Nanny Cams when leaving kids with Kids Night Out?

[ninafeliz]

We are planning to use kids night out multiple times on our upcoming summer trip to watch our 15 month old twins while we go to the parks with our older 2 kids. I thought I had read on here previously about people using cameras (probably Nest, but possibly other ones as well) to be able to observe their kids while they were gone. Has anyone had experience with this, and if so what setup did you use and how did it work out? My husband was concerned about something possibly not working - maybe ports being blocked by disney making it hard for use to actually log in from offsite? Something that out provider does at home causes him to have to do a lot of work around to view from outside the home, and He doesn't want to have to mess with that on vacation. Can you tell I don't know anything about all of that . So I was just wondering if it really is easy - my SIL uses Nest cameras at her house and says they are super easy.

In addition, my DH thinks it's useless because they could just take the kids out of the room if they wanted to do anything inappropriate - but I just thought it might be nice to be able to actually see them while we were out. Not necessarily because I was worried, but just for fun and for that added level of comfort.

Thoughts? Have you done it? Would you do it or would you just text periodically to ask how things are going? If you did it, did you tell them specifically when you left or did you just have the cameras sitting out?

 

[katyjeka]

I can be of no help with the Nest cameras as I've never used them. Could you take a trusted friend or family member on your trip with the understanding they would be used as needed to watch your twins? Just an idea.... Have a great trip.

 

[ninafeliz]

I can be of no help with the Nest cameras as I've never used them. Could you take a trusted friend or family member on your trip with the understanding they would be used as needed to watch your twins? Just an idea.... Have a great trip.

We've looked into that in detail, and it came out prohibitively expensive (or caused too much anxiety if we took grandparents)! We talked about taking our nanny, but as much as we love her she gave us a very high hourly rate for vacation hours, and when you add in transportation, hotel rooms, and food it pretty much doubled our trip if not more! We thought about a college student we use as a sitter, but even putting her in a less expensive room category than us it still added a ton of expense and changed the style of trip for us as well. As far as taking a grandparent - that's an entirely different kind of trip and I only have it in me to do one of those every so often!! You want to talk about bringing out family dynamics - mention bringing parents on a trip to my DH and I and see how long before we fight - I give it 10 seconds! You wouldn't believe the issues that can come out of the woodwork when we involve my parents and his mom - and yes, it has to be all 3 or none

We might try either the nanny or college babysitter on a future trip and plan it from the beginning so it would at least be less added expense. This trip is 12 nights and all Deluxe CL rooms, and we're taking the auto train in a 2 bedroom sleeper, so too much to add additional rooms and transportation to. we would do value or moderate and less nights, and fly since we would have an extra adult to help, and try it that way.

Thanks for the thought though!

 

[katyjeka]

I understand the family dynamics!!! We love ours like crazy but vacations are a different story. I'm sure they have reliable nanny's in the Orlando area, I'd start by looking into reviews, background checks, etc... The train is a lot of fun, we've experienced it twice. Have a great time, the trip sounds special.