I am a crazy person about my kids’ sleep. Because if they sleep, they are happy, charming cherubs. If they don’t sleep, they are vicious, shrieking ghouls who make me seriously consider walking out on my family.

Therefore,  I do everything in my power to make sure they sleep for as long as possible (this chart is a good guide for how long your kids should sleep).

For me, this means turning their room into something that resembles a cross between a meth den / womb. 

You know how a lot of meth heads cover their windows with garbage bags because they are paranoid about the outside world? I, too, am paranoid of the outside world before 6 a.m.

Even though I wouldn’t put it past me to tape up some black garbage bags over the windows if I thought it would help my children sleep, I found a slight step up: These cheap, paper, black out shades on Amazon. They work just as well as a garbage bag (high praise!). I tapped ours beneath our white venetian blinds. You can cut them to size to fit any window. Easy!

Do they look great? No. No they do not.  They are basically pleated, waxed, black construction paper.  They aren’t on a pulley system so you can’t pull them up when it’s finally time to get on with your day; I have to shove them up behind the blinds to let sunshine in. Not classy but workable.

Friends, we have an extra set of these magical blinds we travel with and tape up in rooms we’re staying in.  

Sure, that’s weird. But I DO NOT WANT TO WAKE UP BEFORE 6 AM TO DEAL WITH MY CHILDREN. Do the people we’re visiting want to wake up before 6 a.m. to deal with said noisy (and magical!) children? They do not.

I also have several of these DOHM sound machines we have in our room and the kids’ room. They are terrific noise blockers and almost indestructible. Ours has sat in the middle of the kids’ room for close to 6 years and we constantly step on it, kick it, throw crap on it and it’s beautiful whirring noise keeps going. It’s worth the cost because it muffles clanking pipes and midnight trips to the bathroom and our dog jumping off the bed in the morning, etc.

This is key because any errant sound in the morning — and I mean any — immediately wakes up my youngest. It’s like she’s waiting for a noise to wake her up so we can all hang out together and enjoy life (aka: the worst).

If you need scientific reasoning behind making your child’s room dark and womb-like besides my meanderings on the topic, this article should help.

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