Just randomly reflecting on the first few incredibly chaotic months with a new baby and how our carbon monoxide detector beeped like ONCE at 9:30 one night… It wasn’t a smoke detector “low battery chirp”, it was an incredibly loud beep. I was convinced the house was going to blow up and my husband DASHED to the Walmart before they closed to buy an overpriced second monitor so we could plug it in to see if it beeped too while I debated calling 911 to have the team come out and invade our home with the legit detectors. Learned later that sometimes they’ll beep once or twice when the battery winds down but… Nobody needs surprise chirp/beeps/panic with a light sleeper infant! Change all those 9 volts before bringing baby home!
I dont know if its the same where you live, but here in quebec we get told to change our detector batteries when its the time change. Its an easy way to remember!
Vinnie said:
I dont know if its the same where you live, but here in quebec we get told to change our detector batteries when its the time change. Its an easy way to remember!
Wowzers so twice a year?? That’s a lot of batteries!
@Avery
I figure you can just pick one. Like when time springs forward replace them OR when it falls back replace them.
Vinnie said:
I dont know if its the same where you live, but here in quebec we get told to change our detector batteries when its the time change. Its an easy way to remember!
Same in the U.S. All the local news channels run their obligatory change the batteries story.
Ours are all interconnected and waited until 2am on a night I was home alone with the dogs and a 6-week old to do this. But when one chirps it sets ALL OF THEM off. Babe slept thru it. The dog barking next to him is what ultimately woke him up.
@Dru
YEP our smoke detectors are the same way. (With battery back ups so they still chirp sometimes lol.) We lose power during windy storms and 50% of the time when the power comes back on the whole house is blaring in a chorus of screeching beeps. Super helpful! (And poor doggo, it IS scary so I get it lol.)
@Avery
It is both helpful and slightly annoying when they go off for no reason. And I’m short so reaching any of them by myself is a challenge. I usually go to one of the spare rooms where the ceilings are lower 
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New ones have built in 10 year batteries.
Sidney said:
New ones have built in 10 year batteries.
We’re about to install a 10-year one in the nursery!
Sidney said:
New ones have built in 10 year batteries.
It might have been that! It was in the house when we bought it, I forget if we checked to see if it had any dates on it 
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This is an excellent reminder! I wish that someone had warned me before my detectors did the same thing at 2 am in the room next to the baby. I woke my husband up to take it down then threw it in the basement under a pile of baby clothes until a more reasonable hour.
@Jory
I have definitely smothered a smoke detector till I could get it outside and rip the battery out. I’m sure I looked like a crazy person. We do what we must!
This was something I made my husband do a few weeks before baby was born. He thought I was crazy but this is the exact scenario I was trying to avoid .
Marley said:
This was something I made my husband do a few weeks before baby was born. He thought I was crazy but this is the exact scenario I was trying to avoid
You knew what was up! Well done!
I had a loud alarm go off in my kitchen once and my girlfriend and I found the source, it was a very old device and the only letters we could make out were “CO” so we assumed it was carbon monoxide.
The fire department comes in space suits and confirms that is a carbon monoxide detector and it is ringing but they can’t find carbon monoxide.
Anyway, turns out it was actually a doorbell with the word “COMPANY” written in faded letters.
@Flint
Omg nooooo. A) good to get checked out if you’re not sure B) that’s not great that the experts misidentified it as a carbon monoxide detector, whoops!
Avery said:
@Flint
Omg nooooo. A) good to get checked out if you’re not sure B) that’s not great that the experts misidentified it as a carbon monoxide detector, whoops!
Fortunately I am long since moved out of that apartment.
If you looked under the kitchen sink you could see charred boards from a fire that destroyed half the house 25 years earlier.
Ours did this, and it’s so loud and obnoxious that you’d think the world is ending. It was legit like 3am, and we all woke up in a panic.
Skyler said:
Ours did this, and it’s so loud and obnoxious that you’d think the world is ending. It was legit like 3am, and we all woke up in a panic.
The worst! Such a terrible feeling and so hard to go back to sleep eventually.