The Mamasaur Reviews: The Hatch Rest

Desperate times, expensive measures. We got two Hatch Rest 2nd Gens for our tired tots…

This sleep conundrum has been a serious thorn in our collective flesh for two, long, exhausting years. Recently, due to nap strikes and continued LACK OF SLEEPING, we were left with no recourse but to separate Orson and Nova. I’ll get into that a little more here in a minute. Ultimately, we splurged on getting a Hatch Rest 2nd Gen for each of them…

Stick around for my review. Or skip to it here…

The Problem

I’ve complained about this issue on more than one occasion, but it feels like the foundational problem in our lives. As it’s been since Nova was born.

Yes, I know exactly how that sounds. Guys, I know my daughter can’t help it. I know it’s not her fault, and she isn’t doing this TO us. But, suffice it to say, we are all STILL suffering as a result of her refusal to SLEEP, herself included.

There have been any number of issues that have consequently affected her sleep (or lack thereof). It started with the colic. Then there’s developmental and physical growth spurts, teething pain, and the separation anxiety, of course.

There was also the phase of time when she would throw everything that brought her comfort out of the crib in the middle of the night. What fun, what joy…Glad we found a solution to that particular problem, at least.

Needless to say, there are countless reasonable reasons why this little girl just won’t sleep. However, the perpetual fatigue is untenable. There have literally still been nights, just a few months shy of 2 years old, that Nova will still wake every. half. hour. That is, IF she sleeps at all.

The Consequences

Nova’s sleep issues ultimately started to poison Orson’s quality of sleep, since they share(d) a nursery. For our Orson boy, poor sleep has never been a reigning concern to us. In fact, there have actually been times that I’ve wondered if he sleeps a little too much!

But due to baby girl’s resistance to sleep, we’re fairly certain that’s what inevitably kickstarted Orson’s nap strikes. They’d set each off, rile each other up.

It would start off innocently enough, with giggles and happy chattering. But before too long, their discourse would devolve into harrowing cries, wails, and screams. Both perpetually overtired, but refusing any rest.

There was a moment that I thought I’d found a magic bullet. Maybe it’s the separation anxiety. Maybe I’ll try some “fading”. I took a blanket and pillow in and camped out on the nursery floor until they fell asleep. It worked miraculously well exactly one time. The next time, we were all crying, and Orson was holding my hand until he drifted off. The time after that, no dice.

I came out of the nursery, exasperated, and announced to Nathan that he had to give up his home office. The toddlers needed to be split up.

Nathan lost his office, Orson and Nova lost their sleepy-time company, and I had just about lost my mind. One toddler refusing sleep is one thing. No way Orson was going down that path, too.

Hatch Rest 2nd Gen:
The Solution?

I mentioned recently that I’ve started seeing a therapist for my C-PTSD. A couple sessions in, I learned that she has a toddler who has also struggled with sleep. This particular session saw me flustered, coming down from the adrenaline of a “rage attack”.

We had laid Orson and Nova down (this was before the separate bedroom transition), and they were absolutely railing against the idea of a nap. I KNEW they were both tired. I was hitting a mental breaking point, and the helplessness I felt was sending me into an angry tailspin. Leaving for my appointment a little early would hopefully offer a chance to reset.

While she congratulated me for making a “safe choice”, she also offered up a possible solution that had worked for her daughter to combat the sleep issues. A Hatch Rest 2nd Gen.

Now, I’ve seen the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen on Amazon many times. It just seems so expensive for a glorified sound machine/nightlight. And once the toddlers were separated, it meant I’d likely have to splurge on two. But I’ve heard the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen get recommended before. Maybe there’s something to it…

Could it be that the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen is the answer for which we’ve been praying?

Our Biggest Love/Hate Relationship

The Good (Miraculous, Really…)

Nathan and I gave in and ordered Nova’s first. She and her brother were immediately taken with it. The pretty nightlight, customizable with different colors. The ambient sounds (wind, rain, brown/white noise, vacuums, dryers, storms, or fans, etc.). And the sweet, if not a bit tinny-sounding, lullabies.

Finding what worked for Nova required some troubleshooting. Ultimately, the classical lullabies had her trying to put herself in her crib in the middle of night-night story time! There was virtually no bedtime battle, and she was saying “bye-byeee” to usher us out of her bedroom. Like WE were keeping HER awake! This girl….

She fell asleep so quickly. For the first time in such a depressingly long time, when she’d wake in the middle of the night, we didn’t have to get her up to console her! We could start a different song, offer her a couple reassuring words through the monitor, and she’d be back out within a couple minutes. This was a miracle.

We jumped on ordering Orson’s after the first night. Woo-hoo, Amazon Prime same-day delivery! Orson’s Hatch Rest 2nd Gen was there for his bedtime, too!

The Bad (More of a Fine Print Annoyance…)

I mentioned “tinny-sounding” lullabies and ambient sounds (16 auditory settings in total). BUT you aren’t limited to those 16 hit-or-miss options. Not if you’re willing to pay…

This was a frustration for us. Sure, we’ll use up the trial for the Hatch Sleep Membership to check out the library. But if something resonates with the babies and hooks them on premium offerings, that’s yet another monthly “streaming” membership that we’ll have to fit in the budget. Great.

Really, in a way, the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen does seem like a really expensive glorified night light/sound machine if you don’t get the membership.

And…they got hooked. Beautiful, soft, melodious classical music played on piano or acoustic guitars as opposed to the standard brassy-bell lullabies. Dinosaur meditation stories had Orson’s number from the get-go. The offerings are top tier, the toddlers love them. Ugh…I guess it’s a small price to pay to actually get some rest.

The UGLY (Almost enough for us to send them back…)

It didn’t take long at all to detect some issues with the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen.

How do I hate thee, Hatch Rest 2nd Gen? Let me count the ways:

The app is INCREDIBLY buggy. It’s a nightmare to use in some ways. It will detect connectivity issues where there are none. Oh yeah, the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen is wi-fi dependent. Fine for us, since we have primo internet for Nathan’s remote job. But even then, the app fails us on a daily by detecting “issues”. Yeah, Hatch, we’re detecting issues, alright.

The user experience is limiting and impractical. Thankfully, Nova moved on from the classical music kick pretty quickly, and I’ll tell you why I’m grateful for that. If you don’t want to subject your child to the brassy, disruptive lullaby music that comes standard with the Hatch, your options are time-limited.

There are music tracks that play for 15 minutes, or there’s the longest premium offering available, Looping Lullabies, that plays for 1 whole hour.

Whoopty-Doo…

So, in an hour, when she hears her music shut off and it disrupts her, I’m still ultimately having to wake up every hour to reset her music.

There’s no “playlist” option, which would be IMMENSELY convenient. You only have the options for setting up Schedules or Favorites. There’s even a timer setting that I’ve found to be completely pointless. I attempted setting an extended timer for the looping lullabies, but no, they still cease after the hour is up. Regardless of the timer.

I even opted to try for setting up Schedules. Guess what. Even though they don’t let you customize a playlist, they LIMIT the number of Schedules you can set up! WHY??? There’s no winning.

What’s a DJ even do-do-do-do….

At least she’s moved onto “Di-dor Boo” (dinosaur book) like Orson, so they each get 3 dinosaur meditation bedtime stories a night before turning Rain on for Nova and Brown Noise on for Orson. But even THAT whole process is such a pain.

You can set Dino Stories as a Favorite, but it doesn’t randomize the story after each button press. So if you don’t want to subject your tot to 3 identical renditions of “Hide-and-Seek Dino” in a row, welcome to your new role as DJ Dino Mixmaster.

Each playthrough, I have to listen for the end of their story. Then, I have to go through multiple menus (and a wi-fi alert) to get to the library. Scroll all the way to the end of the list of stories (it’s 3rd from the end). Then decide which ones they’ll hear next. Three times of doing this for each of them. THEN I can select their preferred ambient noise from the Favorites menu.

Other Issues to Note…

There have been times that the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen just disconnects/turns itself off. IN THE MIDDLE OF A STORY! Doesn’t happen super often, but it’s super disruptive and makes EVERYONE angry.

One of the worst situations we’ve faced as Hatch Rest 2nd Gen owners, though, happened just a couple nights ago…

I guess the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen is partially dependent upon AWS (Amazon Web Service) servers for app connectivity. Are you able to use the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen independent from the app? Well, only to a degree. If you have some Favorites programmed, you can tap the top of your Hatch Rest 2nd Gen to manually access them. Otherwise, it’s a bright nightlight.

It’s good to have options like the tap-to-play-Favorites when servers go down, but the WORST CASE SCENARIO happened for us. Nova’s Hatch had the toddler lock function enabled. Also a great setting if it’s within reach and your toddlers like to mess with it…

SUPER INCONVENIENT, however, if the servers go down. You can’t access the app. You can’t access the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen manually for anything other than a bright nightlight. And, of course, it just HAD to happen at bedtime to NOVA’s Hatch. Lesson learned…

Do I Recommend the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen?

Yes and no.

Despite its plethora of abhorrent issues, when you are DESPERATE and you have EXHAUSTED yourself and every option you have without success, get the Hatch Rest 2nd Gen TODAY. Even after almost 2 years without sleep, the price tag was enough to make us a little hesitant. But the results have been irrefutably miraculous.

There’s nothing else quite like it on the market. I’ve looked for Hatch competitors and have come up short. I say that begrudgingly…

I just can hope and pray that Hatch is serious about making adjustments and modifications to its user interface and app experience. A failsafe method of manually disabling the toddler lock on the Hatch itself would also be a welcome improvement. Like holding down the nightlight button for 5 seconds or whatever…

I do feel like there are so many low-hanging fruit opportunities for Hatch to really knock this product out of the park. And I have spoken to customer service representatives about some issues, and I’ve been really impressed by how personable, compassionate, and patient they are. I just hope they’re truly engaged in customer satisfaction and product development.

So, Hatch, get your house in order. Give us playlists. We want better connectivity. At the VERY LEAST, fewer freaking bugs…

Otherwise, it needs to be cheaper if we also are expected to pay monthly/annually for premium content.

Anyway…

If you primarily JUST are in the market for a nightlight/sound machine, or a “time to rise light”, move on. Get a Philips SmartSleep nightlight or just replace a lightbulb in your nursery with something programmable like this and get a cheap sound machine to save money but still offer helpful sleep cues to your child.

But, if like us, this feels like your only option…don’t hesitate any longer. The issues and annoyances and memberships have all felt like a small price to pay. For REST.