As a parent who likes technology, nothing makes me happier than when technology comes to the rescue and helps out with any of those little tests we face daily as parents. We’ve recently experienced an interesting issue with BigGeek Junior… She started waking up at about 4am each day without reason and completely against the schedule we’d set out and had been enjoying for months. We tried a few things but after reading a review for the Gro-Clock – we decided to give it a go and I have to say the results were almost immediate.
The Gro-Clock is basically an illuminated clock that changes from its soft blue Star graphic to a warm yellow Sunshine graphic at a time of your choosing. It works based on sleep association techniques and is very highly rated across the Internet. It’s very simple in its design and extremely easy to operate once you’ve worked out the buttons. The Gro-Clock comes with a story book that can be used to help little ones understand exactly what’s happening and when but to be honest, we never used it.
At the time of writing, the Gro-Clock is only £19.99 from Amazon and we coupled the purchase of the Gro-Clock with an earlier wake up time from our usual 8am onwards – hoping that between both approaches we’d start to see some improvement.
Upon using the clock for the first time BigGeek Jnr slept through to 6:30am and we had to wake her. The first day was tough as she was clearly a bit sleepy from being woken up earlier, but by bed time she was ready for sleep. We went through the process of saying goodnight to Mr Sunshine and hello to Mr Sleepy Star and we crossed our fingers.
It worked again – BigGeek Jnr slept all the way through to 6:30 again without so much as a murmur.
It’s now 3 weeks since buying the Gro-Clock and we’ve only had one bad night which we believe was due to the very hot weather here in the UK so as far as we’re concerned – a combination of the Gro-Clock and the earlier wake up time has done the trick (for now at least!).
So what did we do?
Well I have to say that although very technically minded and I’d like to think above average intelligence I struggled with the instructions on the Gro-Clock to begin with – the thing that took the longest to work out was there was no ‘Sun > Star’ time and this is something you do manually, usually as part of your night time schedule “Good night Mr Sunshine”.
Setting the time on the Gro Clock Baby Sleep Trainer
Obviously this is the most fundamental part of the setup and without it you can’t set a transition time for the Star to change to the Moon.
To set the time on the Gro-Clock you repeatedly press the Down button which takes you to the flashing menu screen. You then select the Clock icon by pressing the Enter button twice.
Once the time is flashing use the Up, Down and Enter buttons to change the hours and minutes before returning to the main settings page.
Setting the wake up time on the Gro Clock Baby Sleep Trainer
This timer is used to manage the transition between the Star and the Sun. This is the visual indicator to your little one that it’s now morning and ok to be awake.
To set the wake up time on the Gro-Clock you select the Star (this is the bit that confused me) from the flashing menu and set a time. When the clock hits this time, the transition from the Star to the Sun will begin.
Activating Night Time on the Gro Clock Baby Sleep Trainer
In terms of our schedule – we simply follow our usual evening schedule and when BigGeek Jnr is dressed and ready for bed, we hit the Up Arrow and Enter to start the transition – we then make a point of saying “Goodnight Mr Sunshine” and “Hello Mr Sleepy Star”. The Star screen then displays and has a number of smaller stars around the outside which disappear one at a time until the wake up time is reached – this in itself gives a clear indicator to baby just how far away morning is .
It could be a number of things that contributed to the better sleep pattern. It could be the earlier wake up time, it could be the soft night light the Gro-Clock provides and it could be the sleep association with Mr Sleepy Star. Whatever it is, it’s working and we owe the Gro Clock a debt of thanks.
We purchased our Gro-Clock from Amazon and at the time of writing, the clock costs £19.99
Just bought one of these for our toddler – it’s worked almost over night. Thank you
As a quick update, we now have two of these (one for each BigGeek Jnr) and are still used every day. Having recently moved out to Australia where it gets light very early in the morning, these have been priceless.