Age that kids notice smoke alarms

[OrangeSunsets]

When my dd was little I could vacuum around her without her waking, smoke alarms didn’t wake her, noises in the street didn’t wake her. I could carry her from the car asleep and put her in her cot.

She’s now 9 yo and I accidentally burnt some toast tonight and the alarm went off. I wafted, shut the kitchen door then rushed up to reassure her. I found she was still fast asleep. Is that normal? The alarm is loud and jarring. Shouldn’t she wake? Is that weird?

I don’t live in the UK. She has been in bed for 5 hours...

No idea! My son is 6 and the same.
Wish I could sleep through anything!

The other night I set off our alarm by forgetting to shut the door and the steam came out from the shower and activated it.

Both my 10 year old and 2 year old slept through!

On the other hand the dog was found shaking under the bed

Isn’t it worrying? Surely the sound should wake them..?

There was a study a couple of years ago that suggested around 70% of children sleep through smoke alarms. It is actually split something like 60% of girls and 80% of boys.

They found that a female voice was much more effective in waking up a child than a loud noise.

I think it is somewhere between 9 and 12.

This should be more widely publicised. It's scary.

I know a group was looking in to alarms that sound a voice, saying something like 'the fire alarm is sounding, get out of bed'.

It was because children and teenagers (and in fact lots of people) do sleep through alarms.

I'm not sure if they are available to buy yet.

I read on mumsnet before that many kids don’t wake up for smoke alarms. I hadn’t really thought about it before but it’s true, my kids don’t tend to wake up if they go off

Um, surely it varies person to person? And also changes throughout your life?
I say this as someone who sleeps soundly - always had to be dragged out of bed for the fire alarms at night at school (old buildings with spider-plagued alarm system), home BURGLAR alarm aged about 14 that went off about midnight, and 3am alarm technician couldn’t get it off, only muffled it... I woke up at my normal time to a strange buzzing noise, and shattered family! Younger sibling and parents woke immediately, and couldn’t go back to sleep after it was muffled as still very loud.

But I find it easy to block out noise when I am awake as well.
If I’m reading, I can’t really hear what’s going on in the room unless I consciously stop reading to listen. Often read through the bells for end of break/lunch time at school without hearing them.
Humming/whistling colleagues? I rarely notice.
“That plane was very low!” I’m like, “What plane?”
I just focus on what I’m doing, and the voices in my head drown out my surroundings!

Maybe my dreams (vivid and full audio) drown out noises in the night?

Voices in your head MrsElf?