Gro Clock Review

My boys love to sleep, I can't moan  as ever since they were 8 weeks old they have slept through the night unless poorly, which is a good thing as I love my sleep too. However, when they're not at school and nursery they take ages to go to sleep on a night and they are up stupidly early on a morning, and when I say stupidly early I'm talking half past 5 - 6 am so by dinner time they are tired and cranky. The worst of the three boys is James and as hes the smallest at 3 he needs more sleep than his brothers but he is really good at fighting it. So just before Christmas when I was asked if I'd like to review a Gro Clock I didn't think twice.

In the box you will find the Gro Clock, power cable, story book and instruction manual.

The Gro Clock is really simple to set up as the instructions are really clearly set out. There are many features of the clock and they are all designed to make it easy for you to get a child into a routine of going to bed and waking at a "suitable" time. These features are:

• ​Glowing screen shows images of stars and sun to communicate 'sleep' and 'wake-up' time
• Includes fun bedtime story book
• Stars go out one-by-one during the night to show the passing of time
• Key-lock option
• Option to set two separate wake-up times (weekday/weekend or night-time/day-time nap)
• Adjustable screen brightness
• Silent operation
• Optional audible alarm feature
• Mains powered (adapter included)
• Suitable from age 2+ years
• Conforms to highest applicable British and European Standards

The first night we used the Gro Clock James thought it magical, we told him it was his special clock and that it was to help him know when it was time for him to go to sleep and when it was time for him to wake up again. I read him the enclosed storybook about Percy the Pig and all his friends and showed him that Percy had a clock just like him. We gave the moon and sun a name, we called them Monty Moon and Sonny Sun. I told him when Monty is out he has to got to bed and when Sonny is out he can get up. When it was time for James to go to bed each night  I pressed the button to activate the night mode. I had already set the clock so that it changes to the day mode at half past 7 in the morning. His normal bedtime is 7 pm, but has been known to still be awake at 10 / 11pm before now. It took him a couple of days to get used to the idea of what his clock was about but now he knows, it is second nature for him to go straight to sleep after his story.

During the night the clock will countdown the stars. This is a very clever idea because if you have a child that wakes up a lot during the night you can show them that it is still night time and show how many stars there are left until they can get up. As i mentioned before this isn't a problem for me as my boys do sleep, my problem was getting them into bed and then them not waking up really early on a morning.  

If your child takes a nap during the day you can also have a separate alarm set. This will show when a child needs to go to sleep for their nap and when they can wake up again. You can also use this second alarm as a weekend / holiday time so that your child wakes up slightly later in the morning. So we used this alarm to go off half an hour later (8 am) on a weekend and school holidays.

The Gro Clock has changed James' bedtime routine and has helped him to become a little bit calmer, less irritable during the day and overall a nicer child to have on a night time. I look forward to his bedtime as I know he won't be playing with toys until he falls asleep and I know he won't be up before the sun either.

You can purchase a Gro Clock from The Gro Company, it is priced at £29.99.