Tommee Tippee Groclock Sleep Trainer Clock, Alarm Clock
Tommee Tippee Groclock Sleep Trainer Clock, Alarm Clock and Nightlight for Young Children, USB-Powered
Top tips for sleep training
Start with small increments If your child is used to waking at 5.30 don’t make the leap to a 7.30 wake up. Start with small time increments to help your child make the adjustment. Give lots of praise A reward chart to show their achievement when they successfully wait for the sun can really help motivate little ones to stick to their new wake up time. Persevere If at first it doesn’t work do keep trying. Some children take a little while to ‘get’ the clock so do keep giving it a go and build it into their night-time routine.
| Weight: | 253 g |
| Dimensions: | 8.5 x 16 x 18.6 cm; 253 Grams |
| Model: | 499055 |
| Pack Quantity: | 1 |
| Batteries Required: | No |
| Composition: | Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene |
| Dimensions: | 8.5 x 16 x 18.6 cm; 253 Grams |
| Quantity: | 1 |
I love this clock. It worked after just 2 days of using it with my son (who was under 2 at the time) and he continues to love it now he’s 2 and a half.
That being said – the user interface is unnecessarily complex. Explaining it over the phone to his grandma proved needlessly difficult. It’s also considerably overpriced for something so simple, but it seems to have a monopoly on the market so we just bought second hand at first then when that one broke we came to amazon for a brand new one.
Overall, would absolutely recommend. But if anyone at Tommee Tippee is reading this – cut the price, improve the interface please!
This clock has really helped get out 2.5 year old to stay in his bedroom. Would recommend if your child knows their colours and can understand instructions (otherwise I think they’d be too young for this to work)
Bought this so that my Son would know if it’s day time yet when he wakes up. It’s worked a treat. Some of the reviews say that it’s hard to set up, which I can only assume must be from people that have never used an electronic device before- basically it’s really easy, I have no idea what on earth they are on about. One negative- it would be so much better if you could set a ‘night time’ time, because there’s been a few times I’ve forgot to set it.
Top Tip: when buying tell your little one you’ve bought them a new clock with colours and get them to buy in to it being a fun thing to do beforehand, let them play with it in the daytime and show them the colours changing, once you’ve figured out how to use it of course, this helped us massively I feel! Probably best to keep it out of reach afterwards though so they don’t play around with the settings.
I bought this to keep my daughter in bed until a reasonable time. she’s 2 and she now stays in bed until a reasonable hour. Before she’d be out of bed around 5.30!
It is however expensive for its limited functionality. Hence I’ve dropped a star.
Some negative reviews mention their kids can change the clock and unplug it and it doesn’t work without the power cord – personally I have put this up high where my daughter can see it from her bed but can’t get to it.
My 3 year old immediately loved the owl figure on this clock. It made her super excited to get ready to sleep and wake to see the owl. She really enjoys having it as her personal clock and has really helped with ensuring she has a good night’s sleep. This was also supported with a move to a bigger bed and a reward chart for a few weeks to motivate her to stay in bed and not wake too early. This clock has definitely helped. If you are worried about the blue night that emanates from the clock at night you can switch it off or dim it via the menu option so it does not wake your child. The owl will still light up in the morning at the time you set.
Bought for our 4 year old daughter who was getting up too early but couldn’t tell the time on a normal clock. Easy to use and lots fun. Only criticism is that a plug socket isn’t included.
Easy to assemble and use on a daily basis
Really helped my toddler learn when it was time to go to bed and wake up
Brilliant if you’re struggling with early wake ups
This product is easy to set up and use. Great for toddlers who are learning morning vs night time.
The only down side is you have to change manually to night time mood. It only automatically changes to day time mode in the morning.
It has a brightness function so you can select how bright or dim you want the light.
Great concept bought as our first option to try and get our 3.5 year old to stay in bed. Unfortunately didn’t work for us but we have friends who have had success!
Love the simplicity of the clock, my son adores saying good night to the owl and understands when he should be sleeping and when he can get out of bed!
Recommended by a friend for teaching children time and getting up. Colours indicate whether they should be up or not even if they can’t tell the time. Great birthday gif
We’ve also used it to implement other rules – when he can see there is only one star left until it’s morning he is allowed to read or play with his toys so long as he stays in his bedroom.
This has ultimately meant that my wife and I get more sleep and we’ve become such great groclock enthusiasts we have them on our list of recommendations for friends becoming new parents and we have now bought a second one and will try starting our second child much earlier to see if she likes it too.
Definitely recommend giving it a go if your kid gets up too early!
I only wish that made one that puppies could understand!!
Excellent for helping younger kids learn about nighttime sleeping. Easy to set up as well. The blue screen has Mr Owl going to sleep with a countdown around the outside instead of clock numbers. When it’s time to get up ( alarm set by parents), the clock changes to orange. Children quickly learn how this works and will know when it’s sleep time or wake up time when they look at the clock. Helps mums and dads get a sleep so a definitely worth buying.
My list of essentials when expecting was huge! Mostly things that I thought would make the job easier or were vital to getting through the baby and toddler years. Turns out most of them were total gimmicks and completely unnecessary. There is a very small list of products that were absolutely game changing. This is one of them. It is so simple. Set the wake up time to when you want and tell the little one they can get up when Ollie does! Then reward when they do so. This plugs into the mains. Ollie drops off to sleep at the press of a button and wakes up at your desired time. You can reduce the light intensity. You can even have an audible alarm for when little one grows up and needs to get up for school or nursery. The visuals are simple and the nighttime setting has stars that come and go to show the passing of time. My other products left on this “vital” list are Ollie the owl sleep aid, we have had to purchase another as the old one was worn out..and the little one still uses it at age 3!
Well impressed.
Normally have to negotiate with the two year old about when to sleep and when to be awake…. In goes the clock and she obeys it because it’s not daddy.
Thank god for this clock.
Needed a night light and clock for grandchildrens bedroom for sleep overs. This ticked all the boxes. Don’t need to have rocket science to set up the clock/night light as easy to follow instructions are with this product. Would definitely recommend this purchase.
Love this clock. My little one gets excited to say goodnight to Mr owl at night before bed, and he is excited to come tell us Mr Owl is awake in the morning.
As other users have said when this works it is beautiful, imagine lazy Sunday mornings in bed beautiful. Where children aren’t screaming “Pappaaaa” at 5:42am beautiful.
We explained that when the little owl goes to bed and turns blue it’s time for you to go to bed too! And, my little angel, when it turns orange that’s when you can wake up and shout “paaapaaaaaa” to your hearts content! If he’s blue though it’s not time to wake up yet!
This delightful little clock was a birthday gift to 3 year old (to ourselves really). And 9/10 it has worked a dream.
However(cue tense music)
There have been nights where 3 year old has thrown themselves on the floor screaming that they hate the colour blue (bedtime colour) they hate owls and they hate the fact they had this clock for their birthday.
Overall all though this clock has been an actual gift from the gods, purchase it now, send your little darlings off to bed, do NOT engage until you know the wonderful little owl is orange and enjoy the beautiful extra time in bed you deserve!
In all seriousness though. The moments of hatred towards the owl are worth it though, it has made a huge difference to both our bedtime and morning routine. We found it pretty easy to set up, 3 year old engages with it well, and it’s lovely to see their little smiling face in a morning when the orange owl says it’s time to wake up.
Good luck parents, we’ve got this!
Before this my boy would wake up before 7, get out of bed and do what he likes. Now he doesn’t get out of bed until it turns orange (7am). It had an immediate effect and really is training him well to get up at a certain point. It doesn’t train kids not to wake up that’s not the point of it. It trains them to stay in bed.
3 year old Daughter already had Ollie the owl and pop the panda in her room. This made sense to her when we installed it and told her it need to be yellow before she can leave her room.
Works perfect. Setting is easy and she does it herself at night time now.
Gone are the nights where we couldn’t get him to stay in his bed during the bedtime routine, gone are the early mornings
The clock does exactly as described. It’s easy to use and has a clear display that my 4 year old can understand. However, it is so easy to use that he has worked out how to make Ollie the owl wake up before the set time …. therefore making the whole thing pointless. You only have to press the small button twice and he returns to the daytime setting.
The problem has been fixed by having to place the clock where he can reach it. A mild grumble but still annoying.
Overall clock is what expected and set up straight forward. Just hoping it works!
HOWEVER for some reason in the box with it was a pack of 4 batteries and a smashed lightbulb which is not needed for this product! It is just lucky I didn’t let my toddler excitedly open this package and slice his hands!!!!
The settings are incomprehensible and not at all intuitive. Additionally, for some reason when you unplug it it freezes the time, so if you unplug it for a couple of minutes it’ll appear to have kept it’s settings but the clock will now be 2 minutes slow!??
Our daughter is almost 3 and has started getting up earlier in the mornings and coming out of her room. We’ve been using the clock for a few days now and already seeing a difference.
She says goodnight to the owl every evening and watches as he closes his eyes, turns blue and the stars come out. She understands that he’s asleep and that she has to sleep too. We explained to her that she can’t come out of her room until it’s awake time. It’s awake time when the owl wakes up, opens his eyes and turns orange and the hearts appear instead of the stars. So far it’s working and she’s happy to play in her room till 7am even if she wakes up early.
It’s very easy to set up and I like that there’s a routine to it every evening that’s fun for our daughter too. Highly recommend!
I bought this because my twin toddlers were waking very early. They both love this product. They enjoy the little story that tells them when to put the owl to sleep, they are also now adament that if they wake and the owl isn’t, they will not leave their beds. I find it frustrating that it tilts slightly upwards so has to be kept on a low shelf for the kids to see it properly. This then means that the children went through a stage of pressing all of the buttons and messing up the settings. There is a way of locking it to protect it from small hands though. Useful product for a good nights sleep.
This is the second clock I have bought to use for my second child. Helped my older child distinguish between night and day and shows them when it’s time to get up or stay in bed. You set the time for the sun to come up when you feel it’s reasonable for your child to get out of bed. The stars count down overnight so if your child wakes during the night they know it’s still a bit of time before morning and they should go back to sleep. This of course only works with slightly older children, I think my son was about 4 when he was able to start using it appropriately.
This is not a magic fix to make your child sleep, but an aid for children to help them as part of a bedtime routine.
Display can be lit up and used as a night light, or light can be turned off if too bright and disturbing sleep.
I’ve found these clocks to be really helpful to help combat the 5am early riser problem!
This only arrived yesterday, so we’ve only used this once, but already by 2 year old seems to have grasped that blue means sleep, and he doesn’t get up until it turns yellow, so all positive there, and it worked last night. But it’s complicated to use which is a shame, because if they had just added a few more buttons it would be much more intuitive and you wouldn’t rely on having to constantly read the instructions
I bought this to replace the one we bought for my now 8-year old which had the sun image on the front. It was great in helping my daughter to know when she could get up and when she should try to go back to sleep. The previous one broke shortly after being transferred to my toddlers room, hence buying this when it was on a prime day offer.
Have now been using this with the two-year old for the last couple of weeks. Pressing the button to say ‘night-night’ to the owl is now part of her bedtime routine. I’m a bit confused by the owl if I’m honest. Seems odd to choose an animal that tends to be awake at night to encourage children to sleep. Otherwise very happy with this clock as with the earlier version.
It has a wake up time for night and for naps. We don’t tend to use the nap one and instead set it a little later in the morning so we can select it for weekend mornings to gain a little lie in.
I bought this clock for when my grandchildren come to stay. It’s a nice looking clock, with a little owl character, who “goes to sleep” at bedtime and “wakes up” at the time you choose in the morning.
It’s a bit of a fiddle to set up and the controls are not very intuitive. I have to keep looking at the instructions!
Overall it’s a nifty little clock that has given me an extra couple of hours bed, when I haven’t been woken at 5.00am by a child who thinks it’s time to get up!
Otherwise, good product, he loved the little book and for the first few nights really got him into the whole idea of it, then we were able to drop the book.
Overall good value, great idea, and if your little one doesn’t have a very dark bedroom already, you’ll not have the issue we’ve had.
The short answer: Yes. Mostly but it’s not a magic bullet.
The long answer:
Firstly let’s cover how it works. You read a poorly written little book and send the character on the clock to sleep. That character will wake up at a preset time and your child knows that they need to stay in bed till the character does. There are stars and hearts round the edge to help your little darling gauge how much more night time there is left so feel more relaxed and in control of the process
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in the month since “Ollie the Owly” (the newer version of the clock has an owl but older versions have a star. Both are wildly illogical because both are normally awake at night so a Bella Bunny or even Paul the Potato would make more sense but I digress), it is that the short term effectiveness of it depends on your tots wildly osscilating compliance level. This appears to be based on a complex venn diagram of hunger, boredom, bladder fullness, genuine tiredness, what type of dream they had before they woke up and cheekiness that plagues tot daily life.
When it works it works brilliantly, when it doesn’t work you and your toddler are going to want to throw the damned thing out if the window. So let’s examine the two scenarios
Good night: I will wake up if a pin is dropped in the next room and the child has sleep trained ME well enough that I sleep even more lightly at 12, 4 and 5 am. Almost every night at those times I’ll hear her fidget and brace myself to be sharing the bed with a sweaty fidget monster who will not go back to sleep. With the clock on a good night I’ll hear her wake up say ‘oh it’s still night time’, have a drink, count the stars, talk to her toys for 5 mins and then blissful silence. If I’ve heard a lot of fidgeting it’s prudent to go in and sort her duvet out once all is quiet or the cries of ‘I’m cold!’ will ring though the house in 10mins and the battle for sleep lost. She’ll often sleep till 6.30 (clock is set to 6am) on these days which is magical given that 4.30am was more common. She exclaims ‘yey it’s morning!’ and the cries of ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! It’s morning!’ will get increasingly loud.
Bad night: The first you’ll know about it is the screaming. You’re in the bad zone of the Venn diagram. There are tears before you’ve even woken up usually. She will not care about the effing clock. She wants to get upeat foodgo outside and play on the trampoline (at 2am FFS!). She hates the owl, she wants him to go in the bin. There is screaming. You the parent are half asleep, pissed off and not budging because if you budge this whole enterprise was for naught. The idea of 3hrs unbroken sleep followed by a pleasant day of playdough and baking cookies without tiredness tantrums is singing to you like an angel. It is the only reason yor haven’t yeeted child and clock out of the window. You spend hours sitting chilly on your childs floor alternating between singing, crying yourself, comforting, begging and threats. But the little terror is still not asleep.
The good news: In the course of the last month we’ve had both types of night and everything in between. The number of bad nights has been going down. We’ve had to accept that if she is AWAKE at 5.30am she is not going to go back to sleep. So she has books with mummy or daddy in her room for half an hour until the clock wakes up. It’s a good compromise. It seems to have stopped the most extreme arguments. If she’s had a nightmare it’s easier to just let her sleep in our bed to get the sleep. But she still has to check the clock to be allowed down stairs so that can’t be used as an excuse and she has once gone back to sleep in her own bed after going to check which I count as a serious win.
Conclusions: it’s a useful tool that requires stubbornness, tenacity and tag team parenting to ensure everyone gets some sleep in the early days but calm consistency is the key message.
Is it worth the money? Honestly it’s a highly overpriced bit of ugly tat. Also as a zerolow waste household how much packaging does it bloody need! We have a new once because we were too tired and desperate to think to ask around (I am convinced that is how most of these things are sold). I can guarantee that one of your parent friends is giving one away or you can grab once on a market place for 5. Most won’t have the book but a concussed squirrel could come up with a suitable story to tell the child about the clock so you don’t need it. But if you want to start now! Have it primed to your door and start your love hate relationship with the ugliest clock I have ever owned.
1 YEAR-ish UPDATE: combined with a sticker chart and child now being 4yo I’ve had 2 weeks of blissful, magical 6 hours uninterrupted sleep! Colours seem brighter, coffee tastes better, heck my mother has finally agreed to take the child off me for a night (are we planning a wild evening and dinner? No we’re going to sit in bed, watch netflix and not get up in the morning). So she still wakes up between 5 and 5.30am, has a wee comes in and asks for her tablet then sits in bed and entertains herself until the owl wakes up. She has the odd nightmare and needs a cuddle but let’s face it, she’s 4 and that’s fine.
Another update! Jan 2022 6ish months after the last update: it’s happened, she took herself for a wee at 4am and went back to bed and didn’t wake up till 6.30am! Then she played in her room till 7am! And then came in and said an inch from my nose, ‘mummy you know owly has been awake for a really long time and daddy snores a lot!’ It went down hill for a week after that but parents, the is light at the end of the tunnel!