The Tot Clock vs. The Goodnight Light vs. Ok to Wake! Children's Clock vs. ....

I remember well over a year ago a thread on this very forum (before my kiddos were two and it was relevant to me)comparing kid's wake-up clocks, which one people liked etc... There's the Tot Clock, the Good Night Light, and the Ok to Wake! Children's Clock from my research.I tried to do a search and it came up empty. So now that it's relevant to me (and hopefully others) I'd love to ask your opinions on the aforementioned kid "alarm" clocks and find out if you've had any success with anything. I am ready to overnight something at this point, haha! Thanks for your thoughts.

 

We didn't use any of those things -- we just put a regular small lamp on a timer and told them they could call for us when the light went on. The downside is that they never knew WHEN the light was going to go on, so if Amy happened to wake up a lot earlier than usual, she would start hollering "When is dat light goin' on???" But for the most part, she knew roughly how long she would have to wait, and they would just chat/play in their cribs (or their beds, after age 3) until the light went on.

ETA: The other downside is that if by some miracle she slept late, the timer clicking on would wake her up. On daycare days this wasn't a problem since we needed them to get up then anyway, but it was kind of a pain on weekends. Finally we moved the light across the hall, to a place where she could see it from her bed if she looked, but where she wouldn't hear/see it if she was still asleep.

 

:laughing: :laughing: Too funny!!

 

Thanks for posting this!! I've been thinking that we might be in need of one of these soon. My dd is starting to get up at 6am and it's just tooo early!

 

I actually have the "Teach Me Time" alarm clock sitting in my cart on Amazon right now so I'm glad you posted this! I think that's the big brother of the "Ok to Wake" and it seems like it has all of the same features plus the time teaching for older kids so you can use it longer.

 

This is exactly what we did with both of our older kids. The twins are still a little young but it won't be long we'll be doing the same thing with them We also had the issue with the timer waking the kids up, and sometimes we'd just turn the timer off if they'd had a few late nights and needed their morning sleep, but we'd be sure to set our alarm so we didn't sleep all morning :lol:

 

I'm wondering too. Unfortunately by the time we actually need it, when we switch to twin beds, the first thing they'll do is unplug it anyway, so unless I find one that works on rechargeable battery or something I probably won't bother.

 

We have the My Tot Clocks (and I cannot speak on the other clocks) but we like them here. I like the fact you can set the clock for nap time, bed time, wake time, encouragement time and time out time. The kids like to be able to change the clock from blue to yellow when they wake up and changing yellow to blue before nap time and bed. The tot clocks can ran on a battery solo and you can also plug them in, I leave them plugged in and in a place where the kids can't get to the plugs in their rooms.

 

Thanks for the reminder! I just ordered my Tot Clock! From the limited research I've done I would say the Tot Clock covers everything. My DD tends to wake in the middle of the night to sing and play (luckikly she's still in the crib and can't escape). I'm hoping this will give her a clue to time of day, etc.

Good luck to us!

 

We started out with the Goodnight Light, but it didn't work well at all. Sent it back and got the My Tot Clock. We love it, although we've had some problems with the white noise just stopping in the middle of the night~not sure what that problem is about...overall, we have had great success with this one. Have been using it a little over a year now.

 

we have this one and it worked like a charm. One of the best investments I've made. We really hyped it up and made it a game. The first week they didn't do that great but after they got the hang of it, it's been great.
http://stoplightclock.com/

 

I once read on a baby sleep website that you can take a simple alarm clock and cover up all of the numbers except the first (hour) number. Then you teach the child that they can get up when they see a "7", for example. My kids are learning their numbers so I am thinking that I will try this one they learn what a 7 is. The advantage of this option is that you can get an alarm clock for under $10 at Target.

 

That wouldn't work with mine... sometimes they wake up at 8.

 

We have the Tot Clock & it is a good product, but it did nothing for my two. They just ignore it & get up whenever they feel like it. I had such high hopes for it, but it didn't work for us.

I did this when my 11 year old was little. It worked great for her!

 

this post got me thinking about these clocks again, and I found a coupon for the Tot Clock, if you use it on their website you can use "parentchild10" and get 10% off ... at least that pays for 1/2 the shipping!