Sutton has always been a great sleeper but over the past several months, she began waking up here and there throughout the night and even getting up for the day at 5:30 AM. She would ask for water in the middle of the night so we thought we could solve the problem by putting a water bottle next to her bed but it didn’t take long to realize that she wasn’t actually thirsty, but just using that as an excuse.

When it comes to sleep, I don’t mess around (ha!) so I knew I needed to do something to try and remedy this new sleep struggle and FAST. I have a few friends who used the toddler alarm clock with their kids and had pretty good success so I Amazon Primed that little puppy and two days later…we were up and running.  

The clock actually has quite a few functions and preference options like the brightness of the ball, turning the buzzer on or off and setting a nap alarm. All the buttons are concealed on the back of the dog and there are two buttons on the paws of the dog that turn off the alarm and illuminate the screen to see the time when its dark.

I’m sure its pretty obvious but the ball is red when its time for bed and turns green at the time you set the alarm. The first night, we let Sutton play with the clock and clearly communicated our expectation that she was not to get out of bed until the ball turned green. She was pretty excited about her new nighttime friend and we tried to make as big of a deal about it as possible. 

The  first night went….ok. She woke up about 2-3 times to tell us the ball was red, ha! We don’t let her crawl in bed with us so we just walked her back to bed and reiterated that she was to stay in bed until the ball turned green. The second night was a success! She even woke up before the alarm went off and sat in her bed until it was time to get up. We’ve been using it for about a month now and it really has helped her have a better understanding of what is expected of her when it comes to sleeping and the appropriate time to wake up. Unfortunately, the clock is purely just a tool and it doesn’t 100% guarantee your child will stay in their bed. One thing that has helped to reinforce the clock is to reward her when she follows the rules with a special incentive like getting to play with her VTech camera or getting a donut on the weekends. I have also used it as a timer for different things that she often will push back on like getting out of the bathtub, wrapping up playtime, etc. Amazingly she doesn’t moan and groan as much when the timer goes off vs. me just telling her to do it 😉

In summary, this clock has been a good investment for us and I would certainly recommend it to anyone who has a child that struggles with staying in their bed or waking up far too early.  It certainly can’t guarentee your little one will do exactly as they are told but it does give them something that is easy for them to understand and follow along with when it comes to sleep expectations. 

Here is a link to the clock.