You may also need to add painter ' s tape around the edges of the blackout shades to prevent any light leakage. Depressingly ugly but remarkably effective! You can also do what I did with my oldest, and tape up black garbage bags over the windows. Your local hardware store can sell you inexpensive stick-on shades that you can try before you invest in a more permanent solution.

You will likely need blackout shades to achieve this level of darkness. You should not be able to see your hand in front of your face. The best way to sleep, at all ages, is in total darkness. When you get her caught up on her sleep debt, you will both see this.)

(And by the way, separation anxiety is perfectly normal and is not a reason to keep your tired child up, even if is what she thinks she wants. Adding a night light will only make things worse in that she ' ll have an even harder time falling asleep. If she cries at bedtime, it´ s because she doesn ' t want to separate from you, or because she is overtired, not because she 's scared of the dark. Darkness cues the body to release the hormone melatonin, which makes us sleepy.įor this reason, putting a night light in your baby 's room is hurting her sleep without any benefit. We want to send the opposite message at bedtime and nap time, that it´s time to sleep. Light signals the brain that it´s time to be awake. Before that time, their brains simply don't have the developmental maturity to imagine scary monsters under the bed. Putting a night light in a baby ' s room is a perfect example of this.Ĭhildren don't develop a fear of the dark before age 2-3. And sometimes those stories can seriously undermine our families' needs. As parents, we – with the best of intentions – tell ourselves a lot of stories about our children.

Night light turns on in the dark