Sleep Tight All Night. Sounds like heaven doesn’t it? As my regular readers will know, in addition to our 8 month old being the ultimate sleep ninja, we have had our fair share of ups and downs with Erin, our eldest’s sleep. She didn’t sleep through the night until she was 2 years old, and her sleep has since been disturbed on a few occasions, including when her sister was born, and when we transitioned to her new cabin bed a couple of months ago.

Since the clocks changed to welcome the start of spring, getting her to go to bed in the first place has been somewhat challenging! We have also started to have the odd difficulty of her waking up during the night again, or waking up INCREDIBLY early with the mornings being that little bit lighter. We now have a blackout blind in her room which has helped a lot, but with a baby who doesn’t sleep at all, I would rather those 2am wake ups could be avoided!!

When we were asked if we would like to review the Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn, we decided this would potentially be a great way to reinforce the message with Erin that 5.30am is NOT morning, and help her resettle if she woke in the night. Erin is also a huge fan of unicorn toys and gifts – so this was a bit of a no brainer!

About the Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn

The Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn is a cuddly friend for children aged 12 months plus that also doubles up as an ingenious night time sleep trainer – helping little ones learn when it is time to get up, and when it is time to head back to the land of nod. The method uses colours that are scientifically proven to inhibit and encourage sleep.

There are four different designs available – the Puppy, Bear, Unicorn, and Iggle Piggle from In the Night Garden.

Each cuddly friend comes with a removable unit and has batteries included. The unit features 5 soothing sounds which can be used to soothe and settle your child to sleep. There are a choice of options such as Falling Raindrops, Soothing Surf, Gentle Heartbeat, Whispering Waterfalls, and Comforting Crickets, as well as silent if you prefer.

Using the timer in the Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn, parents can specify the desired amount of “rest” time, which can be anything from 30 minutes to 12 hours, before popping it back inside the toy.

When the child wakes, they can quickly squeeze the toys tummy and it will glow the right colour accordingly – red means go back to sleep, green means wake up.

The toy can then also be played with in DAY mode where the comforting sounds are replaced by fun and upbeat phrases.

The Sleep Tight All Night retails at £29.99 and is available from most highstreet toy stores and online.

Our Experience of the Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn

Erin was really excited when the Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn arrived, and couldn’t wait to get it out of the box. She onviously didn’t know what it was at this stage, so to her, it was just an adorable plush toy. She was keen to cuddle and play with it, and loved the sparkles on the unicorn’s horn.

From a parent’s point of view, the instructions were fairly easy to follow, and the ‘rest period’ was very quick and simple to set up on the base unit before popping it back into the toy. Some of the sounds were quite loud (although there are two loudness settings), and therefore we opted for the no sound option. Had Erin been younger (she is 3) I think the white noise options would have been really beneficial.

Erin really liked to play with the Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn in Day mode, so I was a bit worried that at night it could prove more distracting than settling, but the sleep training element actually worked really well. By talking through with Erin what the two colours meant, Erin quickly understood the message that Red meant go back to sleep, and Green meant she was ok to get up. Younger children may take longer for this message to sink in, but it is very easy to demonstrate, so repeating regularly should help it sink in.

Unlike other sleeping aids we have experienced, the glow of colour isn’t constant – the child has to reach for the unicorn and press his tummy in order to see the red or green glow. This could be positive (so the constant light doesn’t  distract them), however I also worried that this could make Erin wake up more by interacting with the unicorn rather than the glow being automatically visible as soon as she opened her eyes.

A few times she has woken up and struggled to find him in the bed, which inevitably probably made her more alert than I’d have liked, however once she found it and discovered the light was still red, she did lie back down and snuggle up to go back to sleep.

I love that the Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn can be used both for naptime and for evening sleep. Erin doesn’t nap in the day anymore, but when she did, she would  often wake and go back to sleep, meaning her naps were pretty mammoth in duration. Encouraging her to wake up after a certain time would probably have helped her evening sleep somewhat!

As Mum to a very inquisitive child, I also love the fact that the unit includes a parental lock so that the child cannot fiddle with the timer settings once you have set them. The last thing you want is the light to turn green at 3 in the morning in error! You have to manually set the timer each night to reflect the rest period required. I would have liked to have seen a ‘standard’ setting, as our children tend to have the same bedtime routine most nights. That said, it doesn’t take long to set up, and gives you the flexibility to amend as required.

Overall – I personally think this is a great product and would potentially work even better when used with the white noise sounds and introduced at a younger age. Using colour association to teach the child about the right and wrong times to wake up is a really useful tactic, and the message does appear to have sunk in!

You can learn more about the Golden Bear Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn here.

*Disclosure – We were sent a Sleep Tight All Night Unicorn free of charge for the purpose of this review, however all thoughts and opinions are my own.*