Black Out Curtains

Some kids have no problem sleeping when it’s light in their room. Others won’t close their eyes if there’s even a little bit of light in the room. If you’ve got a child that falls in the second group (or you fall in the second group), you should look at getting some blackout curtains for the room you’d like to make dark.

Teaching children to sleep when there’s a little bit of light in the room is probably the best thing that you can do. Helping kids learn to sleep while it’s light in the room will help you when you’re not at home, or if you need the child to sleep in another room for whatever the reason may be. Similarly, if you take your kids camping or want them to sleepover at someone’s house, knowing how to sleep with a little light in the room will greatly benefit them.

I can actually sleep in a completely bright room - I’ll often fall asleep at night with our lights on in our bedroom. I have no issue being able to fall asleep regardless of what the light issue is in the room. However, I generally sleep better when it’s dark in the room. Falling asleep isn’t a problem, but if I wake up at night, it’s much easier to go back to sleep if it’s dark outside.

Regardless, some people simply need it dark in the room to sleep. If this is the case for you, then you should pick up a pair of black out curtains. Black out curtains are easy to install, and can be found for reasonable prices as well. They also generally look the best out of the options that are available to darken a room (that may be a personal preference though).

There are other options to try to keep the light out of a room beyond black out curtains. You can go full on black trash bags and tape to hold them up, but that generally looks pretty terrible. Another option is shades that will black out the light. These actually can look really good, but you’re going to pay a fairly high price to get ones that will actually block the light out. Also, you’ll usually struggle keeping the light from coming through the sides.

Black out curtains aren’t perfect either. They also will let light come in through the sides of the curtains, and keeping them closed can sometimes pose a challenge. However, they’re generally the cheapest option (assuming you don’t want a super nice curtain rod to hang them on), and they’re fairly easy to install.

Figure out which curtains you want, but generally you’ll want a dark color as they will hold the light out of the room better. Hanging them is like hanging any other curtains - harder than you want it to be. You’ll need a drill in order to hang them, but shouldn’t need anything else except a lot of patience.

If you need an option for keeping your rooms dark when it’s still light outside, find some basic dark out curtains, and hang them. You may find that they help you and your kids.