We bought this light in the autumn, when our toddler began to object to it being dark at bedtime. (By 'object to', I obviously mean 'have screaming tantrum about'.) During the summer, he had been happy to go to bed because he could play with toys and look at books until he was ready to lie down, but once it starting getting dark earlier he started making a terrible fuss every night. He was just getting to that age where children want to get their own way all the time and clearly resented being told when to go to sleep. Thankfully, I found this light and it cracked the problem almost immediately.

The light is arch-shaped, with a rounded top of frosted white plastic and a base of opaque white plastic with two metal buttons on it which are touch-sensitive. It is mains-operated.

The lower button is the on/off switch and dimmer; you touch the button briefly to turn the light on or off, or hold your finger to it when the light is on to dim or brighten it. It has a clever feature where, if you previously dimmed the light, when you touch it again it will brighten it. This is handy if, for example, you are dimming the light but go a little too far; you can let go and then when you touch it again, it will brighten rather than having to go to the dimmest setting and then back up again (hopefully that makes sense. It's simple to do but really quite complicated to explain!).

The top button is the important one in terms of this light's main feature. Touch this button briefly, and the light will gradually get dimmer over a period of 15 minutes and then turn itself off. It will do this from any setting, it doesn't shorten the time if the light is not on its brightest setting to start with.

This was exactly what he needed; a short wind-down period - after story time and after whichever of us had drawn the short straw that evening had left the room (I'm kidding. I love The Gruffalo. Really.) - in which to potter about in his cot and lie down in his own time. Now that the light has become part of the bedtime routine, he doesn't seem need this so much and we just dim the light and leave it on.

It's a very warm light, which is perfect for a night light, and the settings are just about right. The brightest setting is perfectly adequate to read by and the dimmest gives out just enough light to reassure without disturbing sleep.

The only improvement I could think of would be to have a function which dims the light gradually to its lowest setting, rather than switching it off, as some children would respond well to the dimmer but prefer to have a night light on all night. I would definitely use this setting if it had it. As it is, we are now using it as a standard night light, and it works very well.

The light is not cheap - it costs around £20 from Amazon or John Lewis, and some other online retailers as well. However, given the hour-long howling tantrums we were enduring every night before we bought it, I could have paid double that and I'd still have thought I'd got a bargain. Definitely recommended.