Besides time, there’s one more thing moms cannot get enough of…sleep! How many hours of sleep do you get a night? Do you even know? We could all use some sleep help. We’ve been avid fans of sleep devices since they first became available. Our first favorite, from many years ago, was the Zeo. The downside was that you had to wear a sensor strap across your forehead each night. An even bigger downside is that Zeo is now out of business.
Today’s sleep trackers are a little less obtrusive. Recently, we have been trying out the LARK. It’s a sleep sensor that LARK calls a silent “un-alarm” clock. When you set your alarm for the morning using the LARK app, it will gently nudge you awake with vibration instead of sound…which is a much better way to wake up. It also enables your partner to sleep soundly without being awakened by an alarming alarm clock.
Sleep Help
Once you have children, trying to get a full 8 hours a week is rough. It starts with your baby needing to be fed throughout the night. Then your toddler will call for you or invite himself into your bed. When they get older, you get a little more sleep, but you hear every noise in the house. Deep sleep is not something we mothers achieve for very long on most nights.
Do you have a set bedtime or do you head up for bed, only to be reminded of the laundry that needs to be transferred, or the school lunches you forgot to pack? According to Thomas Roth, PhD, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, there is plenty of data that links poor sleep to all sorts of health problems like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, confusion, delayed responses, poor work performance, and more. We found this info graphic from HealthCentral.com that shows possible issues from insufficient sleep:
Did you know your lack of sleep can deplete your cognitive performance to that of people with a blood alcohol content of 0.10, which is over the legal limit of .0.08? And that an estimate of 15-33% of fatal car crashes are related to driver fatigue? (1) In the short run, we mothers may be very efficient at getting everything done by the end of the day, but in the long run, we could be shortening our lives and causing extra stress due to our lack of concentration.
How to Improve Your Sleep
Could you use some sleep help? There are a number of sleep trackers on the market these days. We have reviewed the Zeo, BodyMedia, and the Gear Fit. What makes the LARK different? First and foremost, it offers an alarm clock that is silent. You only receive gentle vibrations to awake. Secondly, it provides really valuable data showing your sleep patterns like:
- Sleep Quality – shows your overall quality of sleep, considering the factors below
- Fell Asleep In – how long it took you to fall asleep
- Woke Up – how many times during the night you woke up
- Sleep Pattern – a graph shows your movement patterns – from falling asleep to tossing and turning to actual sleep
The first step to improving your sleep is to look at your patterns. Are you going to bed too late? Are you having difficulty falling asleep? Are you awakened a lot during the night? Do you toss and turn? Evaluating these questions can be the start of new sleep habits for you. The Sleep Foundation has some good sleep help tips *(2):
1. Go to bed at the same time each night…even on weekends
2. Create a bedtime routine where you relax in bed just a short time before sleeping. No screen time!
3. Exercise daily
4. No heavy meals or alcohol before bedtime
5. Ensure you have a comfortable sleeping atmosphere and ensure it’s dark
The LARK
credit: LARK
To activate your LARK, you need to set your alarm on the LARK app and have your phone nearby. LARK gives you a convenient cradle to hold and charge your LARK while cradling your phone, (you can charge your iPhone with your own phone cord, there is a port to charge it).
At night, put the LARK on your wrist, using the wristband that comes with LARK, and set your alarm in the LARK app. This signifies you are ready to sleep. Even if your phone dies throughout the night, the LARK will continue working through the night and will awake you at the time you set your LARK alarm for. Once you awake in the morning, turn off the alarm on your phone and the data is transmitted via Bluetooth to your LARK app to evaluate. You should then plug in your LARK wristband into the cradle dock to charge up for nighttime.
Features:
- Soft wristband to hold LARK onto your wrist
- Charging station for LARK and you can plug in your phone into the back to charge with a cable
- Sleep history to help you evaluate your sleep
- A non-alarming alarm that wakes you gently through vibrations rather than noise
- Back-up music audio alarm that wakes you in case your LARK wristband battery dies
- Ability to get help from a Personal Sleep Coach…for an added fee
- Sleep tracker journal – document different possible causes that affected your sleep
Pros:
- Its focus is on sleep, rather than sleep and tracking exercise and measuring your heartbeat, etc.
- Accurate sleep analytics
- Comfortable wrist band
- The app and website graphics are very helpful
- Evaluating the data is the first step in understanding how to get more sleep
- The price is very reasonable, considering all the items you get with the LARK
Cons:
- You need your phone nearby in order for the alarm to work best
- Only works with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod
- Putting on the wristband is not enough, you also need to turn on the alarm each night in the LARK Up app
- If you use the LARK app on your iPad, there’s no option to make the screens bigger, it’s geared towards an iPhone screen
- The company looks like they have taken a software approach now and we’re not sure how long they’ll support the LARK…which explains the decent price
Here’s an iPhone screenshot from the Lark Up app showing my sleep last night. It’s my best all week! You can see I obtained a Sleep Quality of 9.7…out of 10 points. I’m feeling refreshed all ready!
Here’s a screenshot from my iPad. After looking at my sleep stats from Wednesday night, I could add some tags that may have caused me to not sleep as soundly. I slept well, but I woke up 10 times!
For the week, you can see that on the average, I wake up 12 times a night. Yikes! That’s a lot! I know that the sun always shines in on our bedroom and wakes me up. It used to be a great alarm clock, but now that it’s shining in our room at 5:40am, it’s hard to get back to sleep. I don’t have shades yet for our windows, but I found using a sleep mask this morning allowed me to gain some extra winks.
Craving just a little more statistical detail? You can visit my.Lark.com and login to get more thorough stats. Sometimes it’s hard to read the small charts on your mobile app. I like the circle chart online because you can easily see how long you were awake at each hour.
As you add on more measured days to the LARK Up app, you begin to see your averages. You can see from my scores above that I need to work on getting more sleep and assess better how to minimize my wake up’s during the night.
The LARK is available through Walmart.com for $49.99.
A Mom’s Perspective
In assessing my sleep patterns, I know I see I need a more structured sleep time. I have to abide by my set sleep time, exercise daily, allow time to read in bed before turning off the light, and ensure I don’t do any last-minute surfing or pinning before I go to bed. Oh, and using my sleep mask in the morning will give me an extra 30-40 minutes most likely.
LARK has put together a pretty comprehensive package its soft LARK wristband, free app, and docking cradle…all for $50. We did a little research and found out that when the LARK first came out the price was $150. It recently came down to $50 from $99, so we’re guessing the price drop is due to the fact that LARK has decided not to sell the wristband any longer. They have taken a fitness coaching approach to work with other hardware companies, and in fact, their first client is Samsung for the Galaxy S5.
Nonetheless, if you’re looking for sleep help at a good value and would like some great feedback on your sleeping patterns, the LARK is a great tool. It’s also a more gentle way to wake up in the morning…and doesn’t disturb your husband.
With the LARK or without it, you owe it to yourself to create better sleep habits so you can function better and more efficiently throughout your days.
1. http://scienceofmom.com/2013/05/14/sleep-deprivation-the-dark-side-of-parenting/
2. http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-tools-tips/healthy-sleep-tips/page/0%2C1/
3. Mom sleeping credit: http://office.microsoft.com/
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