The 4 Ways I Make My Baby's Room DARK for Naps
Darken your child's room with blackout blinds or curtains, window film or an eye mask. You can uphold a lighter night sleep routine for your child by reducing screen time.
How to make a bedroom darker
Utilize Light-Blocking Shades: Combining light-blocking shades with other window treatments helps create a dark and peaceful environment. These shades, along with curtains or blinds, can make a room pitch black, enhancing sleep quality.
Velcro could be your best friend! If you have true blackout curtains but light sneaks out the sides, a hack that will allow you to keep those curtains yet still achieve total darkness is attaching Velcro to the sides of the curtains and to the window frame. Ta da, no more light seeping through!
As well as installing blackout blinds, you can put up netting and curtains to block out any escaping light further. Putting up netting also gives you a bit more privacy from outsiders in your baby's room, which is ideal if you live in a busy area.
What is the 3-2-1 bedroom method? This is a simpler version that focuses on the evening wind-down: stop eating heavy meals and drinking alcohol 3 hours before bed, finish work and anything mentally stimulating 2 hours before, and switch off screens an hour before sleep.
What is the cheapest way to block out sunlight? The most budget-friendly method for blocking sunlight is often DIY. You can use materials like cardboard or aluminum foil cut to fit your window panes. While not the most aesthetically pleasing, they are highly effective for total darkness.
Choose window furnishing that can be lined with blockout lining – curtains, roman blinds and roller blinds are best for this. Honeycomb blinds come in a blockout fabric and shutters can also close up nice and tight to block out light. You can also double up on window furnishings - consider having a blind and curtains.
Layering Blinds with Curtains in bedrooms can provide additional depth and shading to your space. For plain and textured blinds, we recommend pairing these with a patterned Blackout Curtain or a Thermal Curtain for an elegant look, plus, they're perfect for street-facing windows to reduce light entering your room.
Temporary Blackout Methods: Exploring Quick and Effective Solutions for Darkening Windows
There's an interior design technique that keeps popping up in my news feed: The 3-4-5 Method. Coined by New York City designer Nancy Cavaliere, the process involves using three patterns, four period styles, and five colors or textures in each room.
If you want a small room to feel more open, airy, and spacious, choose light-reflective colors like off-white, pale blue, taupe, or soft greens. These bright, breezy tones visually expand a room by bouncing light around.
10 hours before bed: No more caffeine. 3 hours before bed: No more food or alcohol. 2 hours before bed: No more work. 1 hour before bed: No more screen time (shut off all phones, TVs and computers).
A feature wall is a great way to add a bit of colour and personality to the room. When choosing your feature wall colour, think about your space as a whole and find the best focal point. Tip: Avoid choosing a wall with windows that give the room natural light - these two focal points may clash.
Depending on your preferences, you can paint your walls a charcoal gray, an earthy brown or any other number of darker paint colors. If you like your white walls, furnish your room with non-reflective décor. Pick dark-colored sofas or throw pillows, dark wood floors and other accents that will absorb light.
Three-point lighting is a fundamental lighting technique widely used in photography, film, and video production to illuminate a subject effectively. The 3-point lighting setup utilizes three individual light sources positioned at specific angles to create a balanced, visually appealing scene.
Use Dimmer Switches
If you want to make your lights less bright, but you don't want to just turn them off, try to find a dimmer switch. These are devices that fit over the light switch in any given room, and they let you control the brightness of your lights.
The 5–7 Lighting Rule suggests that every room should ideally have between five to seven different light sources. Why? Because a single overhead light doesn't do justice to the layers and textures of a well-designed space. By combining multiple fixtures, you enhance not only brightness but also atmosphere.
Blackout panels made from fabric or foam board can be cut to fit snugly inside the window frame. They're a simple and effective way to block out light from windows without curtains, especially when you want darkness on demand.
This is because aluminum foil has excellent reflective properties, which means it can reflect sunlight and its related heat out of your home. When sunlight shines on windows covered with aluminum foil, the foil reflects most of the solar radiation, preventing it from entering the room.
Three hours before sleep: No more meals or heavy foods. Digestion requires energy, and eating right before bed can keep you awake. Aim to finish your last meal at least three hours before you plan to hit the sack. This gives your body ample time to digest and ensures you won't be awake from indigestion or heartburn.
Overloading your bedroom with furniture is a common bedroom layout mistake that can make even the most spacious rooms feel cramped and cluttered. Less is more when it comes to bedroom furniture.
In his piece, he revealed that through his years of research, he's found that rumination is the biggest thing that causes poor sleep. He says that being worried about something at night has affected his own ability to fall asleep.