By Margot Buitenhoven

Sam’s discovery

Are your kids dancing on your bed around 5am? Would you prefer to sleep a little longer instead of being woken up by your son or daughter? I discovered ZAZU’s sleeptrainer Sam, which could help explaining to your over-active toddler when it is time to sleep at night and when it is OK to get up in the morning. 

Irregular sleep patterns

All parents know this: active toddlers do not want to go to bed at night nor they tend to sleep in. Especially during summer holidays! Many toddlers rise early and wake up their mums and dads at the break of dawn ready to start another day. These little ones often have no understanding of time and once the first sun rays beam in their rooms, a new exciting day lies in front of them. The other way around as well; now darker days are looming some kids all of the sudden want to stay in bed until it gets light. How to solve this?

Sam the Lamb to the rescue

Sam the sleeptrainer is a cute little lamb that closes his eyes when it is time to sleep and opens his eyes again when it is OK to wake up. An extra feature is Sam’s belly, which displays a clock that changes color: when Sam’s belly turns red, it is bedtime, do you see the orange color then it is still half an hour to go before the clock turns green, time to get up! When Sam turns orange, stars surrounding the clock count down until Sam turns green. In this way your child can follow the time until Sam opens his eyes. The clock is not only digital but also analogue, meaning it could serve an educative purpose for older children as well. My 4-year-old grasped the idea relatively quickly.

Optional is an alarm sound that you can set, which ranges from the sound of a sheep to a classic alarm sound. The volume is adjustable just as the brightness of the display. In addition, the display could stay lit for the entire night or it switches off automatically after 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes; what you prefer.

Easy operation

Setting up the sleeptrainer is relatively easy, after a few times. Setting up Sam is through ‘touch buttons’, you only have to touch the buttons located around the clock. You might have to get use to this but it probably won’t take long. The menu is self-explanatory, but I do recommend to read the manual because there are many options such as unlocking the menu. The icons in the menu speak for themselves, for example brightness, alarm sound or bedtime.  There is a demo-function that shows all the features of the sleeptrainer as well. When you have finalized your preferred settings, Sam remembers it for the next days!

Good to know: there is a reset button on the bottom of the sleeptrainer. Press it and Sam starts from zero again showing all settings automatically.

Advantages:

• The design is super cute so your little ones will probably fall in love with Sam immediately.
• You can use Sam both as a sleeptrainer and as a nightlight.
• The combination of Sam’s eyes that close/open, a traffic light system that indicates sleep time and the stars counting down the last 30 minutes are truly intuitive.
• Powered by batteries (not included) or USB cable (included). Adapter is not included.
• The volume of the alarm clock is adjustable.
• Adjustable brightness.
• Sam’s new version has touch buttons, which reduces the noise while setting up the sleeptrainer.

Disadvantages:

• Setting up Sam requires patience and a manual.
• When Sam’s belly turns green and opens its eyes it goes with quite a loud ‘click’. Kids could wake up suddenly and be unsettled.

Conclusion

ZAZU’s Sam the lamb is a well-designed sleeptrainer that fits in well in any nursery. Both girls and boys will like Sam; it is a useful sleeping aid with a good price to performance ratio.

Disclaimer: All thoughts and opinions are my own and have not been influenced in any way by ZAZU Kids.

Margot Buitenhoven

Slaaptrainer.net