Product Review: PlaySkool Lullaby Glo Worm

What? PlaySkool Lullaby Glo Worm

How much? Around £10

Where? Toy shops, including Argos and Toys R Us

Unlike so many children of my generation, I never actually owned one of the original Glo Worms myself. *sad face* Plenty of my friends had them, and I quite liked them but never got one, and by the time my baby brother came along they weren't as popular anymore.

The Glo Worm come-back was well publicised and shops with stock of them in the run-up to Christmas 2009 were sold out within minutes as parents up and down the land searched for one for their little ones stocking. Included in this search was myself and the office I worked in; All because one staff members sister had recently given birth to her daughter. The staff member had brought one of the original Glo Worm's for his sister when she was a child, and was determined to get one for his new born niece. As we're in the nursery industry getting hold of shops where we might be able to find one wasn't difficult; but sadly, actually making a purchase in time for Christmas was impossible. I believe the baby girl in question received her Glo Worm some time around March 2010 in the end!

Anyway, it was at Christmas that The Hubby and I made our announcement of my pregnancy to our families, so on my return to work after Christmas when I told my colleagues, little did I realise they would remember one of our conversations regarding the Glo Worm, and myself saying I always quite liked them but never had one as a kid.

The last day I was in the office before I went on maternity leave they gave me some lovely presents, and one of them was a blue Glo Worm. (I didn't know I was having a Boy; but they came to the conclusion, since I'm not exactly a 'pink' person, that if I had a girl she wouldn't be a frilly pink princess anyway and blue would be just fine, and they were correct!) As it happened, The Boy came along and the Glo Worm now matches quite a few other items in his nursery!

I would have brought a Glo Worm for the baby myself had I not been given one. Purely for the fact that I remember them from originally and if my child had one then it was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me, and so on. The fact that they're only about £10 is such a bargain, because I think they're worth their weight in gold.

The Boy, on the whole, is a contented little lad, very chilled and relaxed, he's always slept through the night right from when he was tiny, and he's never been one to make a fuss unless there is a good reason. When he's feeling poorly, such as at the moment as he's teething (his molars are cutting; There have been sleepless nights, screaming tantrums where he's throwing himself around and smacking his own face, times where he's sobbing in his sleep, its awful) the Glo Worm is the one thing that I know will calm him down.

Whether it's the melodies (a range of soft sounding lullabies in a soothing 'plinky plink' tone) or the fact that the face glows while its playing music, I really don't know, but when he's getting himself upset (you know, when they're red faced, sweaty, with proper tears rolling down their face, catching their breath in short gasps before the next scream comes) all I have to do is sit him kneeling on my lap so he's facing me and I can hold him close (he likes to rub his face on my shoulder when his teeth are hurting) then I pop the Glo Worm between him and me so it's facing him and we play the melodies. I know them off by heart because I just keep pressing the button and make it play the next one, and the next, and sure enough soon he'll have calmed right down, then he'll start pressing the button if he wants to, or else he'll snuggle in and let me do it and he'll fall asleep like that quite happily.

The Hubby first discovered the love for the Glo Worm, as he has always used it to send The Boy to sleep. If I put The Boy in the cot awake, I tended to use the cot mobile, but it is a very loud, jarring rendition of "Teddy Bears Picnic" and sometimes only serves to keep The Boy awake and Not Napping at all. So The Hubby preferred to use the Glo Worm, the soft, soothing melodies as well as the little glowing face helping to ease The Boy to sleep. I still do use the cot mobile as The Boy does often go to sleep with it, but more often than not as he's got older, it will be Glo Worm that does the trick.

Would I recommend it? Most definitely. Either this, or the Sea Horse one that is the same idea but an updated version (though I think even though it’s a Sea Horse it seems more feminine than the Worm, maybe that’s just me!) If you haven't got one, put it on your list to get: At a tenner, most people would be prepared to buy this as a gift for baby, or a couple of mates can put a fiver in each and get it. We've always used the Glo Worm for The Boy since he was tiny, because to begin with it's the light of the glow that his little eyes could see, and he could hear the nice music, now he's older it's different textures to touch, he presses the button himself to activate it (sometimes its how I know he's awake because the music starts on the monitor even though he hasn't cried at all!) and also the little antenna things are fabric, so not a choking hazard or something that can come off, so he loves to chew on those now too!

All in all, a great success; Four out of five, to be improved upon by offering a wider range of colours (not everyone wants blue or pink) and a wider variety of lullabies to play!

One Of "Those" Days

Why is it always the day you've got a hundred things to do that nothing goes to plan?


Yet the days you can do what you like, when you like, everything runs like clockwork?

The Boy usually has a nap - depending on the time he wakes up in the morning, he'll either go for a nap at eleven or twelve, and normally sleeps for a couple of hours. Once awake, he has lunch and we enjoy the afternoon together, with him refreshed and happy and me satisfied that I have been able to put in some hours on the laptop for work, put a washload or two through the machine, done the housework etc.

Today, The Boy woke around 7.30. As The Hubby was leaving for work at 8.30, he said he'd give The Boy his morning bottle before he left for work. He did, and then left, so I gave The Boy breakfast at 9, and we played for a while. At 11, he was whingy and rubbing his ear, a sure sign he is tired, so I took him upstairs with a bottle, gave him some calpol to help the pain of teething, and gave him his bottle. I put him in the cot, and left him (as I usually do).

Except he didn't go to sleep. He walked circuits of the cot using the bars to haul himself along, threw all the teddies on the floor, and cried an awful lot. I went back to him every fifteen minutes to calm him down and try to get him to settle, but after just over an hour I gave up and brought him back downstairs. Perhaps he'll nap later, I thought to myself. As a very young baby, The Boy would have an afternoon nap, from three til four, and sometimes now if he doesn't sleep in the morning he has an afternoon nap instead.

The Hubby came home for lunch, and he gave The Boy his lunch which left me free to get on with a couple of bits. Before he went back to work, he moved the Jumperoo upstairs, so I had somewhere secure to put The Boy while I got on with getting myself sorted out ready for our day out tomorrow.

I didn't get far. Within 10 minutes The Boy was grizzling and moaning, dribbling like mad and chewing on everything he could. After 20 minutes I was almost finished with what I was doing (doing it as quickly as I could!), and he was like a car alarm in the background, one of those hugely irritating noises that can't be helped, and I found myself explaining to him what was happening (I often do this) even though I know you can't reason with a 10.5 month old baby. I finished up as quickly as I could, and took him into his room with a bottle, gave him some Teetha powder and tried to tempt him with a bottle and a nap.

He wasn't interested and we ended up on the floor throwing board books all over the place! After an hour I remembered I hadn't made up any more bottles for him, so I brought him back downstairs, popped him in the playpen and went to make up the bottles. He continued to grizzle and moan, so I told myself that once I'd done the bottles and made myself a coffee, I'd shut the dogs out of the front room and let him have some floor time to explore. Now he's able to crawl, its the quickest way of tiring him out, because he whizzes along like a mad thing and knackers himself out.

Before I got back into the front room, it went eerily silent in there. I poked my head round the corner wondering what had happened ... and there he was, curled up as if he'd been sitting up and just flopped forwards, fast asleep. Toys scattered around him (a teething ring under his arm and a monkey toy on his leg) he was snoring peacefully. I thought about leaving him as he was, but then I realised if he did he'd be even more grumpy when he woke up as he'd have pins and needles in his legs and probably tummy ache too from being bent over so awkwardly. I moved some toys, laid him flat, fully expecting him to wake up and start crying again, but he remained asleep.

The trouble is, I can't leave him down here to go upstairs and do what I need to do. I've done what can be done down here, and I don't want to leave him to sleep for too long or he'll never sleep tonight, but at the same time after all the crying of today, the peace is heaven sent ...

Luckily for me, The Hubby finishes at six tonight, and he's coming home to take over from me while I buzz off to the supermarket - It might not be glamorous and its definitely a different sort of going out on a Friday night than my old life, but it gets me out of the house and gives The Hubby and The Boy a chance for some Father-Son bonding time.

I just hope he doesn't carry on like this tomorrow. We've got a two hour drive there first thing in the morning, an afternoon with a newborn baby and a two hour drive home again. It'll be hell on earth if he's crying again all afternoon like he has today.

And I still don't know when I'm going to find time to paint my nails!!