Blackout Blinds on Holiday

3
Aug
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I’ve been writing about blackout blinds for the home a lot, but I was thinking about holidays too. So, let me scare you for a moment – don’t worry, if you’re not a parent you’ll be immune!

You’ve flown to California for a two week holiday. In tow, a three-year-old and a one-year-old. It’s summer. After what feels like three days of flying with a change in Orlando, you get a cab to your hotel. You and your partner are exhausted as are the kids. You all flop into bed and the entire family instantly falls into a deep sleep around midnight local time. Around 5am, you’re awoken by a sound. It’s the one-year-old, wide awake in the sunny hotel room. This wakes the three-year-old, who is understandably cranky. Now you’re all awake and all cranky. And jet-lagged. And have foolishly planned a coach trip to the Mojave National Preserve that afternoon. Holiday Hell just arrived!

If we rewind to the night before, we can save these poor souls from certain doom. Instead of going to sleep straight away, you can spend five minutes fitting a travel blackout blind like the Go Anywhere travel blackout blind kit stocked on this very website! Now, their hotel room stays dark. The one-year-old sleeps until 8am along with everyone else. The trip to the Mojave is saved!

It’s such a simple thing, too. When fatigue sets in it’s easy to throw caution to the wind but anyone who has stayed in a hotel will notice the gossamer-fine curtains that barely cover the huge East facing windows. Just a tiny bit of forethought can save you a huge amount of stress. Well-rested children make for a good holiday, cranky sleep-deprived ones? Well…once you’ve been there, you’ll suffer a chill down your spine just thinking about it!

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Better sleep for toddlers

19
Jul
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I’ve written before about the biological importance of darkness in maintaining the health of your baby or toddler, and in regulating behaviour through better sleep patterns. I think there are some other more enigmatic reasons to use blackout curtains too, ones that only reveal themselves to parents sat pondering in the darkness during that midnight feed!

Your child’s room is, I would wager, a beautiful space. You’ve taken the time to arrange their furniture, hang sweet pictures on the walls for them to look at and placed their toys and books around the room with love and care. It’s not just for your peace of mind, it’s also to engage your child and make them feel safe and happy in that place. For all the good, there is of course the side effect that sometimes your child will want to play in their room when they should be asleep! Without blackout material keeping their room dark, that bookcase of books or chest of favourite toys is like the oasis in the desert of boredom; they can see it shimmering and they want to dive on in. In the summer months, or in a city or town with bright street lighting, it’s going to be hard to keep them in their beds or prevent them spotting a toy they want to play with at 3am. Blackout curtains mean you can essentially hide their toys in plain sight.

Another benefit to blacking out windows is that you can turn your child’s bed into a tiny island in the darkness. They’ll feel safe and secure wrapped up in their covers with just their nightlight and a teddy (or twenty) for company, instead of having a shaft of orange streetlight casting an eerie shadow from that otherwise innocent looking dolly sat near the window!

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Why You Should Keep Your Kids in the Dark

6
Jul
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Don’t worry! I mean it literally. OK maybe that doesn’t sound any better but it should, because darkness is important for children. They’re less able to cope with the many negative effects of bad sleep; effects that parents mitigate against with things like caffeine and pro-plus. Maybe we feel that sometimes we have no choice, but we’re old enough to cope emotionally with a bad night’s sleep now and then. But is a child? Probably not. It’s why I think using blackout blinds in your child’s room can make a real difference.

Children’s cell growth is happening at a rate we can scarcely imagine, and a 2010 study by Dr. Rachel Ben-Shlomo shows that the biological clock in our very cells is affected by unwanted light, meaning that cell-division is interrupted. Given how vital growth is at this stage of life, it’s no wonder kids sleep more than adults.

But wait, there’s more. As important as the physical growth is the emotional growth of your child. Kids who suffer from emotional troubles of their own will find it harder to form friendships and negotiate all the other tricky parts of growing up. Sleep studies have shown that when we are deprived of proper sleep, the region of the brain called the amygdala becomes more active, leading to more emotional reactions and less higher reasoning. To give you an idea of the effect this can have – this same pattern is witnessed in people who suffer from bipolar disorder! Sound familiar? If there’s one thing any parent can relate to its finding your children having incredibly changeable moods!

With blackout blinds we can eliminate one source of this trouble, and that’s sleep. Bipolar disorder is directly associated with a disruption of the biological clock. While your child is hopefully not bipolar, their sleep patterns may be. If they’re being woken up early, or their sleep patterns are being disrupted by street lighting, there is one simple solution and that’s this – keep your kids in the dark! Blackout blinds or blackout curtains in their room can make all the difference in regulating their sleep, and making for a happier, healthier child – both physically and emotionally.

Posted in Blackout blinds for the nursery, Toddler blackout blinds
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Good Sleep, Good Behaviour! Blackout Blinds in your toddler’s nursery can make the difference.

5
Jul
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Anyone with a toddler or three running around will know just how cranky a tired two-year old can get. Sometimes it’s hard to believe just how angry it’s possible for them to be, and it’s not something a parent can plan for. Naturally, if they’re going to have a bad night’s sleep, they “choose” the night before an important day like their own birthday party. One of the keys to good sleep is sleeping long enough. It sounds intuitive, but early mornings and street lighting conspire to interrupt sleep patterns. This is where blackout blinds come in.

Why is sleep so important anyway? And if it’s that important, why don’t babies know that?!

The problem is, nobody can really prove just why sleep is needed at all. If sleep is about rest, then we should be able to gain the same benefit by just sitting very still for several hours in the evening. I can’t speak for everyone of course, but that sounds like most of my weeknights anyway. It’s clearly more than just physical rest.

Some scientific studies lead to the theory that sleep is a time for the brain to organise and problem-solve. Both of those must be happening in a child’s brain almost non-stop! It’s no wonder they need eleven hours a night. The trouble is, most kids get less than that, especially in the spring and summer. Worse still, of course, those months are when they’re most active. Maintaining regular sleep is of huge benefit to your child’s wellbeing, their mental development and every parent’s life. Blackout material in your nursery can help to regulate your child’s sleep, and by extension their behaviour. A rested child is a happy child….and parent.

Are you using blackout blinds for your toddler and baby?

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Blackout Blinds – For Sleep and Sanity

23
Jun
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Gina Ford recommends blackout blinds for the nursery and we couldn’t agree more. Especially when it’s a blindingly bright summer day.

If you’ve ever watched daytime TV, and what at-home parent hasn’t, you might have seen a show called Everybody Loves Raymond. The lead actor, Ray Romano, is a stand-up comedian who does a very funny bit about his greatest fear as a parent – namely his child waking up at some unearthly hour! First the tiny squeak you hope is just a dream, then the crying, then even worse – Talking! Laughing! They’re wide awake and not even the milkman is up at about.

At first, it seems impossible. It’s still pretty dark, hardly any traffic, no birds. You dare not look at the clock. You sneak a peek. Yes, that’s right, your day is beginning before the last one really ended.

The secret is the Circadian rhythm, and it’s something we’re not born with, much to the chagrin of parents. Our cells know – they do most of their dividing and repairing at night, something to do with hiding from damaging ultraviolet rays apparently – but infant brains cannot comprehend the difference between sleep-time and play-time. Then, just as suddenly, they get it. It’s dark, and they sleep. It’s light, and they hop out of their bed and begin bouncing on yours. And here’s where the crossover catches parents unawares.

Fit blackout blinds in the nursery and the difference is immediate. Not only does it mean better daytime sleeps, but it means that brighter summer mornings no longer fill you with a sense of impending doom. The clocks can spring whichever way they want, in that nursery it is night-time until you say otherwise! In my experience, blackout blinds lead to happy well-rested babies, and sane parents!

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Bright days, exciting times!

18
May
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May is one of the busiest months of the year here at easyblinds, and we haven’t stood still for a moment!!  This week, on top of everything else, we are also busy getting ready for the Birmingham NEC Baby Show on Friday20th where the amazing Jo Tantum will be launching her version of our Go Anywhere portable blackout blind.  Jo’s techniques for helping babies to sleep beautifully are hugely successful and we are thrilled to bits that she has adopted one of our products to include in her portfolio.  The Jo Tantum Go Anywhere blackout is available at www.babysecretsltd.com and at the Baby Show on the Baby Secrets stand, C10.  Please do come and see us!

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Hello!

5
Apr
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There is so much going on this month at easyblinds that we have hardly stood still! Having all of the children on school holidays also makes it (ahem) lively and a tad noisy in the office – apologies if you telephoned and thought you might have called a playgroup by mistake!!

Our new website launched this month and we have competitions running on www.babyworld.co.uk  and www.littlestuff.co.uk , and another starting soon on www.babybudgeting.co.uk .  We are about to add some great new products too.  Jo Tantum, baby sleep expert, launches her Go Anywhere portable blackout blind – it has been awarded the Prima Baby Loves logo, and we are really pleased to add it to our range.  Jo has some amazing tips and methods for helping babies sleep beautifully and her website www.babysecretsltd.com is well worth a visit!  We will also be adding a limited edition SnoozeShade with gorgeous pink trim for taking baby out and about – bring on the sunshine!

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