After you have had a couple of kids you realize a majority of baby gear you register for in the baby stores while make life convenient but really are no necessary to raise your child. Except for formula, breast-milk car seat, diapers and bottles everything else is to make your life easier.
Out of all the product that is totally an extra to have (wipes warmer, swaddles, etc) I must say I LOVE my video monitor the best. The video monitor is fabulous because it helped me in the following situations.
1. As a new mother scared my child would die if I wasn’t staring or holding him all the time the video monitor helped me watch him as soon as I switched him to his own room. I remember my husband watching me watching the baby yelling at me “Would you stop staring at our kid!” It did help me ease those first few weeks of anxiety.
2. My kids both make noises, and cry randomly in their sleep. With the monitor I can check first to see if they are even awake and crying. When they are so little sleep is non-existent so being able to see if they are crying for you, or just making noises is wonderful. Even worse is if you went in and woke them up when they were really sleeping.
3. I catch how adorable my husband/partner is with the kids. I can hear his conversations when he takes care of them in the night or after a nap and DAMN is it adorable.
4. I can actually go to the bathroom, or do something else for five minutes if I put the child in the crib and bring the monitor with me. When your kids get older you can put some toys in the crib and watch them or if you have a toddler you can watch them play in their room.
All of these reasons are not necessary in the development of your child’s life but I am so thankful someone was generous to buy one for me off my registry and that I found a second one used online because I have been able to have five minutes hear or their to get things done over the years and to me it is worth every penny.
CT Working Moms 
My husband wanted one when we were pregnant with our son and I talked him out of it because, as you said, it was a luxury item and why should we spend that kind of money, blah, blah, blah. Only now I wish we’d gotten it (don’t tell my husband I said that!!). Our son is almost 2 and there have been so many times where it would have been so much easier to be able to just check on the monitor to find out if that noise was just that or if he was really awake…… too many times I’ve gone in and accidentally woken him up when he would have gone right back to sleep if I’d stayed put! Unfortunately, my son is, as I said, almost 2, so it’s even harder to justify spending the money now…. Damn!! 🙂
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I am so with you on this! I consider our video monitor to be a total luxury item, but we LOVE having one! It helped us to figure out that there are many times when noise from the nursery doesn’t mean that we have to go running in there. Plus it’s so cute watching her sleep. Just love it.
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