LittleHippo Mella: Kids Alarm Clock, Ready to Rise Children's Sleep Trainer, Night Light, Sound Machine and OK to Wake for Toddlers and Kids - Tropical Teal (Updated 2025)

I got two of these when we moved our twins into separate bedrooms. They've been a huge help! The kids get a lot of comfort and stability out of knowing "Hippo" will turn green when it is time to get up and it has made a big difference in night sleep and morning wake up. The boys also like the night sounds - especially the crickets and bird options. The things do have to be plugged in to work and I wish that you could set a different set of times for the weekend, but it is easy to use and I'd definitely recommend.

TLDR: great product that works exactly as described Initial impressions: the clock is very well packaged, the box provides ample “cushion” for the clock to be handled and shipped safely. The clock came with a usb cable, usb wall plug, and a little booklet of directions. The clock itself is super adorable. I bought it for my 3 year old daughter and she instantly gravitated towards the happy little face and ball shape of the clock. First use: I read the directions very carefully. After reading reviews prior to purchase, it seemed like some people had issues with the clock alarming or glowing when it was not supposed to. After programming this clock for my use and reading all the instructions it is without a doubt User Error on the part of those other reviewers. You can choose to program the alarm, sleep trainer, nap timer, light, and noise all independent of one another. Since my intention for this clock was for the ready to rise function, I did not set an alarm. Additionally, once you program the clock as desired, you can choose whether or not you want it on or off by pushing the appropriate button. That is to say, if I programmed it to play music but my daughter changed her mind, I could simply push the music button and it would turn off. To my understanding of the instructions, you can only program one alarm or sleep/wake. But it is very easy to change, and must be done manually. I know there are other products that use an app and Bluetooth, but I chose this product instead because I needed something that was simple and easy and reliable. So far, I have found this clock to be just that. I love that the face changes as the day goes on, at first it’s happy and it’s eyes are open, and when it enters sleep mode it closes its eyes and “goes to bed”. It’s a great visual for my 3 year old. We did not use the night light function but I felt that there were a good variety of different colors to choose from, as well as brightness. The brightness of the colors may not be the same. For example, the brightest white will be brighter than the brightest purple - so choose accordingly. I think that it could use a few more sound options - however because that was not important to me in my purchase It’s not part of how I rate this product. We do use the lullaby noise because my daughter happened to like it just as much as her other noise machine. I simply turn on the music by pushing the music button when it is time for her to go to bed. We use this as a sleep trainer. It was the purpose for which I purchased this clock. I love that it glows yellow for play time and green to go ahead and wake up. The color change is quite obvious and clear, the face also changes accordingly from sleeping to a kind of little smile to a big smile. You can turn off the wake up light (or an alarm) by holding its little “hat” down. This is where I like having the parental lock because my daughter can’t turn off the clock or otherwise alter it. I researched 3 different ready to rise clocks and I am extremely happy that I went with this one. I can’t reiterate enough that the issues other users were experiencing must have been user error because following the instructions and little user tips makes using this clock very simple. It’s adorable enough that a young child would love it, but also modern enough that school age children and teens could like it and use it too.

For my concise opinion scroll to the last paragraph. Otherwise, I have a very in depth review of how we used this machine. I purchased this light alarm clock for my daughter (who turned 2 in August) in November. A little background on my toddler. She is very stubborn and strong willed. Has big emotions and very clingy to me (mom). I was having issues with her throwing huge fits and wanting out of her crib early in the morning. She would scream nonstop “get me out” until I would come and get her. Needless to say, I was not about to let her get up that early or allow her to “scream me into submission.” First transition: sleep function set for desired “time to get out of crib.” The first morning we used this she woke up early and was yelling to get out. I told her over our camera microphone to look at “Mella” (we just kept the cute name of the clock). I told her, “Mella is YELLOW. That means ALMOST time to get out. When Mella is GREEN, mom will come get you.” The clock stays yellow for a total of 30 minutes, but she had to wait about 15 for it to turn green. I had to remind her, “mom will come when Mella is green” a few more times over the camera, but when it turned green I opened the door and exclaimed, “Mella is GREEN! It’s time to get out!” I acted very excited and kept reinforcing that GREEN means time to get out. That system worked SEAMLESSLY for the next few months. If she woke up before the clock turned green she would wait quietly until it turned. Once it turned green she would yell, “Mom, Mella’s green!” The clock stays green for one hour after turning on, which was great for when she slept in. Fast forward to January. We transitioned her to a new room and “big kid bed.” I was very nervous about her staying in bed/her room. Second transition: keeping her in her ROOM until the light turned green. Since she was already used to the “Mom will get me when the light turns green” method, the transition was a BREEZE. She would play happily in her room until the light turned green and then would knock on her door and tell me it was time for her to get out. So great! Then, about a week later she started getting out of bed at night, turning on her lamp and playing when she was supposed to be in bed. It was a struggle. Third transition: keeping her in bed for bedtime. We used the red light function as a night light and told her, “When Mella’s red, stay in bed.” I told her over and over at bed time and had her repeat it after me. After I left the room I watched her on our camera. She went to the end of the bed, but did not get out, looked at the light for a little bit and laid back down. I WAS SHOCKED! Especially after such nighttime battles before! Our most recent transition: we now use the clock for “rest time.” Since transitioning out of a crib, it was difficult to get her to take naps. She quickly figured out how easy it was to get out and play. I had to accept that maybe she wouldn’t nap anymore, but wanted her to have a “quiet time” for an hour in her room. She can nap or play, but she needs to stay in her room. So, I used the nap function. I set the light to blue and again tell her that, “When Mella’s green mom will come get you.” Sometimes she naps, sometimes she plays during that time. But the best part is that I get a break and she has a physical indicator of when mom will be back. Overall I have absolutely LOVED this method for my toddler. I was shocked that given her strong personality it would be a long struggle to get her to cooperate. But it honestly worked so great! So lastly, I want to talk about why I gave 4 stars instead of 5. I wish I could give this machine a 4.5. Here is why: - light functions: 5 - light brightness: 4 (A little too bright in my opinion, but doesn’t seem to be an issue for our child) - sleep mode: 5 - nap mode: 5 - child lock: 5 (my toddler did figure out how to unlock it, but we just put it on a high dresser so she can’t mess with it. I give it a 5 because it’s there and isn’t glaringly obvious to operate to a toddler) - set up: 5 (super easy, didn’t even read directions, very intuitive) - cuteness: 5 (my daughter loves the little face. Especially when it “blinks”!) - Sound alarm: N/A (We haven’t used this, yet) - Noise functions: 2, at best So this would be my only truly negative opinion on this machine. The noise is very quiet and not very pleasant sounding. It’s not a huge deal for us though because we just use a different white noise machine for our daughter. If you‘ve read all the way to this point, congrats! The last paragraph is a short summary of how I feel about the machine overall. Overall, this light clock method worked WONDERS for my stubborn, emotional, wonderful 2 year old daughter. Great for naps/playtime and bedtime. Lights are a little on the bright side (which may or not be good for your child) and the white noise/soothing sounds function is subpar. Would recommend to others!

I love the cuteness of it. I do wish the face on the clock was a bit more interactive during day hours. I have seen it blink a couple of times. I also wish that I could make the alarm different for the weekends and the asleep awake times different for the weekends. When you set it up, its just that set up for every single day. I'll just be making adjustments every Friday and Sunday night. It's a really cute clock and I'm hoping it will help my son to stay in bed longer and not be up playing at 2 in the morning. Also, I thought the light setting would be on all the time. Its not, you have to press light and there are timer options. The longest it stays on is 90 minutes. I was expecting to have the light on at all times. I think the sleep light setting might be on all night? I hope. We will find out tonight. I will definitely be recommending and probably buying a couple of these for my friends and cousins who also have little kids.

We have had the Mella OK To Rise clock for about a week now. We absolutely love it! I knew I wanted an ok to wake clock for my toddler when we started to transition him out of his crib, but they are all so ugly and cheap looking; even the pricey ones! I love that Mella is sleek but still cute. Mella has all the features I was looking for: an ok to wake function with colored lights, a night light, a nap timer, and a sound machine. All the functions are intuitive and easy to set. The ok to wake function is set and forget; the others you do have to turn the unit over to press the buttons. But once you set all the different functions all you have to do is press one button. Things I'd like to see in future models: *the nap timer isn't set like the ok to wake function and I wish it was. My toddler's nap starts at differing times but always ends at 3. I wish I could set the nap timer to start whenever I press it, and end at the same time every day. *a way to preset sequences and turn them on with one button. The ok to wake function is always on, but I have to manually turn on the night light and sounds. Being able to set the ok to wake, night light, and sounds to run all together would streamline our bedtime routine. *Have the face sleep for naptime. My 2.5 year olds biggest gripe is that "Melly" doesn't have to nap when he does. He loves going upstairs at night to see if Melly is sleeping yet, and having that same experience for nap would be fantastic. *Link to an app. I realize this is a big ask, and for the current price I am not complaining, but being able to turn different functions on and off without going into my kid's room would be amazing. *Ditch the yellow "play quietly" light. Or be able to turn it off. My kiddo's not old enough to get it quite yet. All of these are just things that would make this an even more amazing product. The bottom line is: it works, it's easy to set and adjust the settings, it's super cute, and my kid adores it. He hugs and kisses "Melly" every night before bed, and loves that it's eyes blink. We will absolutely buy another one when/if we have another kiddo or my current toddler loves this one to death.

This is going to be a long review. Lets start with the positives: compact, durable, easy to program, lots of features. Regarding the complaints about a short power cord, i disagree, we have it on a nightstand and it has plenty of extra cord. My son is 3 and a half and named the clock Geo and loves when it turns green. He runs into our room and says "geo turned green come see" and is really excited to show us. Now the negatives: the sound machine portion is not great. I was hoping this would replace this under the sea crib thing hes had since he was a baby and refuses to give up but the sound quality isnt great. Regarding the numerous complaints about the night light being too bright i would have to agree. Not only are they too bright but the colors themselves are like the LED christmas lights that somehow you can see even with your eyes closed ( lol im exaggerating but trying to describe it). The only color choice that is decent for the night light is the "amber/yellow"...which leads me to my next issue with it... 30 mins before the get up time the light turns yellow to signify its a quiet play time. Sure the light is a different shade of yellow than the yellow night light but that is a hard concept to explain to a 3 year old. The difference between the yellow night light and the yellow quiet play time light. There is no way to bypass or turn off this feature either. Bottom line, i do believe that it has helped my son with getting up multiple times during the night, but fact is it doesnt stop him from getting up. We have had it three weeks now and he still gets up early at least 4 nights a week. I do think it has helped, but i wouldnt buy this thinking it will for sure fix whatever is going on. There are other clocks out there that are similar to this that are cheaper. I would save your money and buy one of those. This is a nice product, but i just dont see the product superiority to validate the additional amount of money when compared to similar products.

First impression this is super cute. Reminds me of nano babies yes I’m dating myself. The actual clock is light weight, not very heavy at all. You can definitely knock it over easily. The face helped my little one identify that she had a little new friend. Every min the clock blinks. Which my daughter has sat and just watched for it to blink. 🤦🏻‍♀️ We’ve had the clock for a week now and day one it WORKED!!!! My daughter would wake up at 5:45am all the time and would come into my room waking baby brother. So you had mommy not able to sleep and two sleepy children through the day. It was not ideal and I figured with a clock it would help. I looked high and low for the best and though this is one of the more expensive ones out there. It had paid for itself in one day. I set the wake up time with an alarm. Which surprised my child, I changed the settings and removed that feature. Day two worked like a charmed, actually she was sad that the yellow light went too quickly. So day three I set the timer to 30min yellow light and she loved it. It helped her have more playtime, before the green light went off. For someone who would be out of her room by 5:45 she now gets out at 7:45am. Thank you Jesus for this miracle clock. Any parent knows just a few more hours of interrupted sleep makes a huge difference. I still haven’t figured out how to have the red light stay on the whole time until the yellow light turns on. I will now have to purchase another one for my toddler because my daughter loves her Millie so much that I don’t believe she’ll part with it. I do hope they made a better locking mechanism. Thankful that my daughter doesn’t mess with it but I could see my son unlocking it easily. Also wish that the settings wouldn’t erase if the clock unplugs for some reason. Honestly, no one has the time to replace the backup battery. I will update with how the battery only holds up and progress of my child. But like I said day one and it was a success. We love this clock!!!!

Our 22 month old has always been an early riser - so much so that there were plenty of mornings he would be awake and ready to go at 4:45. My husband and I tried everything to get him to sleep later - change his bedtime, use blackout curtains, bring him into bed with us, try to rock him to sleep again before we had to wake up for the day - you name it, we tried it. Then I thought that maybe a visual clock would work. I’m a special education teacher and we often use visual clocks and timers, so I thought, ‘Hey, there has to be something for toddlers out there.’ And what’ll you know. There is! I kid you not, this clock has been nothing short of a miracle. The first night we used the clock, my little guy slept till 5:40, which was the latest he’d slept for a long time. Not only that, but when I brought him back to bed to tell him he should stay in bed until “clock wakes up”, he went back to bed with no fuss and stayed there until I came back in and showed him his clock was “awake”. (We set the clock to wake up at 6:00.) The second night/morning was even better. He came in again around 5:40, but we kept the same routine - go bad to bed until clock wakes up. He went back to bed again. And slept until 7:00!!! (Again, I have to stress that sleeping this late has happened maybe 2-3 times in his entire life.) I should also mention that he had a tendency to wake up randomly in the middle of the night at times, but that has not happened since we started using this clock. After using it for nearly a week now, he is not waking up in the middle of the night, and now he doesn’t even get out of bed before 6:00. Our whole family loves this clock. My son loves it so much he even gives his clock kisses in the morning! It has exceeded my expectations in many ways and has really improved our whole family’s sleep. As far as features go, I am very glad it has a lock feature as my son does tend to press the buttons on the bottom. I love the fact that the clock has the “wake up face” and “sleeping face” - that has made all the difference. The lights are an added bonus, I suppose, but we haven’t really needed the lights. The cue for us is just whether the clock is sleeping or awake. The brightness also seems just right, but we already had a nightlight/sound machine that we had been using, so we don’t use this clock for either of those things. However, if I had known how beneficial this clock would be when I bought the sound machine, I probably would have just bought this one instead! I certainly wish I had discovered it much sooner than I did!

Leí muchos comentarios de padres respecto a cómo había ayudado a sus hijos a dormir mejor, obviamente que esto no es algo que sucede como por arte de magia pero finalmente la rutinas siempre son importantes en el sueño. Mi hija de 4 años LO AMA! Y si ayudo a que durmiera mejor, algunas veces aún despierta en las noches y le cuesta conciliar el sueño, empezó a encender el ruido blanco ella sola si despertaba a media noche sin necesidad de que nosotros fuéramos a verla a su cuarto. Si bien no sucede siempre, que lo haga a veces ya es ganancia. También le ayudó mucho a entender cuando ya era hora de dormir porque “su reloj ya estaba dormido” Es muy fácil de programar encender y apagar la luz, alarma o ruido blanco incluso hasta para ella. En conclusión, vale totalmente la pena

Amazing product for sleep training

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

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.