Gro-Clock (Review)

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Earlier this year on twitter I expressed mild irritation concern at The Boy's inability to stay asleep in the early hours of the morning. He was going through a phase of waking at around 5.30am and not going back to sleep; we were all exhausted and life was becoming quite unbearable! Many, many people stepped forward and suggested a sleep training clock, and The Gro Company stepped in to send us a Gro Clock to try out on him.

Words cannot express how grateful I am to the wonderful folk of twitter and the ingenius person who invented the Gro Clock, for changing my son's early morning sleeping habits.

The Gro Clock is a small white clock made up of a circular display with digital images on it. During daytime or 'waking' hours it shows a yellow screen with an overlaid image of a smiling and awake sun, but at nighttime or 'sleeping hours' it displays a soothing blue screen with a snoozing star to remind a stirring child that it's still sleepy time. The adult sets the acceptable waking time in the clock and, once the nighttime button has been pressed to change the screen from the sun to the sleeping star, the display will continue to show the sleeping star (with miniature countdown stars around the outside edge) until the clock has reached the time set. At this point the sun wakes back up and takes over the display with the yellow background again.

With the clock comes a wonderful story which explains the way that it works via a setting of a pig who lives on a farm and is grumpy because he doesn't have enough sleep. This is a wonderful story, beautifully illustrated and it really explains to the children the important of getting enough sleep.

The Boy took to the clock very quickly and it has become firmly embedded into our bedtime routine. He understood the point of it very quickly, and it took around a month for him to realise that if it was still blue then it wasn't time to be awake. We did have a random week early on where The Boy would wake up and rather than go back to sleep he would lie awake waiting for it to change to yellow. As he had no idea how long it would be (and sometimes it was an hour!), this was a particularly infuriating point of the training. However, it then took a month for him to train himself to go back to sleep, with consistent reiteration from us that if the screen was blue he had to close his eyes again. Once he'd understood it and 'got the hang of it', then we were able to change wake-up time from 6 o'clock to 6.45am. This took another month as we took it very slowly and only changed it by an extra ten minutes or so each week.

We're now eight months on from starting to use the Gro Clock and I could not recommend it strongly enough to parents of toddlers or older children! Every time we go away (even if only for one night), the clock comes with us. It is so reassuring to hear The Boy tell me that he saw the clock was blue and so he went back to sleep!

The Gro Clock is available from a variety of high street stores or online directly for £29.99.

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

Achieving Sleep

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I make no secret of, or apology for, the fact that we nursed The Boy to sleep until he was gone two years old. Yes that was a long time, and yes I do (partly) wish we hadn't, so you at the back over there reading this with your judgemental face on can cut it out! Walk a mile in my shoes and all that!

It didn't start out that way; I intended for him to go to sleep independently from the word go but babies make a habit of falling asleep in your arms. And in my defense he was always put down fully awake in his cot at bedtime, he'd fall asleep under the mobile and everything was fine and dandy. A series of colds over the course of his first Winter saw us slip into the habit of nursing him to sleep and, in all honesty, it was just too damned lovely to break the habit.

However, one day enough was enough, and with the advice of a sleep expert (from Pampers originally) we developed a routine to get him to go to sleep by himself without the use of the dreaded controlled crying that I detest so much. This started to go well but unfortunately she was no longer at hand to help out and that's when I found Jo Tantum on twitter. I actually think she may have found me first and I glanced at her profile thinking she was more than likely one of those people using twitter to promote and not actually help. How wrong I was! I asked a question to the general twitterverse one day and she answered it. Ever since Jo has helped me out with queries about sleep training, potty training and reassuring me about whether to start night-time training or not. She's friendly and non-judgemental, genuinely.

I want to share some information with you about babies, parents and sleep that has been collated by BabyHuddle. Their survey has shown that "nearly 70% of parents are rocking their babies to sleep in order to get some well-earned rest." I can completely understand that, although I will hasten to add that The Boy was never a bad-settler at bedtime. However, the hands-on approach (like mine) seems to be the preferred option for new parents rather than a non-contact approach like "pushing the pram round the house, driving the car around the block and singing nursery rhymes."

Now being honest, I would rather not be walking around the block or driving around and around (like my own parents had to) at midnight, and luckily I never needed to (before the nursing began). However, The Boy's mobile was a Godsend and it was the reliable method to help The Boy get to sleep, even now.

Jo (who has written ‘Baby Secrets’) says:

“Rocking a new baby to sleep is beneficial for bonding and breastfeeding, but as your baby gets older it leads to the baby needing that same sleep prop every time they want a nap in the day, or in order to sleep at night. If they wake up in the night, they will need that rocking again then, and since the parent is the one who has provided it, it usually leads to sleep deprivation and exhaustion in Mum and Dad, not to mention a bad back as your baby gets older and heavier!”

And she's right, because it took us a long time to break the habit of nursing him to sleep. We did manage to through the programmes and support we were given by two sleep experts. And not one tear was shed (apart from mine at my baby growing up)!

I'd like another baby and the question that has crossed my mind is, "Would I do bedtime differently?"

"Yes!" is the answer. While The Boy now goes to sleep by himself, if he wakes in the night he is ill equipped to get back to sleep without one of us nipping in and reassuring him; we're all a bit shattered to be honest!

More on the survey can be found on blog.babyhuddle.com. You can follow Babyhuddle on twitter or Facebook.  To find more on ‘Jo Tantum’s Spaced Soothing Technique’ visit www.babysecretsltd.com or follow @jotantum for free advice on twitter.

Starry Night (A Review of the ANSMANN Starlight Turtle)

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A few weeks ago, I posted this image as my Silent Sunday photograph…

… and was inundated with "where did you get that from?" questions.

The answer is that I was very kindly sent it to review by Hello Baby in order to help with The Boy's sleep-training. As well as a variety of night lights, Hello Baby also sell a variety of other baby toys, travel and safety products.

As I'm not one for controlled crying, or indeed any form of crying at bedtime, I was eager to try something that would help keep The Boy happy to be in his cot, while relaxing him enough to drift off. I've been following a programme given to me by Pampers involving sitting on a chair and moving further away from the cot every few nights, and I also needed something to distract him from the fact that whoever is putting him to sleep is not sat next to him anymore.

'Tommy Tortoise' (or the ANSMANN Starlight Turtle to give him his proper name) is perfect for this. The green shell has star shaped perforations all over it with a small crescent moon in the centre next to the touch-sensitive on-off button. When the central 'button' is touched, the light shines blue, touch it again and it turns green, again and orange. With the final touch it cycles slowly through the three colours.

Most evenings, bedtime is supervised by Mr. TheBoyandMe as this is his time with our son during the day. Therefore I hand over to him to explain how we use 'Tommy Tortoise' with The Boy:

Until recently, the bedtime routine was strained by The Boy constantly trying to talk, sing, fidget, play with his pillow and all the other prevarications he could muster.

We recently added a new element in; Tommy Tortoise. The Boy goes into his cot, with the mobile playing 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star', and Tommy is switched on and positioned to ensure that the moon is projected onto the part of the ceiling which is above the foot of his bed. A few requests to change between the three available colours later, he ends up happy with green and settles down to sleep significantly sooner than before Tommy's arrival.

The Starlight Turtle is powered by three AA batteries so doesn't need a nearby power socket, and in the month that we've been using it, we haven't changed the batteries once. That's pretty good going I think. It also makes it very easy to use when travelling or staying with family and friends, that extra piece of security for your little ones when they are settling down in a strange bed.

I'd thoroughly recommend this nightime light, and at £17.99 I think it's very good value for money.

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.