How to Make a Baby's Room Dark for Sleep

Hey, today I have a fun experiment for you. It's not going to be like a science lesson experiment. It's going to be way more fun. All right, One of the girls, my team has a six month old and she noticed that he kept waking earlier and earlier because the light was sneaking in his room. And she was like talking about different options. She was going to try to block out that light. And I was like, wait, before you do it, will you record it all? Because I think our community really will love it. So today we're gonna kind of experiment different options and how it worked in her baby's room and and what the end result was. So let's check it out.

So this is his nursery. How it is right now. I'll show you that. The way we have it blocks out all of the light. So I turned off the light and no sunshine is creeping in. So we have some regular blackout curtains just on a normal curtain rod. Then we got black flat sheets from Walmart and just folded them and then tacked them up into the corners over his blinds. And that has really blocked out all the light. And it's a really cheap solution because the curtains or the sheets are only like $6 from Walmart.

So this really did the job. It blocked out all the light. And Caden, her little six month old, started sleeping later. But Meilyn just had one complaint. Yeah, she just wanted light to come in. Like when Caden wasn't sleeping in the nursery, she really enjoyed the sunlight coming in. So we kind of talked through some options, but as is with any nursery, there's some obstacles. So check out some of these obstacles that we needed to overcome.

I felt like I wanted to be able to open up the blind sometimes and let light in. And that solution isn't very easy to do that because we'd have to take down the curtain or take down the sheets. Every time we wanted to let light in, I took down the sheets. As you can see, one of the hard parts about his room is there's two windows and one of them sits back farther from the wall like it has a big windowsill. So I'm going to try a couple different solutions.

Okay, so one of the options are these things from Amazon. It's kind of like a thick sheet, but they have suction cups on them.

See this?

And so instead of tacking it up like she did with the sheet, they would suction cup onto our window so that it would be easier to get on and off. So let's see how that works. Okay, so she got those up now she's going to do the hand test. This is the test that I teach you, that if your baby's struggling with early morning wakings or short naps, this is the test to do. You go in their room, you turn off all the lights and you check. Can you see your hand? And if so, what else can we do to block out the light? So let's see if this passed the hand test.

Okay, I got those travel curtains up, so I'm going to try the hand test again.

It was dark. Did you see that? You couldn't see Malin's hand, so it definitely did the job. Now, there was a little bit of light around the edges. Did you notice that? So let's have her pull the curtains and see what it looks like. It's probably fine without it, but there was a little light. So let's pull the curtains and see.

What it looks like. Okay. I have the suction cup ones up, so I'm gonna try closing the blinds and the curtains and then see how dark that makes it.

Okay, so you can see. Those definitely worked. But keep in mind, Meilyn's whole purpose in trying to find something new is she enjoyed the sunlight coming in when Caden was awake. So those would work. She would just have to suction them up, you know, to the window before each nap and before bedtime, which I guess she could do, but it's a lot of work. She's a mom of three. She's working from home. You know, maybe not the best option. So let's keep looking for some other options for her.

So I bought some more heavy duty blackout curtains and a specific blackout curtain rod that kind of curves around to make it so the curtains can lay flatter to the wall. And. And I've heard that you should hang it higher on the ceiling or closer to the ceiling, and then it will block out more light above the window. So I'm going to try that today. Okay. Now we're going to see if this passes the hand test. It's letting in a little bit of light at the ceiling, but it might still be dark enough.

Okay, so these seem to work for Melyn. She can block out the light when she wants to, yet open the curtains and let in sunlight when she wants. That also, the real test the next morning for Kaden. Let's see how that goes.

Look who slept until 7 this morning. Good morning, buddy. Okay, to wrap it all up.

If your baby is doing well and it's not pitch dark in your baby's room, it's okay. You don't have to make it that way. This is only if you're struggling with early morning wakings or short naps. Blocking out that light can really be helpful. What I wanted you to see is there are so many options when it comes to blocking out the light. Cheap black sheets from Walmart will do the job. I used paper blinds that you could cut. I'll link those for you. But you also saw those suction cup blackout blinds. Those work and Malin will love those if she travels because they're so nice. They just pack up in your suitcase and they can stick up there. But she really loved the blackout blinds with the curved rod that seemed to work good because she could allow light to come in if light shining up above was a problem. She could add in her sheets or she could add in those section cup lines if she needed them. What I want you to see is there's so many options so I hope this was helpful.