Baby Shusher Sleep Miracle

"5.0 out of 5 stars" - *edit* my sis said she used this for about a month and it just stopped working. She replaced the batteries and still nothing. Hoping we can get a replacement one. It worked GREAT up until it crapping out though. I still think it's a great buy, just stinks that it doesn't work anymore.I bought this for my sis, who just had her first baby last week. I bought it solely based on a blogger that I follow who said and I quote "we don't go anywhere without it"...that's all I needed to hear to buy it. They've had it for 4 days and it's always wherever the baby is. They said it calms my nephew down when they change his diaper (pre-Shusher he would get fussy). It helps him sleep and just provides great white noise. It's ridiculously easy to use. Three notches are for 30 min, 15 min and off, it's basically goof-proof. The price seemed a little high for it just shooshing but I babysit and shooshing with your own mouth gets tiring after 10 or 15+ min and my mouth starts to go numb, plus you can't talk, so this is definitely gets an A+ just for that alone. They haven't had it long enough to give feedback on the battery life, but I think it takes batteries, and you can get them at the dollar store, so I don't foresee that being an issue. I'm honestly debating getting one for myself, to take with me when I babysit, for my box of tricks. I also love this because it's portable, the other huge plus, most kids I sit for have sound machines, which are great, but they stay plugged into the wall and don't get moved around, this is light and easy to toss in a bag or place next to the car seat on a car ride.

"1.0 out of 5 stars" - This has been such a frustrating product to use. The concept is brilliant - if your baby responds to "shusing," he/she will very likely respond to this product. The sound is remarkably accurate to the sound I make when soothing our baby, and she responds to it well. If your baby doesn't respond to shushing, this isn't going to work for you.The frustration comes from the utterly horrible design:1. The size - it's about the size of a can of soda. This is a simple machine and I know how big an iPod Shuffle and small Bluetooth speaker would be, and there's no reason this can't be smaller.2. INABILITY TO USE ONE-HANDED. This drives me insane. Think of the situation in which this will be used - you're holding your screaming child, probably getting a little desperate, and now you have to figure out how to use this stupid thing with one hand, or set down the kid. There are only two controls - one for volume, and one for on/off (which includes two timer settings). Both are controlled by twisting. There is no reason the controls couldn't be buttons to allow you to turn it on/off with one hand.3. You can't set it down. The only flat surface is the bottom, which is also the speaker... The designer should flat out be slapped for this. So you set it down the only way it's stable, and you can't hear it. Or you set it down on its side, and it rolls anywhere but where you want it to be. Laughably poor design.4. The silly lanyard is useless. Make it a clip so I can affix it to the sleeve of my shirt. Again, did they even ask a parent how this thing might be used in real life?Don't buy it. Yet. Wait six months until an intelligent product designer addresses these issues, and then buy what will be an amazing tool for soothing a fussy baby.