Gro-Clock Review
Getting children to wake at a ‘reasonable’ time in the mornings is probably one of the biggest problems that every parent faces.
I remember that for the first six months of our girls lives they slept all night without waking. I’d actually have to wake them to give them their bottle! I thought it was brilliant and for some reason I thought it would last forever! Sadly it didn’t and as soon as their first tooth starting pushing through, sleep went out the window.
At almost three years old our sleeping arrangements aren’t the best, but they work for us! R in fairness does sleep in her own cot all night. Although her cot is in our room! M also sleeps all night – in our bed!
I don’t mind because it works for us, but as mentioned above they’re almost three now so I think we’re going to have to start getting them into their own room in their own beds.
Wake up time in the morning for our girls is anywhere from 6am onward so I guess it’s not too bad, but it would be even better if was around 7am.
The Gro-Clock is a product that I’ve heard of before and I’ve also heard many positive reviews about it. It’s essentially a sleep training clock which teaches children to stay in bed until they see the sun.
The clock is lightweight and easy to set up and use, plus the pictures of the sun and star are cute and appealing to children with their friendly faces.
You can chose whether or not you want to display the digital clock which would be good for older children.
To use the clock you simply have to set the time that you want your children to wake up. So for us this would be 7am.
I thought that the Gro-Clock would automatically change from the sun (daytime) to the star (night-time), but it doesn’t so you do have to remember to do this yourself when you’re child goes to bed, but if you get into a routine of doing it each night it’ll become a habit that you’ll remember to do.
The great thing about the clock is that it does change from the star (night-time) to the sun (daytime) automatically. If your child wakes up before the time you want them to, the star will still be displayed prompting your child to go back to sleep.
When your chosen wake up time arrives the blue star will change into a yellow sun to indicate it’s now time to wake up!
The Gro-Clock has a ‘stars to sun’ function which means that the smaller stars surrounding the big star will disappear the closer it gets to wake up time to show the passing of time.
The Gro-Clock comes with a lovely book for bedtime reading and is all about a little pig who’s tired and grump because he doesn’t get enough sleep! It’s full of lovely illustrations and our girls really seemed to enjoy the story.
If you have the Gro-Clock on a bedside table where your child can easily get their hands on it you don’t need to worry about them changing all the settings as there is a key lock option which means they won’t be able to change any settings no matter how hard they try!
This clock isn’t just for night-time. It can be used for daytime naps too so if you’re little one is still napping in the day you can also ensure they’re getting enough daytime sleep.
Another great thing about this clock is that it doubles up as a nightlight. You can adjust the brightness to the level that your child is happy with so it can also provide a bit of comfort and reassurance too.
For older children as well as the digital clock display mentioned above there is also an optional audible alarm feature too.
Overall this clock is easy and simple to use and I’m really looking forward to testing it out over the next few weeks to see if it will help our girls sleep later in the mornings.
The Gro-Clock is suitable from two years of age.
For the purpose of this review we were sent one Gro-Clock. All opinions are 100% my own.
3 Comments
Katie Davies Two Under Two
December 15, 2014 at 8:55 am
We've got a Gro clock and its fab our 2 year old now leaps to 6/6.30 instead of 5am
Katie Davies Two Under Two
December 15, 2014 at 9:04 am
*sleeps (not leaps)
Victoria Hockley
December 15, 2014 at 9:20 am
We have one for our two year old n hes starting to stay in bed till the sun, but the little monkey has worked out how to put it into bed time mode so we need to put the lock on as soon as he wakes to stop him doing that