Leapfrog Scout's Goodnight Light Review

It is four years since I wrote a review of a Leapfrog bedtime lullaby toy; we've used our Twinkle Twinkle Little Scout almost every single evening for over four years now - we even take it on holiday. I've searched high and low for an equivalent to send to my sister as a gift and finally Leapfrog have brought out a new bedtime toy for preschoolers - the brand new Scout's Goodnight Light from Leapfrog. I'm very excited.

Scout's Goodnight Light is part toy, part bedtime lullaby player. It comes in the shape of a space rocket featuring Leapfrog's Scout and Violet puppies. The toy acts as a night light that projects coloured numbers or brightly coloured planets and space shapes onto a darkened wall or ceiling. It plays music, games ideas and lots of short fun phrases that encourage learning about numbers, colours and space.  The Goodnight Light comes with a handle so it is easy for you to carry around the house or for little hands to carry when they want to project images in the dark.

We use the Goodnight Light from Leapfrog for playing lullabies to the girls when we want them to settle down for the night. The music features lots of Leapfrog classics that you may recognise if you have a cuddly Scout friend of your own as well as a mix of lullaby classics. The music isn't as gentle or soothing as I'd like (in fact I'd say it was a bit loud even in the quietest mode) but the music really does help the girls settle. You can elect for the music to also be accompanied by soothing lights - either solar system or brightly coloured numbers; these change colour and brightness as the timer counts down. You can choose 10 or 20 minutes of music and we find 20 minutes is about right for our girls at present.

Holly really enjoys Scout's Goodnight Light; it is the last thing she hears at night and when she wakes up, the first thing she does is hide in her wardrobe and play with it; pressing the button to listen to music and see the mesmerising lights; she really is taken by it.

As well as music, the Goodnight Light will play environmental noise (we used to find this good when the girls were tiny babies)  and solar noise (effectively white noise) which is ideal for newborns. I think it's a fabulous bit of kit which is perfect as a bedtime lullaby player from birth, right through to preschoolers like Holly.

Scout's Goodnight Light costs around £9.99 from the Leapfrog Store.

Peppa Pig GoGlow Night Bright Light Review

Today has been a loooong day.  Lara and Holly have been hard work from the very moment they woke, until the moment they finally crashed.  At bedtime, after reading a mountain of stories, confiscating an "uncomfortable" duvet cover and resolving a giraffe/elephant dispute I finally resorted to threatening a visit from the "bedtime monster" if they didn't quieten down and go to sleep.  Bad Mummy.  It worked though!  Thankfully, the girls now both have these GoGlow night lights from Worlds Apart so I know that they are now not really worrying about monsters in their room and seemed quite happy for me to leave them with the lights gently glowing in their room.

The GoGlow Night Bright Light acts as both a night light and a torch and it is so easy to use that even Holly at 2 years old is able to operate her GoGlow on her own (it is suitable from 12 months upwards).  The GoGlow is available from WorldsApart in lots of different designs including Peppa Pig or Thomas the Tank Engine and my girls LOVE their Peppa torches and have been known to spend quite some time in the morning waving them across the room at each other!

The GoGlow is rechargeable and sits on its own compact base to charge it.  You can leave it there overnight, or lift it off and place it wherever you fancy.  When it is resting upright on a hard surface, the upper part of the lamp glows to reveal Peppa and George but when you lift it up, the light moves to the base where it acts as a bright torch.  Lara likes to use it to play games in her room during the dark evenings!  To switch it on and off you simply press the base.

Holly has been suffering with restless nights over the past month, sometimes waking as often as every 20 minutes due to teething pains from those pesky back teeth.  It has been great to have the GoGlow available for us to switch on, either to soothe her, or else simply to get enough light in the room to see what we are doing when we go through to her, without disturbing her too much.  The light is bright without being harsh.  There have also been times recently when Holly has woken up shouting for us, to tell us that she doesn't want the lion/elephant/rhino/other large safari animal and has settled back down again quickly once we switch on her night light for her.

As a torch (for use inside) I think it the GoGlow is excellent because it is chunky, and easy for the girls to hold and control.  As a night light I think it is also pretty awesome as it has enough charge to last all through the night (although in my ideal world it would sneakily switch itself off after the girls have fallen asleep).

If your child is showing signs of being afraid of the dark then a little night light like the GoGlow is a great way of helping to prove there are no monsters (especially, if like me, you are the one responsible for making them think that there are!).  Tonight, I have just checked in on the girls and found them settled and peaceful!

   

PurFlo Cot and Cotbed Mattress Review

As an ambassador for PurFlo, we were asked to try out the PurFlo breathable mattress on Holly's cotbed to see how it compared to her more traditional mattress.  The PurFlo mattress really is something different - it isn't a solid mattress but instead a breathable sleep surface stretched around a frame.

Our first challenge was to assemble the PurFlo mattress.  The frame of the mattress is made fro lightweight metal tubes which slot together using plastic corner pieces.  It was simple enough, and when constructed, seemed very stable.  Then we had to slip the frame into the PurFlo SleepSurface which was definitely a two-person job!  To make the surface taught you pull a series of belts tight - both myself and Mr. B found this a bit of a struggle and it was hard to tell when the surface was taught enough to provide support when the mattress was in use.  The belts tuck away nicely under a cushioned end-piece.

Once the mattress was assembled, we could really see the potential benefits.  Because the mattress is hollow it allows air to pass between the holes - this helps reduce the chance that your baby might overheat and reduces the pooling of CO2 around them as they breathe out during the night.  The hollow mattress also means that there is no foam centre which can house dust-mites and can therefore reduce the chances of asthma and is kinder to the skin - Holly and Lara have both suffered with irritated skin over the years so this is very appealing to us.

The PurFlo SleepSurface can be removed for washing and can go into your washing machine - this is great for accidents and I think it will work well as we approach potty training.  The PurFlo mattress also would work well when travelling because you can take off the cover, collapse the frame and place it into it's own travel carry bag.  This compact nature means it is an attractive option for if you are planning more children - most parents will consider saving their child's cot mattress even though the current recommendations are that, to reduce the risks of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) you should buy a new mattress for each child; with the PurFlo mattress I would be able to store the frame for future children and then by a new SleepSurface when needed rather than replacing the entire mattress.

Holly seemed very taken by the new mattress and we noticed no difference in her sleeping patterns.  I have had to tighten the SleepSurface once since we started using it but I think that may be from her standing and jumping up and down on her bed!

The PurFlo mattress does differ a bit from other cot and cotbed mattresses and there are a number of required warnings printed on the label which took me by surprise when I first saw the scale of them; however, most of the warnings are largely common sense.  The mattress is noticeably taller around the edges compared to Holly's old mattress and this can mean that your child might be more able to climb from their cot if they stand at the edge, but, to be honest, once your baby has made up their mind that they want to get out of their cot, they will find ingenious ways to do so such as standing on toys (or shouting for their big sisters!)

I think the PurFlo mattress will serve us well.  The cotbed mattress is recommended for a maximum child weight of 22kg which is well above what I expect Holly to be by the time she outgrows her cotbed.

  

Goodnight Mo Interactive 3D Bedtime Story Book App for Toddlers

Goodnight Mo by StoryToys is a 3D interactive bedtime story app which is available on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch (and coming soon to Android). It is designed for children ages 15 months to 3 years old.

My initial reaction to Goodnight Mo when I first opened it up to look at with 16 month old Hollywas delight. Mo is a very cute cuddly character and all of the colours of the app were bright, yet relaxing. The graphics are great and I really like the 3D effects on each page because the pages look as if they are a pop up book and the shapes on the screen move when you move your device. Very clever. I would say that the 3d effect and pop-up characters work best on the large screen of the iPad and in terms of Holly gaining the accuracy to be able to touch and interact with the items and characters on the page, the bigger screen is an advantage.

However, I actually prefer using Goodnight Mo on the smaller screen of my iPod touch and the reason for that is that at bedtime I want Holly to be winding down for the night and the big bright screen of the iPad is too exciting for her to settle. The smaller screen gives us a better chance of actually being able to settle down.

The idea of the Goodnight Mo story is that each of the 8 rhyming pages of the book is supposed to represent a different part of the daily bedtime routine. We are just about to move Holly into a cot bed and so it is really important right now that we start to drill into her the routine for bedtime so that she will recognise the signs that it is time to settle down - Goodnight Mo seems like a fun way to do this with her. The pages feature the process of getting changed, having a bath, brushing teeth and cuddling up in bed.

Each page has a number of areas of the screen you can touch to animate the page such as flushing the toilet or changing the colour of the nightlight. There are lots of little noises that are made but the overall feeling of the app is one of relaxation. As you move through the book the colours get darker and more muted an the story has a slow, relaxing tune playing throughout (you can switch this off).

I really enjoyed changing the language of the app - it is available in French, German and Spanish too. This really fascinated my older daughter, Lara, as she doesn't often get to hear other languages being spoken. I was impressed that the texts have been written such that they also rhyme in the other languages too. You can choose to read the text on the pages yourself as a parent or you can let the narrator do the reading; I find the low male reading voice very calming and so, it seems, does Holly. I can well imagine Goodnight Mo becoming a regular part of our bedtime routine.

Goodnight Mo is available from the iTunes app store for £1.99

Pillow Pets Dream Lites Review

Holly and Lara are both already big fans of the original Pillow Pets and our thumpy bunny cuddly pillow pet gets a lot of love and attention every morning when they wake up. But this piece of cuddly loveliness is the brand new Pillow pets Dream Lites Rainbow Unicorn who, in the space of a week, has vastly improved the ease of bedtimes!

The Dream Lites from Pillow Pets are a range of slightly smaller Pillow Pets which have a gentle starry lamp that glows. Our Rainbow Unicorn projects a pattern of stars on the ceiling in green, orange and blue. The pattern also has a little unicorn motif on it. To switch on the calming night light there is a small button on the back of the pet, you can press it to cycle through the colours and to switch it off.

There is a timer option on the light as well which means that I can leave the light gently glowing in Holly or Lara's room and let it time out so I don't need to go back into the room to switch the light off.

Holly seems particularly taken with the Pillow Pets Dream Lites. She is young enough not to want a light to read by when she goes to bed so she doesn't need a strong light in her room, just a gentle and soothing glow which is exactly what this gives. Both girls seem to be relaxed when they lie in bed and look up at the stars projected on their ceiling.

The Dream Lites pets are a good size for cuddling. They fold and fasten in the same way as their larger, original companions but because of the plastic covering over the lights and the chunky internal battery pack, they aren't that good for cuddling or resting your head on but this doesn't stop both girls from carrying the Unicorn round the house with them.

The Pillow Pets Dream Lites from Mookie Toys are available in 7 different animal designs including a vert striking penguin, a jolly giraffe and a snuggly puppy. The Dream Lites cost £19.99 which is great value considering the soothing effect ours has had on bedtimes.

Gunapod wearable blanket review

Holly has been trying out the The Gunapod from Gunamuna which is available in the UK exclusively from Tesco. We have used the Gunapod since birth as a wearable blanket for Holly both at home, at family and friends houses and in the pram.

The Gunapod isn't really a sleeping bag, it's more like a wearable fleece blanket. The genius of it is that it features a set of different zips and snaps which mean you can open and close it in numerous difference combinations. This seems to baffle Mr. B to the point where he can't use it - he just hands Holly over to me and gets me to do it!

The zips are designed so that I can put Holly into the Gunapod from the front, back, top or bottom. I can unzip it to give her feet some air or I can unpopper it to slip her out for a feed or a change. Personally I think it's a work of genius. I particularly like using the Gunapod in the pram because I can lay it down on the pram base and then place a sleepy Holly onto it before zipping it up around her. I don't need to wake her up at all. The video below gives you an idea of how easy it is to use.

In terms of weight, I found the Gunapod to be refreshingly light compared to other sleeping bags - this makes it more appealing for me to take out and about, especially in the pram, and because it is a low tog (1.6 tog I think), it is suitable for summer nights - I think I'd probably want a more traditional sleeping bag in the winter. Saying that, the Gunapod is made from man-made fibres (polyester) and so, during the recent hot weather I chose not to put Holly in it because I was worried she could get a bit hot and sticky - the fabric can be a bit slippery when I pick Holly up in it. Despite this, the fabric is deliciously soft and makes me want to snuggle Holly when she is wearing it.

The Gunapod comes in brown, pink or cream and comes in three different sizes; it costs £20. Find out more about the Gunapod on the Clothing at Tesco website.

The Sunday Review – Philips Wake Up Light

When I won my Philips Wake-Up Light at the MADs last autumn, everyone laughed at the idea that a mum short-listed for the best Baby Blog award could possibly need a light to help them wake slowly and peacefully! They were right. There is nothing more effective than a nearly-two-year-old at getting you out of bed. But, don't dismiss the Wake-Up Light yet... it has its uses as a baby gadget!

From the very first week after Lara was born, I have been on the lookout for a lamp for her room that will dim. At first, I wanted one so that I could breastfeed her in the nursery at night with enough light to see what I was doing but remaining dark enough not to make her wide awake. I bought a touch-on, touch-off lamp from ebay which, with three different light levels, has served us pretty well but the only problem with it is, that in order to switch it off, you have to cycle through the light levels, meaning I have to make the room bright, in order to make it fully dark. Silly.

The Philips Wake-Up light came to the rescue and I have been using it in Lara's bedroom ever since we moved house last year. The idea of the light is that you can set it to slowly come on in the morning and bring your room up to a natural light level slowly, over a period of time until the light will eventually wake you up. Ingeniously, it also works the other way around, you can set it to switch off slowly over time and it gradually gets dimmer and dimmer until it switches off. This is what works for us.

When Lara first moved into a bed from the cot, we had real problems getting her to settle in the evenings. We used the light on a nice bright setting to tempt her upstairs to her bedroom and then set it to switch off over a half-hour period as she wound-down for the night. The slow darkening of the room seems to relax Lara and it means that there isn't a sudden moment when Mummy or Daddy switches out the bedroom light (and the inevitable complaints that this used to bring). We've managed to get the bedtime process down to around 15 minutes which is the shortest timer on which you can put the Philips Wake-Up light.

The Wake-Up light also has a traditional alarm and a radio alarm that you can use (Lara clearly doesn't need an alarm clock yet!).

The light from the Philips Wake-Up light is a different kind of light. It is intended to simulate daylight so I find that the light fills the room much more than a traditional lamp. As it dims, I've noticed that the last two minutes can be a bit flickery but it helps me as I know its just about time for me to leave Lara and hope that she falls asleep!

There are a number of different items in the Wake-Up light range. Some with radio, some with USB or Ipod docks. I really like it as a nursery night light but it will be a good few years before I can benefit from it's natural wake-up ability!

Bedtime Tips For Babies and Children - A Blogging Carnival

Welcome to the Mellow Mummy carnival of blog posts all about bedtime - an idea inspired by my cybermummy sponsor, Boots Parenting Club who currently have offers instore for Bathtime and Bedtime products (which is what inspired me to hold this carnival). We've had some great submissions about getting babies to settle, the transition from cot to bed, how to calm your little one down in time for bedtime and the tricks you use to get babies, toddlers and children to have a sound night's sleep.

When Lara was only 10 months old, I blogged about What time is bedtime? and had some great comments. At 16 months we moved her out of a cot, into a bed.

Louise at Bloggomy has 4 children and has shared some great tips on how to settle your baby to sleep and build a routine from day one.

Marilyn at Softthistle.net tells us about the medicine that has transformed the bedtimes for her autistic son.



Hayley from Simply Hayley looks back on 4 years of broken sleep and is looking back on the lessons she learned about how to cope with sleepless nights in order to make educated decisions with baby number two.

Mother Badger at Badger Mad has blogged about the inner conflict she faces with the fact she feeds her baby to sleep late at night (and enjoys it) and yet she longs to have her evenings back.

Becky from My Baby Blog shares her experiences with baby sleeping bags and positioning a baby in a crib. Is is time to move her merman out of a crib?

In contrast, at The gingerbread house all of the books and recommended routines were abandoned but it doesn't seem to have done any harm.

At MummyCentral there are some times about how to regain control of your own sleep patterns after aving a child. But with a two-year old who has never slept through the night, things can be hard work.

Goodbye Cot, Hello Bed

We have reached another momentous parenting milestone. Lara has quit the cot! I know, it seems really early. Lara is just 16 months but it had to be done.



Ever since the devilish incident last month Lara has been a total monster in her cot. She hasn't learned to climb out of it but, when she wakes (or when you put her to sleep in it and she doesn't want to go) she screams, rattles the bars REALLY violently and sometimes even bangs her head repeatedly against the bars.

In the mornings it was worse. If we didn't get up to tend to her immediately after waking, she would get REALLY angry. We decided that the best way to go was to give LAra her independence. Last weekend we expended a little effort making sure that her room was safe for her to run riot in. We invested in a radiator cover, a new door handle that actually works, and some socket covers. We moved all of her board books into her room and several of her toys and teddies so that she would have something to entertain her when she woke.

On Sunday we turned the cotbed from cot to bed and placed a folded up duvet on the floor next to the bed. Bedtime on night 1 was extremely stressful. Lara would normally settle herself to sleep in the cot eventually but in the bed there were just too many exciting things to distract her. She screamed and screamed each time we tried to lie her down and every time we thought we'd cracked it, we'd tiptoe to the door but the second it shut, she'd rush out of bed and open the door. Eventually she worked herself up into a frenzy so great that the effort obviously wore her out. Eventually, at about 10.40, after over 2 hours of trying, she fell asleep.

On Night 2 we deliberately kept Lara up late to make sure she was totally exhausted when it came to bedtime and she settled almost instantly. Nights 3 and 4 required maybe 15 minutes of settling but were generally a success. Since then it has been a mixed bag. I think the thing she really struggles with is the distraction, knowing that she can just get up and play with stuff she can't resist when really she is tired and in need of rest.

We have no bed guard on the cotbed. Each night she has fallen out of bed on about 2 or 3 occasions. It hasn't been the fall that has woken her, but the fact that she eventually gets cold. On almost all occasions, when one of us has woken to her screams or whimpers, we've found her pretty much asleep on the folded up duvet. I think I will try and buy a bedguard if she doesn't quickly stop rolling out of bed. I have also taken this opportunity to fit a B-Sensible cot sheet - it is supposed to help regulate temperature, to protect against bed wetting, protect against mites and bacteria and to be more suitable for Lara's sensitive skin than other mattress protectors. I'll be reviewing it shortly.

In terms of solving the problems... well, I think she is still learning. She certainly seems a lot more relaxed when she wakes but after a little bit of chattering to her bears, her first action of the day is to open the door and come through to our room. Doh. I think this might have quite a lot to do with the blackout curtains in her room which are great for ensuring a sound sleep and a late wake-up time but mean that the room is too dark for her to play or read. She does have some nightlights but she's not really old enough to know how (and more importantly, when) to work them.

It has also meant that I have given up all attempts to get Lara to have an afternoon sleep when we are at home - there is NO chance she would settle.

I'll keep you updated on our progress. I'm reliably told it will take 2-3 weeks for her to get used to the Big Girl's Bed.