A couple of months before the geekson was born, we moved the geekdaughter out of the nursery and into her own “big girl” bedroom, complete with “big girl” bed. She coped with the change really well, and loved (still does) her new room.
Up until this point she had been happy to stay in her cot in the mornings until I got up – reading books or playing with toys. This allowed me to have my shower and get dressed in peace. However, she quite quickly realised that she could get out of her big girl bed whenever she liked, and soon was coming out of her room at a time that I considered too early. We started off trying to get her to just stay in her room until one of us went in to her in the mornings, but that didn’t work, and after one unfortunate incident when she walked into our guest bedroom whilst some guests were asleep in there (I think she was more surprised than they were!) I decided I wanted to find another solution. And being a geek Mum, a geeky solution would be preferable 
The solution I found was this, the Gro-Clock:
The geekdaughter caught on fairly easily to the concept of staying in bed until her sun comes out in the morning. We had a couple of mornings early on when I had to remind her about that, but now she proudly comes into our bedroom at 7am every morning saying “Mummy, my sun is out, I can get out of bed!”.
The clock has a “keylock” function, which we have to use, as the first night the geekdaughter got out of bed before her sun came out, pressed the buttons on the front of the clock which made the sun come out, and then came to wake me up!
The clock can be programmed with two different wake-up times, enabling it to be used for naps as well as “big sleeps” should you wish. Personally I keep the second slot programmed with a slightly later wake-up time for those days when I just want another 30 minutes in bed! You only have to program your desired wake-up time once, and after that it’s just a matter of one or two button-presses to activate the selected time.
For older children who are learning to tell the time, the clock can also display a digital time. And the clock comes with a little story book – Sleepy Farm – which can be used as a bedtime story and reinforces the message that we should be asleep when the star is out and awake when the sun is up.
The only downside of the clock that I have found is that, whilst it doesn’t lose it settings in the event of a power cut, it does effectively “pause” the time it thinks it is. So if you have a power cut that lasts for one hour, your Gro-clock will be one hour slow, and therefore the sun will come out one hour later.
We’re really seeing the benefits of the Gro-clock. I’ve been impressed by how easy the geekdaughter (at two and a half) could understand the concept, and it’s really working for us.
You can buy the Gro-Clock Sleep Trainer
11 comments
Hils says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:38 am (UTC 0 )
We used a similar product (kidsleep I think) to help with nightweaning. As an old
hippy I was feeding firstborn through the night well into her second year, but when I’d just had enough, and I could no longer hear her tummy rumbling at 2am, we used it to show her when she could ask for a feed. We started at 5am and took a couple of months to work forward to around 7. She ‘got it’ easily too, think she was about 20mths. Didn’t always like it of course…
geekmummy says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:53 am (UTC 0 )
Now there’s a use for it that I’d never thought of. We were lucky and the geekdaughter slept through from quite early on (certainly before 6 months), and never regressed. Thank goodness.
Steve says:
September 2, 2010 at 3:43 pm (UTC 0 )
Such a good idea! The kids are familiar with the ‘dont wake up daddy until 7am’ rule, but can’t yet tell the time. This would be a great idea… but shipping to NZ might be a problem…
geekmummy says:
September 2, 2010 at 3:47 pm (UTC 0 )
And any difference in power supply required I suspect…. Might be worth checking around, there are several similar clocks available over here (Hils mentions the kidsleep above), perhaps there’s something comparable
Steve says:
March 11, 2011 at 2:38 am (UTC 0 )
We have one now — it was brought form the UK for us by my mother at Christmas. Works well (NZ has 220v same as UK, so just need a $2 plug adapter) and kids understand it. It also working as a nightlight is a bonus…
Of course, now we have kids bouncing in shouting “Daddy! SUN!” the moment we get to 7am…
geekmummy says:
March 11, 2011 at 12:59 pm (UTC 0 )
Excellent, so glad it’s working for you.
Here’s a tip – you can set two different wake-up times, so I have the second one set to 7.30am, and sometimes when I really need those extra 30 minutes I use that setting instead!
Rachel says:
September 2, 2010 at 6:08 pm (UTC 0 )
I love your new blog Ruth! And I need this clock! Actually I need two of them! I have one child whose bedroom window faces east, and one whose window faces West. In other words, I have one child who wakes up at the crack of dawn, and the other who won’t go to bed. Argh!! I will be doing some investigating!
Louise says:
September 4, 2010 at 7:28 am (UTC 0 )
I love this gadget – definitely going to invest in one as soon as I can. My little one is a good sleeper anyway but this will be great as she gets older and can actually get herself out of bed :S
RuthJ says:
September 10, 2010 at 10:38 am (UTC 0 )
We’ve just ordered one to try with our A. Hope it works!
geekmummy says:
September 11, 2010 at 12:37 am (UTC 0 )
I’ll be interested to hear how you get on with it! I hope it works too
Goswoppit says:
September 15, 2010 at 3:35 pm (UTC 0 )
I can also recommend the Gro-Clock. We introduced it when moving E to a “big girl bed” (cotbed with sides removed). The first couple of nights were challenging, getting her to stay in bed after saying “night-night” and also when she woke up earlier than we liked. Now she generally stays in her room until the “right” time and then marches into ours, saying “My suns has come up” with a big smile on her face.
We also use the second “nap time” option for weekends, when the sun comes up 30 minutes later.
Great website:-)