You did it. You taught your child to follow the Time-to-Rise cues on the Hatch Rest light. Everyone’s sleeping well and mornings are (relatively) consistent — but now you’re going on vacation. How are you going to share a hotel room with your child and sleep until a reasonable hour?
If you’re unfamiliar with the Hatch Rest, it’s a children’s smart night light and sound machine. The device includes a suite of soothing sleep sounds and a soft light that glows in a variety of colors, all of which can be controlled and programmed on a parent’s phone. By scheduling specific colors and sounds for set times, it can help establish bedtime and morning routines for children.
Though not all kids take to the Hatch Rest light, enough parents rave about the device that it shows up on most every things-to-add-to-your-baby-registry list. For parents of children who did adapt to the sleep cues of that light, it’s a game changer. Instead of barging into their parents’ room at 5 AM, children can look at their light and, based on the color, know whether it’s time to get out of bed or not.
The Hatch Rest is portable insofar as you can pick up the light and take it to another room with you for the afternoon, but it’s not portable in a way that you can travel with it. It’s a bulky device and would take up a good chunk of space in your carry-on. Wildly enough, there is not a true travel-size version of the Hatch Rest nightlight. They sell a portable sound machine, but the company does not offer a color-changing light solution for travel.
So what are you supposed to do on vacation? A solution exists and it is surprisingly cheap: this color-changing, plug-in nightlight. You can get 2 for less than $15 on Amazon and it will instantly improve hotel stays with a child who uses the Hatch Rest at home.
Now, essentially this is your basic plug-in nightlight, but with 8 different color settings. It is small and perfectly packable, and all you need at your destination is a standard outlet (or converter if you’re traveling internationally.) This travel light will easily and reliably mimic the color cues of the Hatch Rest on any vacation.
This particular light is manually operated. There are a handful of similar lights that are remote or phone operated with bluetooth or wifi connections. Though tempting, don’t buy them. It is just one more thing to set up and possibly break, and it’s not worth the trouble. The manual functionality makes it super easy to plug in and use basically anywhere.
The only catch is that you need to establish your Hatch Rest sleep cues to be any of the 8 colors available on this portable light. If you are preparing in advance, purple (rest) to green (wake) makes a perfect combo with this manual light. These two colors are right next to each other, so it’s just one click to change the manual light from sleep to wake.
Here’s how it works. At bedtime, plug in the nightlight and manually set the light to your child’s sleep color. If your Hatch light at home also plays white noise, you will also need to bring a travel sound machine. You can opt for the Hatch Rest Go, which is their travel sound machine, or a cheaper alternative.
If your child wakes before they’re supposed to, they will see their sleep color on the nightlight. Just like at home with their Hatch Rest light, they will know that color means to go back to sleep. They’re still kids and it’s still vacation, but the light will at least be a consistent reminder of their routine back at home.
At their designated rise time, you will have to manually change the color to the child’s wake color. Of course, the manual color change isn’t perfect. They will probably see you coming to change the light and might even be up before you get there. But if the crux of the problem is keeping them in bed a little bit longer, this light addresses that issue with minimal effort, space and cost.
Another risk to this nightlight is that your child learns how to change the color themselves. You can combat this by keeping the nightlight high and ideally across the room. It’s also important to keep the light out of reach during the day, and not give the child a chance to play with the light outside of bedtime.
Though not an exact replica of the Hatch Rest color-changing light, this manual night light can go a long way in getting everyone better sleep on vacation. This solution works well in shared hotel rooms, vacation rentals and grandparent stays. Anywhere your kid goes, this light can go and reinforce the sleep habits that you’ve established at home.
What do you think? If you’re a Hatch parent, are you going to try this?
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