3 Reasons to Use a Night Light
for your Baby and Toddler

A night light in the baby room helps your baby or toddler sleep in three different ways:

• Reassuring in the dark, especially in baby separation anxiety phases


• Minimal arousal at night awakenings - for baby and you


• Use a timed light to help your early bird toddler sleep longer

How to choose your night light for the baby room?

1. It must be so dim that you don't see it through your eye lids when your eyes are closed


2. It must be bright enough so you can tend to baby at night (for feeding, changing, comforting, ...) without switching on additional light.

When checking the brightness of your light: remember that light will always seem very dim during the day or with other lights on.

But at night, when you've been in the dark and/or sleeping, that same light will appear much brighter. It's the 'night time' feel that you want to judge by.

Reason 1: Reassuring in the dark

Whether it's a newborn baby, a toddler or a bigger child: there is good chance she will not feel safe in a pitch dark room.

A soft night light is reassuring and helps make your baby feel safer.

Feeling safe and secure is one of the basic 'conditions' to be able to sleep - to put it boldly, imagine trying to sleep in a room where you feel threatened by gangsters ...

Choose a fun light, with decorations she likes, or one that emits soft glowy lights.

The Cloud b Twilight Constellation Turtle is loved by many (!) parents and babies - but see below if you're looking for a simpler option.

And of course, not all babies need a light ...

For my own children, a night light only started to seem important from around 4-6 months old. Especially my oldest son, who slept really well in those first months, was happy in a pitch dark room. But after the first half year, the light quickly became rEAlly important ...

In any case, whenever your child seems to sleep poorly and you think she may not feel safe - like during a baby separation anxiety phase : a night light often does the trick.

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Reason 2: No-fuss night awakenings

One key to help your baby sleep through the night, is to keep night awakenings as "low profile" as possible.

That means you make them boring, interact as little as possible and ... keep lights dim. A plugged light, similar to the Safety 1st Nightlight in the picture is the most practical option.

Extra (bright) light at night has two effects:

• Baby wakes up completely: this makes it more difficult to go back to sleep


• Baby's body takes the light as a 'wake-up signal', also called "PLAY TIME!": again more difficult to go back to sleep

So a gentle, dim light that is on all night is ideal - no need to switch on anything extra.

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Reason 3: Avoid early bird toddler awakenings

One of the most typical toddler sleep problems is waking up early in the morning.  A timed light or a toddler alarm clock, like the Kid'Sleep in the picture can help.

You know, those early hours where you would give anything to get that extra half hour sleep? And be able to sleep till at least 7am ...

The trick to get to this is easy to set up, see the toddler alarm clock page for full details and a Top 3 review (including a home made toddler clock).

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