Ticking Away the Moments that Make Up a Dull Day: If Your Kids Wake You Up WAY Too Early, You've Gotta Try This Clock!

Froot Loop has never been a great sleeper. I’m wondering how much has to do with his adenoids, and how much is just because he’s a preschooler. We bought him this cool Tell Me Time Clock to try to help with keeping him in his room! 

Oh, the sleep struggles with a 3-4 year old! He wanted to get up at 6:30. Um, no. Mama needs her sleep. Daddy needs to work. We bought this and explained it to him and told him to stay quiet in his bed until the clock turns green. The first morning, he woke and started yakking when it turned on (yellow). We told him to stay in his room and play quietly until it turned green. He did, thankfully. Now every morning at 7 when his clock turns, I hear the pitter patter of his little feet running to the kitchen for breakfast with Daddy. He also loves the button that tells him what the time is. It’s one of the “feet” buttons in front that when pressed, says the time. 

The clock has both an analog and digital clock, so it can teach young kids what an analog clock looks like compared to what the digital clock reads. Froot Loop already knows what 3:30 and 7:00 and other times are on an analog. You can choose one of these options or both!

We had to modify the clock a little bit to suit our needs. One of the main features of this clock is that it gives a “warning” yellow light when it’s close to turning green, meaning it’s okay to get up. In the morning, this became a problem because when the clock would turn yellow, he’d go bonkers and get really loud before the clock turned green. Plus, back then we didn’t have much to keep him in his room during his nap/quiet time since he was supposed to be napping and not playing. Now, we have lots of books and his wooden trains and a bunch of stuffed animals and a few other quiet things. 

Fortunately, you can control all the features about this clock very easily. We have it set right now so that it turns yellow at 7 am, meaning he can get out of bed in the morning. The clock stays yellow all day until 3:30, when it turns green. The green/yellow light turns off at 4:30. Froot Loop goes to his room after lunch for a nap and/or quiet time in his room. Once the clock turns green at 3:30, he knows that quiet time can be over and he can come out and play again. USUALLY, he will stay in there. Sometimes, he's still 4 and insists on being a dork about it. 

We haven’t needed to use the alarm yet since we don’t have anywhere we need to be in the morning yet, but that’s also easily programmable. It even has a snooze feature. Froot Loop has accidentally turned the alarm on a few times and the alarm has gone off at random times, so I do glance at it before putting him in bed at night. It’s so easy to turn on, off, and program. 

The clock comes with three different colors of bezels- blue, pink, and yellow. It also has a feature where you can play a time-telling game. We have just started to play the game with him, and it has different levels so it grows with your child from preschool to elementary school. 

Typically, confusion setting the lights on the Teach Me Time! clock stems from the following: the "On" time is the time that the YELLOW night-light turns on (typically in the evening, but for us, in the morning). The "Off" time is the time that both YELLOW and GREEN lamps are off. We leave the green light on for an hour, so it turns off at 4:30. The "Change (Cng)" time is the time that the YELLOW light changes to GREEN and it is set last of the three settings. The reason for this is that the YELLOW "On" time and the "Off" time define a window of time and the "Change" time must fall between this (which the clock enforces automatically).

The clock glows a soft yellow color at night, making it a functioning night light. It’s not so bright that it’s overwhelming or distracting though. Plus, he can see the digital clock if he wakes up too early. Froot Loop needs a little bit of light in his room, and this is a great amount. (We also have a small night light next to the ladder on his loft bed so he can see if he needs to get out of bed for whatever reason.) The nightlight can be turned off easily. If you do not want the yellow light on during the night, you can set just the green light to come on in the morning. The LIGHT ON time will be set to the desired "Ok to wake!" time (i.e. 7am), the LIGHT OFF time is set to the time you want the green light to turn off (i.e. 9am) and the LIGHT change time must be set equal to the OFF time (i.e. 9am). With this set up the green light will come on at 7am and turn off at 9am. The light in the feet do stay on, but with a screwdriver and a little know-how and a Google search, you can even take those out if your little one needs complete darkness to sleep. 

All of the controls for the parent are cleverly concealed behind a rear panel. Yes, kiddos can open the back panel, but you really can't change any settings until after you press and hold the desired button for three seconds. So, curious hands won't be able to easily change things by pressing a button here and there. The clock is AC-powered with optional battery back-up (2x AA batteries, not included). 

This clock has totally changed our mornings. No more waking up at 5:30 or 6:30! No more constant arguing about when quiet time or nap time is over. It only took a few days to get the idea in his head and now he loves his clock and actually enjoys his quiet time most of the time.

What time do you wake up in the morning?