LittleHippo Mella Ready to Rise Children's Trainer, Alarm Clock, Night Light Sleep Sounds Machine (Arctic Blue), Standard

It’s actually very expensive for what it is… it’s just a clock with basic LED functions. Like more toys or accessories for children manufacturers and selling ramp up the prices knowing parents will buy it to help their children and hopefully themselves. Mine arrived without a UK plug which was very frustrating. Luckily I used an iPhone charger plug to let my daughter set it up and start to use it. The clock and light setup does work though and my daughter likes to wait until it goes green. Instead of this you could just purchase a smart colour changing lightbulb for £15 from Amazon and use Alexa to set up a morning routine. At least then you can dim it and let the child chose a colour.

This is a super cute sleep trainer. Bought as an upgrade to the grow clock which my 3 and half year old daughter learnt how to hack in a day. This is great as the buttons are on the bottom and there is a lock so hopefully will hold out a while to my curious little one. The only disappointment is that there is no smart phone connectivity which I feel having that and removing all buttons would make this the ultimate sleep trainer.

The design and function is really good, but the display is just too bright and hurts your eyes in a dark room - even just on the time function. Can’t find a way to turn it down. Using it anyway but have to cover up the face sometimes which I suppose defeats the object.

Exactly what wanted. Daughter loves it. Brightness of light is good. Not too bright but not too dim either. Easy functionality and looks great!

It is a good looking, fun product. The locking facility is great and as yet the kids havent worked out how to unlock it. Good idea about the colour changing, green is for getting up etc. However the disaply is too bright at night. I am using a stuffed toy in front of it to cover it up. If I hadnt thrown away the packaging I would have returned it. I think the gro clock is better.

Amazing product for sleep training

Mi hijo ya está empezando a respetar la hora en la que debe levantarse de su cama

Short version: We are very happy with this purchase and would highly recommend this product. We use it as intended for bedtime and “quiet time” (independent play in bedroom instead of nap time) for our three year old. Mella boasts many useful features and is easy to set up. Once you train your child on Mella’s cues, this product could give you back hours of sleep. Want more info? Read on. :) ———- Update 2 (July 2025, after 4.5 yrs.): Mella is so well made that she’s still running perfectly! Just a side note. The Little Hippo company is very responsive to customers, which I’ve been so impressed by. I needed to call them about buying a different product of theirs, and their customer service was very cheerful and helpful. They listen to feedback and make alterations, if necessary. One of which is that the “playtime” yellow light that other reviews complain is able to be turned off easily now, or set to different lengths of time. They made that update before I bought our Mella. Also, the red light is actually red, not pink. Update (April 2024, after 3.5 years): Mella has continued working great! The product is still so helpful with our oldest child and now our middle child, who shares a room with our oldest. We have a child with high functioning autism, and Mella has been a lifesaver with that child’s anxiety regarding bedtime issues (when to stay in bed, wake up, get up, etc.). Mella is a staple in our home, and we’re going to buy another for our youngest child’s room now. I still highly recommend Mella! ——— Original Review: As expected, we needed to teach our child how to respond to Mella’s cues, but once he understood that and we reinforced our expectations through reward and consequence, our son stopped waking us up at ridiculously early hours in the morning. Training our pretty stubborn and resistant-to-change son to use Mella took around three weeks or so, but it has been so worth it. In addition to waking later, he has mostly stopped the middle of the night wakes, which is great! Mella is also such a nice clock to keep him in his room for his post-lunch quiet time. It works like a charm! In order for the transition to go smoothly, we started the Mella wake time close to the time he was already waking and then slowly and incrementally made that time later to our desired wake time. After that, we taught our son about the “play time” feature which automatically turns on for thirty minutes before the green light, if you select that feature. Our son went from waking us around 5:30 AM to now waking at 7:00 with Mella and then playing quietly and independently in his room until 7:30 AM. AAAND because we use the setting with a quiet light cue (turns green), sometimes our son is so busy that he doesn’t even notice and keeps playing, allowing us even more extra sleep (or extra time with baby). We recently were away from home and didn’t bring Mella, and boy, did we regret it! We didn’t realize how often our son wakes at night, but looks at Mella and goes back to sleep. It gives him security and fosters independence through the “okay to wake” cues. Without Mella, he runs to us in the dead of night desperately asking if it is morning time yet (can’t rely on daylight because of our latitude and gloomy climate). We will be buying an extra cord (since we affixed the provided cord to the wall for safety) so we can bring Mella with us on trips. You can buy an extra cord on LittleHippo’s website for around $7 after shipping. All of the features are very useful and set up is intuitive. You can choose from quite a few nightlight colors, and the set colors that Mella uses are yellow for play time and green for “okay to wake/leave room.” We personally use red at night because it is a more sleep-friendly color and we can say, “red means stay in bed.” Mella has both audible and visual (green light) alarms (you can select either), various sound machine-type white noise sounds, and nap time features, as well as a child lock. Our son would easily switch off the lock though, so we just put Mella out of reach. Our son loves that “Mella” (we call it by its product name) has a face and a personality of sorts. Mella is happy when awake, playful during playtime, and asleep during bedtime. It is an endearing little clock that our son loves. We plan on using it for years to come and changing the settings as our son’s needs change. Maybe he’ll eventually need an alarm to wake him up? It is important to note that although this clock comes with batteries, they are only present to save your settings in the case of the clock losing its power supply (power outage or unplugged). Because of all the features it boasts, Mella needs to be plugged in at all times to work. I found this was the case in the majority of “okay to wake” clocks. Because our son is very curious and will not leave electronics alone, we placed Mella on a floating shelf and covered the cord with a cord protector (see pics). We have no complaints about this clock, and are so thankful that it exists. Our only suggestion would be that LittleHippo consider making a wall mounted clock that can run on rechargeable batteries (charge via USB-type cable). It could attach to the wall via magnets so it’s easy to take down and recharge every couple/few days. Perhaps it could have a simpler design so that it doesn’t use as much energy to run? Thank you, LittleHippo, for such a quality product! You’ve made our lives so much easier. :)

The clock looks good at first until only after 6m of normal usage, it cannot go to sleep at night, and the sleep time and wake up color doesnt work at all. very disappointed. so pricy.

The light and sound options are great. The sleep and wake function is great for letting kids know when they should get out if bed and when they should stay in their bed/room.