If you’d rather read than watch, here’s a transcription of the video…

This week’s question comes from Sue. She writes:

“I’d like to know your thoughts on light in the bedroom. My grandson has a bright light on and he wakes up often. Is there any connection?”

Well that’s a great question Sue, and I do hear this quite a bit from parents wondering about how much light is too much… and should there be any light at all?

Most babies tend to be a lot like adults in that we like to have a very dark room when we sleep. In fact, there’s been some studies that even the low light of your alarm clock can be disruptive to your nighttime sleep. So as an adult if you’re having any kind of insomnia issues, the recommendation is usually to eliminate all light sources, so turn your clock to the wall, even covering the clock with something heavy to keep out any sort of light source.

So my recommendation, my rule of thumb on light, is don’t offer any… especially to an infant. If you need to see the baby when you go in, you can turn on the hall light or turn on a lamp for feeding time if needed, but otherwise it should be as dark as you yourself would prefer it to be in the night.

People often ask me about nightlights, and again, my rule of thumb with that is to save them until there’s a time in your child’s life where it might be a solution to a problem. For example, I can remember all three of my children at some point in the toddler years, usually around the third birthday, they would start expressing some fear of the dark or nightmares or things like that. And so a nightlight can be a great solution to that problem. A little bit of light in the room can just make things look just a little less scary and even just leaving on a hall light slightly and leaving the door ajar can be comforting to a toddler.

So that’s my thoughts on light. Save it until you need it and just make sure that the room is dark and comfortable for your baby.

So thanks for your question Sue. Sleep well!