Product Review: mybaby by Homedics Soundspa Slumber Whale

Our boys were always light sleepers.. and when I say "light sleepers," I mean that they would regularly wake up from the sound of me peeing in the bathroom... despite my best efforts to pee quietly. While they napped, we always tip-toed around and took ridiculous measures to avoid waking them up. We turned off the phones and TV, and avoided using the bathroom since it was next to their rooms. Heck, we didn't even go down the hallway if we didn't absolutely have to. Eventually, the boys grew out of it and now you can practically drive a train through their room and they won't even flinch.

We had our daughter in December, and with the boys (now ages 4 and 3) it is impossible to keep the house quiet for nap time. She wakes up at the drop of a pin as well. I swear, one night she woke from the sound of me tearing the toilet paper off the roll. I decided to take a whack at a sound machine for her room, to drown out the noise from the rest of the house. She always slept really good when she was in our room with us, and we have a fan going all night. I figured it couldn't hurt.

I read a few reviews online and found this little guy at Target.. The SoundSpa Slumber Whale from mybaby by Homedics! From reading the box I could tell that the Slumber Whale had some awesome features, and was only $29.99, so he (she?) came home with me.

Without further ado.. let me proclaim my love for the Soundspa Slumber Whale: I LOVE THIS THING! It works perfectly, and I am 100% pleased with my purchase. This cute little whale is everything I wanted in a sound machine, and then some! It's got some AWESOME features- quite a few little extras that I didn't expect, plus everything I did. The timer can be set for 15, 30, or 60 minutes, or you can leave the timer off and it will run forever. We let it run all night and during nap time. And with the handy AC adapter, I don't have to worry about replacing any expensive batteries!

So. The white noise sound setting on the Slumber Whale is exactly what I was looking for- a steady and constant noise that sounds like a fan. I didn't care about the nature or ocean sounds, but they're included as well. There are three lullabies, an ocean wave sound and a heartbeat sound to choose from. There is a volume control knob to make it as loud or as quiet as I want. A little feature that seriously went above and beyond my expectations- when you turn the sound on, it starts out quiet and gradually gets louder until it reaches the volume that you have it set on. I especially love that it doesn't come on full volume when I'm taking Olive to her room for a nap and I have to turn it on. There's no sudden noise to wake her up. I love that the speaker is nice and big and the sound throws nicely to fill the whole room.

One cool feature that my husband and I were both surprised to end up liking is the projection. I was not looking for this feature, and honestly didn't expect to like or even use it at all. You can switch between ocean animals and a nursery rhyme pictures (like the cow jumping over the moon.) Both themes have three different pictures that the projector silently rotates between. We like the nursery rhyme theme and have ended up using it every night as a nightlight for Olive's room. You can swivel the Slumber Whale's tail to make the projection shine on the wall or ceiling, or anywhere in between for that matter. I LOVE that feature. An awesome addition to the projector setting is that you can dim it. With the dimmer knob, you can tune in to the best brightness for you and your baby. Love! I have to also add that the picture is projected clearly and is nice and bright on both the ceiling and/or wall. It's not blurry or washed out.


If you are looking to buy a sound machine for your little one, I highly, HIGHLY recommend the Soundspa Slumber Whale! I really don't think you'll regret it :)

 

UPDATE: JULY 26th, 2013

One of the lights on the projector has burned out :( For a few days, the faulty light was creating a strobe-light effect in Olive's room as it was obviously in the process of burning out. It quit working completely and now we can't use the projector as a night light. I checked my receipt, and we bought the Slumber Whale on April 13th. We started using the projector as a night light approximately two weeks after we bought it. This means that the lightbulb lasted about three months. I'm not happy. I had actually read a few reviews online (before I bought it) by people who had the lights on theirs burn out, but I thought that the good reviews outweighed the bad. We had grown to love the projector feature so much and now that we can't use it, I am very disappointed. I wish I could take it back to Target to exchange for a new one.