Baby Einstein Sea Dreams Soother, Crib Mount

My son is 18 months now. I bought this when he was almost 4 months.I agree that in the beginning it was more stimulating than soothing and I didn't use it at bedtime for many months.I did buy a second one to put in the car for him to watch if we were driving at night. It worked beautifully to stop his crying in the dark, and the remote was perfect for this.If you do choose to try it in the car, I recommend you put it off to the side rather than directly in line with the car seat, because it is quite heavy and you wouldn't want it to hit baby in the event of an emergency stop. Mounting it in the car took some clever work with Velcro straps to fully secure it, but was worth the effort.When we started using it at bed time, I would turn it on as I rocked him with his bottle, and put out the light when I put him down. In the morning I would switch on the light/music if I needed him to be entertained in his crib while I use the bathroom/get dressed. Worked like a dream for this.As he grew older, he learned to stand and press the light button and the light/sound button. Now he even switches the mode switch on his own.Here is why I am so in love with this thing: We completely black out his room for sleep. When he wakes up in the morning in the dark, he crawls to the edge of the crib and feels for the soother. Then he turns it on and sits quietly until we wake up to get him. I don't wake up to crying in my baby monitor every morning, I wake up to a faint click of the button pressing and the soothing music coming in over the monitor. Love, love, LOVE that.I don't have an issue with the volume, personally. When it is strapped tightly to the rail, the speaker is up against the crib and this mutes it significantly. Also, I use a homedics sound machine to play constant rain white noise, and sometimes over the white noise I can't even tell if I turned it on or not with it set to music only. I have to hit the button a few times until one of a few songs come on that start on a higher note (like Air on a G String) to know it is even playing.So if you use white noise and/or have a broad flat crib rail, the volume certainly won't be an issue.Second thing to note is that it DOES guzzle battery juice like a college student at a kegger. Buy rechargables. No doubt, this is completely necessary.When my son got older and we stopped driving at night so much, we took the second one out of the car and just had it ready for a quick swap when the batteries died on the first one. I know this is an extreme workaround to the need for a nascar pit crew ready with a power screwdriver to change the batteries during a baby meltdown, but it worked for us.One suggestion I would make for the manufacturer would be to give a low battery warning before it dies, rather than it just turning off suddenly and leaving a scary red LED shining in the dark. Not a fan of that.One more thing to keep in mind is that you do have to turn it on to get it to "listen" for the remote. I am not sure how long it takes for the IR receiver to deactivate because I don't really use the remote. But if it has been off all night, you won't be able to turn it on with the remote.Also, the remote needs a line of sight. It is not RF so it will not work around corners or through a door. I know a lot of people wish it would. I learned to accept this limitation and live without the remote. I still love this soother.With two of these on rotation for daily use for 14 months, I have experienced no defects or failures. That is more than I can say for that rotten Munchkin projector/sound machine that I exchanged four times before giving up on it... But that is a different review. Grumble.Also worth noting is that I have the strap adjusted all the way out and it barely fits around my crib rail. It won't wrap around the side rail but it will go around the end rail. A handy DIYer might be able to replace the strap with a longer one. It is just a 1" wide nylon strap with sewn ends.My end rail is 3 3/8" tall and 1" thick. It fits on this rail with a couple inches of strap to spare. If your rail is ~5" tall x 1" thick, you will be nearing the limit and should find a way to check one in-store on a display crib if you can. Any taller than 5" and I am sure the strap won't reach around.Hope this helps with your buying decision.

This thing works great. Has nice tunes and is soothing and entertaining to the baby. Babies are so individual in what they do and don't like. My baby likes it, but I wouldn't say she's mesmerized by it. She watches it for a bit then looks at other things. I do like that you can just turn on the ocean sounds for white noise. She does fall off to sleep well with it. As for those saying its loud, it starts off kind of loud but the speaker is pointed out the back of it so it a not as loud to the baby as it is to you. It does get quieter as it goes on. I like that it slowly gets softer before shutting off. I haven't used the remote as my baby is usually asleep by the time it shuts off. As of now the music and fish don't soothe her to sleep as much as they just keep her entertained in her crib while I do something else. I like that you can turn off the light and just have the sounds. Overall I like it and I'd buy it again. It's not some miracle baby soother, but it's cute and does the trick.Update 6/5/2014STILL love this soother. My baby is now 1 year old and loves this even more now that she's older. She can now turn it on and off by herself and she falls asleep to it every night. When she takes naps, sometimes she'll wake up, turn it on, then go back to sleep all on her own. She loves to watch the fishes and listen to the music. I've still never bothered with the remote. She pretty much tunrs it on and off herself so I don't need it. Still works great and for as much as I use it (every day) the batteries last a pretty decent amount of time. I've never had an issue with it falling off or coming undone. The latch is very secure. She bumps it constantly, hold onto it while standing up in her crib, and hits it. Never once has it come loose or fallen off. It's very sturdy. I'd say of all the gadgets I've baught for my daughter, this is on the top 5 list. Definitely worth the money.

This thing is honestly a miracle. She was getting to that stage where she wanted something to look at and the night lights I had that put a picture on the ceiling are boring and hard to see. So I got this, and not only does it have a blue light that shimmers in her crib (a bit on ceiling too somehow) but the animals all move around, it has soothing ocean sounds she falls asleep too, and the music is nice and soft so if I have to wake her up I'll use the music but it's soothing enough for baby to sleep to on the lower volume option. It has a button for you to just turn the light on if you want to check on them and a remote to turn it on/off for any reason, I would've probably used that option when she was a newborn but I use it rarely since she's mobile and turns it on/off with the bottom star button.. a lot! It's an awesome soother and I don't wish I bought a different one at all. Matter fact, she fell asleep within 5 minutes tonight just watching her soother. I suggest any parents of a baby get one. Love it!Edit: I see some people complain about the battery life and the low-batt light. I think it may be an issue with higher end batteries (for some reason) I've noticed that when I use the cheap ones, that it runs for at the least (lots of nights of not sleeping right away due to bottle wean, so lots of on-time) and 2 weeks otherwise, when the low-batt light comes on, I've run the batteries down up to a week after that light came on but like I said, I feel I get a lot of use due to playing around with what batteries worked best. It does have lights, sounds, and movement that your baby is turning on and off constantly with a run time of 20 mins, so it's not too bad to pay 5$ for a pack of batteries even if it's just one week of use if baby sleeps better. I'd pay 5$ a day if I had to! But I get 2-3 weeks out of each set of batteries. Figured I'd add that.