Hatch Rest review: How I moved my toddler out of his crib without losing sleep
The Hatch Rest helped us with the transition to a toddler bed. Here's everything I know about it.
The second my toddler’s heel lifted over his crib rail, like a barre workout instructor going for a deep stretch, I groaned. Ignoring the problem of crib transition had gotten me this far, but the jig was up. It was time to move to a toddler bed.
I wasn’t ready. It’s too hard, I whined. He’s going to escape his room! I moaned. Can’t we just get a taller crib??
But no, despite my protestations, it was time. So in the effort to keep him from roaming the house and waking me up once he was free of his crib rails, we bought a Hatch Rest.
The Hatch Rest is a Bluetooth nightlight and (most important for me) a “ready to wake” alarm that can help give visual and auditory cues for when they should be sleeping and when it’s OK to go jump on the adults. It connects to your phone via an app so you can control the device when you’re outside of your child’s room.
There are a few types of Hatch Rest, but I own the full-sized Rest so that’s what I’ll be reviewing. There is also a Rest mini and a Rest+ that all have similar features to the Rest, but the Rest mini does not have “ready to wake” features and the Rest+ has extra features like a clock and voice controls.
The Hatch Rest is 6.5 inches tall, 4 inches wide, and 4 inches long. It weighs 14.5 ounces, so it’s easy to move around. The Rest can be turned on and adjusted three ways: with the app, by touching the metal bar on the top of the Rest, and via a control panel on the bottom of the Rest.
How does it work?
You connect your app to the device via Bluetooth and then select a color for it to glow (or have the color turn off, if you prefer).
Choose a sound (if you want a sound).
Set favorite combinations.
Set a timer for the color and sound, if you want. I don’t use this feature but it could be great for if you want it to turn off once your kids are asleep.
And set automatic routines. Here is the pre-set routines for when the Rest turns red during my son’s bedtime routine and when it should turn green in the morning.
How did it help with a crib-to-bed transition?
About a month before we moved our son into a toddler bed, my husband and I set up the Rest and talked up the new gadget. We told our son that it would glow red all night when it was bedtime and when the light turned green, that was when Mommy and Daddy would come to get him. He’s obsessed with cars and all vehicle-related analogies, so the idea that “green means go” worked well with him. Our son would usually wake up between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., so we set the alarm to change colors at 7:30 a.m.
By the time we were ready to change his bed, we were talking about the Rest every night with him, and knew he was ready because he wouldn’t cry for us before 7:30 a.m. We would hear his little voice in his bedroom saying “It’s green! Daddy come get me!”
One he was in a bed where he could get out at any time, we would set the nighttime pre-programmed routine with the “toddler lock” so he couldn’t mess with the controls. This locks the top and bottom controls, so the only way you can adjust the Rest is via the app.
I made the newbie mistake of crawling into his toddler bed in the middle of the night when he called for me — NEVER AGAIN! MY BACK HURT SO MUCH AND I DID NOT SLEEP AND HE KICKED MY FACE A LOT — he woke up at the sunrise, looked at the Rest and said “Oh! The light is red. I can’t get out of bed ‘til it’s green. But Mommy’s here!” And then he somersaulted on top of my head.
Here is my son talking about how his Rest works. I don’t show his face online for privacy reasons, but please enjoy his adorable voice.
If he’s napping, I’ll turn on the Rest when I put him down, and then I’ll change the light to green right before I go into the room.
The Rest can use essentially any color, but we stuck with red and green for simple instructions for our son. There’s a feature that scrolls through rainbow colors, which could be soothing for some kids.
The Rest also has a variety of relaxing sounds like waves, crickets, and rain, but we don’t use this feature because we already have a sound machine our son is used to.
We’d tried a cheaper “ready to wake” alarm but we found the light couldn’t dim quite enough and was distracting for our sensitive sleeper, but the Rest can dim quite a bit. (Plus, in the six months between trying the two products, our son has adjusted to sleeping with more light, especially during naps, thanks to preschool.)
How does the top ring work?
I recorded myself scrolling through colors and sounds and turning it off here:
How far away does the app work?
The Bluetooth range is about 20 feet, and I’m able to adjust the settings through a wall.
What about digital safety?
Bluetooth devices don’t connect directly to your router, so they are not at risk for hacks the way WiFi devices are.
How loud is it?
I measured the sound level of the Rest with the Decibel X:dB Sound Level Meter app from SkyPaw Co. Ltd. With an ambient noise level in my son’s room of 33.2 dB (while measuring mid-day in a moderately busy area in San Francisco), I got that having the Rest on 20 percent sound gave off 31.1 dB (so you can consider that as “no noticeable difference.” I couldn’t hear the Rest over the ambient noise of my husband working and cars passing below 15 percent, which, yep, my son can actually nap through. If his body actually wants to nap… That’s a whole other challenge.
At 50 percent sound, I recorded 36 dB, and at 100 percent sound, I recorded up to 62 dB.
At full volume, the noise was annoying to my ears but maybe you have a little one who needs lots of white noise. Infant and toddler sound machines typically don’t go above 65 dB for hearing safety reasons, but even when my recorder was directly next to the Rest, the volume didn’t read higher than 62 dB (typically closer to 59 dB) so you could even turn this all the way up without any fear of hearing loss. 60 dB is about the noise level of a regular conversation.
The World Health Organization recommends limiting the amount of time infants and children are exposed to sound greater than 75 dB, so well above what this alarm can produce.
How bright is it?
I photographed the Rest in my son’s bedroom at noon with the blackout curtains drawn (note: they do not, in fact, block as much light as I would have liked, but it’s what I have) and the door closed.
Here is the Rest with six percent light:
Fifty percent light:
One hundred percent light:
Anything else?
The Rest has a dedicated plug, so you have to replace the plug if it gets broken. It’s always nice when a product has a standard USB micro B or at least a USB-C plug, but alas.
The bottom control panel has image for instructions that make it fairly user-friendly.
My husband and I can both have the app on our phones and either of us can adjust the Rest. Multiple Rest devices can be added to the app.
Where can I buy it?
Here’s a link for the Hatch Rest for $69.99. For transparency, these are is a kick-back links, but there are no sponsors on this post.
Buy the Hatch mini here for $39.99.
And buy the Hatch Rest+ here for $89.99.
Anything you want to know about the Hatch Rest that I didn’t answer? Post your comment below or email me — parentinghack@protonmail.com — and I’ll do my best to answer.
Sources:
https://www.who.int/activities/making-listening-safe
https://www.kflaph.ca/en/healthy-living/early-signs-of-a-hearing-loss.aspx