Amanda Peet Dishes on Frankie's Bedtime Routine

That sounds like something similar that my aunt and uncle did for my cousins when they were little. (they are now 12 and 13) They wake up at 7 AM when they are on vacation because it is too light out and the 13 year old can’t sleep with ANY light in the room. I think it is a bit extreme, children should learn to sleep in a bit of light and even with a bit of noise. It seems like an awful lot of work to keep the room dark, just teach the child to continue sleeping even if the sun is up. You can have regular curtains so it isn’t extremely bright in the room, but it doesn’t need to be pitched black. I suppose my opinion comes from seeing how my cousins are unable to sleep well in any other place but their own rooms whereas I can usually sleep just about anywhere and get a good nights rest.

Well whatever works! 🙂

I find the darker shades help cue my DS that it is time to go to sleep (even at the mid-day nap), but he doesn’t need it to stay asleep.

my mil and my pediatricians have always recommended against such things… (as has every book I’ve ever read)… kids need to learn to sleep. Yes, darkness helps at night, but they need to be used to some light and noise.

I’m the firstborn but I’m afraid of total darkness! I need a little light in the room to sleep. Plus my room has always been near a main road so I’m used to sleeping through traffic noise. On the contrary my younger sister hates any light when she’s sleeping, which was always fun when we shared a room…

I have to say that light makes me wake up too, and that I have trouble sleeping when it’s not dark in a room, and I grew up with midnight sun in the summer! Needless to say, I don’t sleep well in summer, on the other hand,I’ve got terrible trouble waking up in winter when it’s dark. I was in my twenties first time I slept in a room with a proper black out curtain and I have never sleept so good in the summer as that night! So I doubt my parents did anything to prevent me from learning how to sleep anywhere. Oddly enough, I have o problem napping in bright places, as long as they are noicy!

My 5 year old actually prefers to go to sleep with music on. Something that he picked up in preschool where they played soft music at naptimes. He sleeps with a low LED nightlight and hates total darkness. We taught him to sleep when its time to sleep. Regardless of noise or light. This makes life much easier for parents who travel frequently. He knows that we don’t get up before 7am on a weekend or vacation day, regardless of the sunrise or time change when we’re traveling. We always have a clock handy so that he knows if “its time” to get up or if its still too early. Stopped that endless 6am Sunday morning routine — “Mooooooom? Is it time to get up yet?”. When we attended a late evening wedding recently, that clock hit 9pm and the boy zonked on some chairs, music, laughter, talking, and all the rest buzzing around him. Forcing sleep through total darkness (or any other means) is a recipe for disaster. In my opinion.

I was a good sleeper as a kid. Didn’t matter where or if there was noise or light, but then sometime in my 30s, I changed. Now I cannot sleep unless the room is pitch black, silent and cold.

Everyone is different and probably goes through different stages. I think parents should do whatever they need to do at each stage.

I love it!!! My little one’s room is like that too! Blinds down, covered by black poster-board cut to fit the window, and then covered by black curtains. Nothing gets through!

Is good to teach kid to sleep with noise or light, but unfortunately some parents don’t do that.

I have been living in the US for 9 years, originally born in England. I totally agree with Maggie above. Americans don’t do the whole curtain and shade thing. Where did the old tradition go of closing down your house at night. It used to be so romantic and homely. It doesn’t really matter if its dark or light in a house. Its the routine and the family values that you share with your kids. If you are always getting ready for the night, and you put them to bed at the same time every night after a nightime routine, they go to sleep, and don’t wake up till the morning. The actual problem is that one or both parents are out at night, while the kids are getting ready to go to sleep. It’s unsettling for them.

I totally agree with the blackout thing. Our firstborn would wake up every morning at 6 am until we got blackout curtains and then she would sleep until 7:30 or so. They don’t totally blackout because some light still leaks around the side (I’m not into duct tape!) but it dims the room enough for a nap and to keep the morning sun out. We would take the curtains on trips with us because it is hard enough to get a young one to sleep in a strange place without it being a totally different environment. Now both my kids sleep with a night-light anyway, but we still use the curtains to help dim the room on sunny summer evenings with a 7:30 bedtime. We have also used a white noise maker for both kids because otherwise our old creaky house and the phone and the doorbell would wake them up all the time. After visiting someone many years ago whose young child slept very poorly in a silent room and who made the entire household tiptoe around when she was asleep (in a room with the door open and not a single door that could close in the public rooms of the house so every sound from the kitchen or TV room echoed up the stairs!) I vowed that I would not put life on hold just because the baby was asleep and decided that white noise was the way to go. It has worked like a charm.