This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase, I’m eligible to earn a small commission from Amazon at no cost to you. 

Saying that the Snuza Hero is the best thing since sliced bread simply doesn’t do the product justice. I, for one, would rather bake and slice my own bread daily than have to face the long nights of new motherhood without this ingenious device.

The Snuza Hero is a tiny movement monitor that clips onto the front of your baby’s diaper. It registers the movement of her abdomen as she breathes, and reassures you with a tiny green light that flashes with each normal breath. From the right angle, this flashing light can be seen through two layers of fleece and a flannel swaddling blanket, but I’ve never found it bright enough to interfere with my sleep. Its effect is quite the opposite, since I no longer have to reach over and touch my sleeping baby (and risk waking her in the process) to confirm all is well.

When the Snuza senses weak movement, as it has on many occasions with my daughter, the flashing green light changes to yellow. It immediately turns back to green when baby’s movements return to normal. If  baby’s movement does not return to normal, the monitor will emit a gentle vibration to rouse her. This has happened to us once, while I was holding my daughter. She was awake, but for some reason her movements weren’t sufficient to convince the Snuza Hero that she was okay. If the monitor needs to rouse your baby three times, or if your baby stops breathing altogether, you’ll hear a loud beeping similar in pitch and volume to a smoke detector that will alert you of the problem in time to help your baby.

There is a similar movement monitor on the market that involves a pad placed under baby’s mattress. This is concept is just as brilliant as the Snuza Hero, assuming that your baby always sleeps in her crib. If you’re anything like me though, your baby sleeps in a number of places, from a Rock N Play to a Pack N Play, to my bed or the crib at her grandma’s house. The Snuza Hero works in all those places — anywhere your baby might be laid still to sleep. I have found that the movement from a swing can fool the monitor, and I suspect it may be compromised by the vibrations during car rides as well.

The Snuza’s body and clip are outfitted with tiny plastic teeth which allow the device to grip a diaper. I have not had any trouble with it falling off and sounding a false alarm. The only drawback to the Snuza Hero versus other alarms is that you have to remember to put it back on after changing a diaper. It can be hard to remember anything during those 3 am feed-burp-diaper-repeat cycles, and I’ve been known to enter zombie mode and forget to replace the monitor on a few occasions. It doesn’t take me long though, as I’m dozing off listening for the sound of her breath, to realize I don’t see that green light flashing. Each time this has happened I’ve picked her back up, unwrapped her from her swaddle and opened her warm pajamas to re-apply the Snuza. Even if I wake her in the process, it’s worth it, because when we both finally do get back to sleep, we’ll have the peace of mind only available through the use of a Snuza Hero monitor.

The Snuza Hero isn’t cheap, costing an average of $100 on Amazon, but in my opinion it is worth every penny. A resourceful parent can improvise and get by without most of the baby gear that’s marketed as ‘essential,’ but short of hiring a night nurse to sit at your child’s bedside and keep an intensely focused eye on her breathing, there is no substitute for this innovative monitor.

Update: In the five years since I posted this review, I used the Snuza on my third child (it did require a new battery by that time), then passed it along to another new mom in our family. It’s a quality product that stands the test of time. The addition of my affiliate link to this post is new, and had no bearing on my initial decision to use or review the Snuza Hero.