacks on several occasions and they work like a champ.

[J]

A word of caution. I recently considered booking adjacent hotel rooms for a family vacation. I called the hotel & was told that they could put a note on the reservation, but they couldn't guarantee that the rooms would be adjacent or even on the same floor of the hotel. I opted to reserve a suite instead rather than risk everyone ending up in a single standard hotel room.