Zeepy Bedtime Clocks

Some do at first. A three-year-old who has worked out that getting out of bed produces a parent already has a system that works, and a new light doesn't beat it overnight.

What shifts it is nothing changing — the same colour at the same time, no discussion, night after night. It's dull, and the dullness is the point.

If it turns out not to be right for your child, get in touch within 30 days of purchase and we'll give you your money back.

Most sleep trainer clocks have two settings: asleep, and awake. That covers the two moments of bedtime that were never really the problem, and none of the ones in between.

Zeepy has four — Settle, Sleep, Wait and Wake. The one that earns its place is Wait: that stretch between 5am and a reasonable hour when your child is awake, it isn't morning, and nobody has told them what they're supposed to do about it.

The other difference is Kip. She isn't a logo on the front — she runs a café in the Zeepy stories, she's on the podcast, and she's the face that changes on the clock. So the character giving your child the signal is one they already know from being read to.

It's not you, and it isn't something you've caused. Small children wake early because their internal clock says morning long before yours does, and there's no reasoning with that at 5am.

What you can change is what they check when they wake up. The Wait phase holds one colour until it's genuinely time to get up, so staying in bed becomes something your child can see for themselves rather than something you have to enforce from the doorway.

Blackout blinds help too — more than most things do. And some mornings will still be 5am.

Nothing keeps a toddler in bed. That's the honest answer. They're not doing it to wind you up — they just don't yet have much reason to stay put.

What helps is taking the decision away from both of you. When the light says Sleep, that's the answer, and it's the same answer it was last night. You're not the one saying no for the fourth time. The clock is, and the clock doesn't get tired or lose its temper at twenty to nine.

It won't work every night. It works often enough to change how the evenings feel.

It works best from around two to six — the ages when children can follow a colour but can't yet read a clock.

A two-year-old can't read a clock face. They can read a colour. That's most of what's going on here — the same colour, in the same order, every night, until it stops needing explaining.

On the light itself: amber and warm light wavelengths have minimal impact on melatonin, supporting the body's natural sleep onset.

Zeepy was built with sleep consultants and child psychiatrists. It isn't a medical device and it doesn't treat anything. It's a routine, built carefully.

Sometimes it is. A clock on its own isn't much. If bedtime happens at a different time every night, a light isn't going to hold it together.

It works when it's part of a routine that doesn't move around much. It works least well when it's the only consistent thing in the evening.

And it won't suit everyone. Zeepy works well for a lot of families. It isn't the whole answer for every one, and for some children something else will fit better. We'd rather you knew that before you spent £34.99 than after.

If your child has used a different clock, ours will look wrong to them for a little while. That's normal, and it passes.

The colours matter less than the order. Purple, orange, yellow, blue — the same four, in the same sequence, every night. Children pick up sequences quickly, and they pick them up by repetition rather than by being told what each one means.

One thing worth doing: run through the colours together once, in daylight, before the first real bedtime. It teaches them without any pressure attached.

There is one, and most families never switch it on.

The colours do the job by themselves — and a light that changes doesn't wake the other child in the room. If you'd rather have something audible in the morning, there's a single gentle tone you can turn on. It's the only sound the clock makes.

Yes. The clock runs the whole four-phase routine on its own. You set it up once and it does the rest.

The app is the audio — the stories, the meditations and the sounds that go with each phase. Plenty of families use only the clock. Plenty use both. The clock doesn't nag you to subscribe, and it doesn't stop working if you don't.