Merry 2017, folks! I thought I'd kick off my first post this year with a review on a product that I use for my daughter:
Ewan the Dream Sheep, which is basically a sleeping aid to help your little one... well, sleep. Before I bought
Ewan, I read some amazon reviews, which were quite varied; some rated it and others didn't rate it at all. The reason I ended up purchasing it was because a friend of mine had one, and he swore by it. It's much easier to trust the opinion of someone you know, as opposed to an anonymous review by a total stranger, who could in fact just be a mole of the company singing their own praises in order to raise sales! It's happened. I'm going to start off with a description of what
Ewan is all about, as described by the manufacturer,
Sweet Dreamers. Then I'll give you the reality of this little guy as described by me; a mother who values her own sleep!
So, Sweet Dreamers say:
"ewan ®is our new baby sleep product that is already lulling thousands of babies and toddlers to sleep across the globe. The clever thing about soft cuddly ewan® is that he combines a range of 4 soothing sounds, including real womb and heart beat sounds, together with a calming pink glow to create a soothing environment that will quickly settle your little angel into a long and peaceful sleep..... Which of course means a great sleep for all the family too! Womb and heartbeat sounds have been proven to be extremely effective at helping reduce COLIC induced pain as they remind the baby of the natural soothing environment of the womb. Apart from being simply the cutest sheep on the block, ewan® makes a perfect baby or toddler gift. Parents love ewan the dream sheep® and the best bit is that babies love him too!"
Now what Sweet Dreamers claim here is that by playing sounds of the womb, your baby will be comforted and lulled to a peaceful sleep, which in turn helps with colic pain - yadda yadda... Well luckily my daughter hasn't suffered with colic so I can neither confirm nor deny this claim. What I will say though, without a shadow of a doubt, is that I cannot live without this sheep. He is quite simply the best purchase I have ever made. Well, second to my IVF of course 😛 That's not to say he is perfect as there are some flaws, but in my experience, he is worth every penny. And at around £30 depending where you purchase from, he's hardly breaking the bank.
Ewan comes with four different sounds (one sound for each leg) which are rain, harp, hoover and the womb. Each sound also has a heartbeat played over the top. Harlow loves the hoover anyway, so I thought this would be her sleep aid, but actually she loves the harp. It's a lovely melody and admittedly, Ewan has lulled me to sleep many a night! Each sound plays for 20 minutes, then automatically switches off. Ewan's chest glows red when switched on but this also automatically switches off when each sound finishes. His tail is made of velcro, which is quite long when unravelled; making him easily attachable to most furnishings, whether on the go or at home. It's easy to use, really soft and cuddly, and does what it says on the tin. So what about the flaws?
Underneath Ewan is an opening (fastened by strong velcro) where the control panel is kept. Here you can alter the volume from 'quiet' to 'loud', and you can adjust the play settings from 'try me' to 'normal'. Now the volume settings are misleading. The truth is, Ewan can be set to 'loud' or 'louder'. There is no quiet, and you don't have the option to adjust it to your liking. For me though, this isn't a problem. Some reviews I read really didn't like this about Ewan, but I honestly have never had any trouble with it. You shouldn't be tiptoeing around your little ones anyway. I could set off an atomic bomb in my room and Harlow would still sleep away. And as long as Ewan isn't placed right beside your baby's lug-holes, you shouldn't find this an issue. As for the play settings, wtf is 'try me' mode?! All it does is confuse the hell out of you. Instead of each leg having it's own sound in 'normal' mode, one leg can play all sounds in 'try me' mode. Now you could say that this is for parents who are shopping and just want to give Ewan a try, but the bloody sheep is sealed inside its box, making any leg pulling a no go. It's the most pointless function ever created, ever.
The red glow that appears on Ewan's chest when switched on is supposedly meant to replicate the glow that baby sees from inside the womb, which is meant to calm baby to sleep. I honestly think that is a load of bollocks. It's not a 'soft' glow as described, its just a red light. It does however catch my daughters eye, so if it works, it works. I do however think the heartbeats are a big factor in aiding sleep, along with your child's preferred white noise. It really is a calming sound and if used from an early age, you can understand how that would calm any baby. Apart from recognising their parents voices, a heartbeat is the one sound of familiarity in a world of new experiences; from noisy cars to footsteps on the pavement, dogs barking and doors slamming shut, taps dripping to flies buzzing... The musicality is endless and something we adults take for granted.
I bought Ewan before Harlow was born, and I first used him when she was around 3 weeks old. Initially, she did not care for this grey-faced creature staring down into her moses basket. I was a little disheartened as I'd had high hopes for this supposed sleep hero. I stopped using him for a while and then tried again when Harlow was around 7-8 weeks. At first, she liked the hoover sound, but this quickly became tiresome, so I tried the other sounds and found that she liked the harp. I wasn't that keen on the melody at first, but it is something we both love now. It's rare that I'm awake before the 20 minutes is up, let alone Harlow! Harlow is now 4 months old and I am on my third set of batteries. I use it every night, for every wakening throughout the night. I don't even have to worry about her falling back to sleep, because even if she grumbles for a while, I know Ewan will win. Ewan always wins.
The downfall with this wonderful product, is that it is so good, my daughter cannot sleep without it. I was staying at my mums over Christmas and I left Ewan at my house. Harlow goes to bed at the same time every night and after almost 2 hours past her bedtime of trying everything I could think of, she would not go to sleep! I had to go home in the end to retrieve him and within 1 minute of being with Ewan, she was completely and soundly asleep.
So it retrospect, the flaws of Ewan are minuscule, and the results are beyond expectation. You could argue that being so reliant on a sleeping-aid is a bad thing but I don't see the issue. Some people need to sleep with a light on, some need a TV; my daughter needs a cuddly, musical soft-toy. It could be worse. She could be up all night keeping me awake, making us both miserable the following day. Ewan is the sheep of my dreams, and more importantly, of Harlow's. Thanks to Ewan, we both sleep soundly. What more could any new parent ask for?
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| Harlow and her BFF, Ewan the Dream Sheep. |
