Sleep Matters: Can Darkness Help Your Child Sleep?
Adopt a ‘lights out’ approach at home and ensure better rest for the whole family.
Today we’re embracing the dark side, even if it is just during our sleeping hours. The truth is, there are so many benefits to sleeping in a dark room that can influence your family’s wellbeing. Here we share some tips and useful information to help you create a dark sanctuary at home for baby and yourselves and promote improved sleep for the entire family.
Why darkness matters for your child’s sleep
During the day, light often infiltrates our homes and lives. The presence of light helps to enhance our mood, productivity and alertness when we need it most. At night, however, our bodies naturally prepare for rest as we wind down and eventually switch off to sleep. Light can trigger our brains to stay awake or remain alert when it is time to sleep. Light can also work against our body’s natural urge to rest and may disturb the rhythms that regulate our sleeping patterns.
This is true for adults and children alike. Darkness at bedtime is often a cue for your little one to settle down for sleep. Your child’s bedtime routine has a huge role to play in sending the right signals to your baby to prepare for rest each night. A dark room can most certainly help this process and may further ensure better quality and quantity of deep sleep each night.
How does a dark room help your baby?
From around the age of two to three months, our little ones begin to develop an internal clock or circadian rhythm which will help them regulate their daily cycles of sleep and wake, hunger, body temperature and melatonin levels in the blood.
When these cycles are interrupted, your child may begin to feel out of sync and struggle to achieve optimal rest. For babies who are already battling to adjust to a new way of life outside of the womb, light at the wrong times may become an added distraction that can keep your child awake and alert for hours after bedtime.
Total darkness helps to combat some of these problems. In fact, a dark room is often comforting to an infant who is more likely to fall back to sleep in a dark space after waking up during the night.
During the day, dark rooms can also help to lengthen naps and aid your little one towards improved sleep. How so? Well, darkness cues the release of melatonin or the ‘sleep hormone’ into our bloodstream, which helps us settle down, feel drowsy and sleep well at night. While light can hinder the release of melatonin, darkness is a natural way to cue the brain that it is time for rest.
How do you make your child’s room dark?
Stick to a lights-out approach. Purposefully create a dark space at night for your child to achieve good quality sleep. Avoid screens or television in or near their bedrooms. This may cause unnecessary distractions that can disrupt their (and your) sleep cycles.
Invest in block-out curtains or blinds. These versatile window treatments can help to ensure total darkness in your child’s bedroom each night. Regardless of the season, or whether the sun sets or rises earlier than usual, block-out curtains ensure that you can create a dark and comforting space at any hour. This is also greatly beneficial on those summer mornings when the sun’s rays infiltrate our homes at earlier hours each morning. In a dark room with block-out curtains, your little one may benefit with a few extra hours of sleep each morning.
Don’t forget about daytime naps. You can also make full use of block-out window treatments during the day to improve your child’s daytime naps. The darkness may be a welcome signal that it is time to rest.
Add liners to existing curtains. If you’ve already decorated the nursery, you may be able to keep your existing drapes and simply invest in liners which you can sew in or hang on your curtain hooks to ensure a darker room.
Encourage a calm, stimulation-free zone. Keep distractions and illumination to a minimum, especially when you are sleeping training your children. Create a bedtime routine that will enhance a tranquil setting before bed and will help them to doze off with ease.
Should you get a night light? If your little one is still feeding at night, or your toddler needs to get up for a nightly trip to the bathroom, it may be a good idea to invest in a low wattage bulb for added light at night. Studies suggest that red light is a great choice at night as it carries a low color temperature that will not disrupt your little one’s sleep clock. Choose a natural red light in the evenings to ease your family into sleep. Research also indicates that exposure to red light before bed helps to release more melatonin than conventional blue light from technological screens. Remember, if choosing a night light, opt for something subtle to help you see what you’re doing without it completely rousing your little one.