As soon as you have a baby you realise just how crucial it is to ensure your baby's nursery is completely blackout out. As a qualified infant sleep expert it's the number one suggestion I make if you have a baby who is rising early in the morning, or they are struggling to have long naps in their room during the day.
Below are my absolute top suggestions for all budgets when it comes to keeping your baby's room dark.
These blinds are a cost effective way of completely blacking out your child's bedroom. It is simply a huge piece of blackout material alongside heavy duty rolls of velcro for you to cut to your own windows size.
Pros
These can fit precisely to your windows size
These stick directly to the window frame so it's less likely to let light through
It is a white fabric, which means it's less likely to overheat your window pane
It's really inexpensive
Cons
It's not particularly aesthetic - is quite an ugly solution
The velcro can sometimes fall off because the fabric is quite heavy
You have to literally stick the velcro tape to your window frames which can damage the frame if you have timber or painted window frames
Tips
The instructions tell you to wait 24 hours between sticking the velcro to your window frame and sticking up the fabric. Make sure you follow this direction, or they will end up like mine did when they fell down endlessly.
Make sure the frame is clean before sticking the velcro so it's less likely to fall off
If you have a particularly large window, it may be more effective to cut fabric for each individual window pane, otherwise the fabric will be too heavy to stay up effectively
You might want to try something different to velcro to stick the fabric up. You could try magnetic strips glued to the window frame instead
Formerly known as the Gro-Anywhere blind, this has now been taken over by Tommee Tipee. This blind is great because it uses suction cups so is completely portable - so you can take it on holiday, to the grandparents. Anywhere.
Pros
Completely portable - can be taken from room to room because it requires no sticking or drilling
It's really cheap
Cons
It doesn't block all the light - you have to be a master at using the bits of velcro to fold the blind to size and make sure the suction pads are flush against the window for it to be most effective
It's not a perfect solution on its own. I would still recommend using curtains or another blinds in addition to this
Be warned not to leave on for too long in the day in the bright sun - it can overheat your window.