What's wrong with night lights

[schmee]

On another thread a couple of posters mentioned that night lights cause all sorts of problems. Didn't want to hijack so asking the question here. What problems do they cause does anyone know, and what suggestions do people have about how to get kids to sleep in the dark...

chipmonkey - is that causation or correlation, though?

Dd1 used to sleep in the dark, until we emigrated when she was almost 3. We stayed at dh's parent's & just because it was a different house, she needed some light. Night light was perfect! She now has one that is barely there & if we turn it off before we go to bed, it makes no difference to her, she just needs it to drop off. It's more a security thing now.

Dd2 sleeps with nothing.

Thanks guys - the thread that I picked this up from also said that there was some link to nightime bedwetting too, but I would rather keep the pull ups for now than have my boys scared in the dark.

One of those things I thought couldn't possibly do any harm..

Well, I really don't like to scaremonger, but you did ask. The Breakthrough breast cancer research questionnaire asks you for details of how dark a room you sleep in - there's a suggestion that sleep in dark rooms gives you optimum production of melatonin which has implications for all sorts of things, including obesity and cancer (especially breast cancer) prevention. If Breakthrough are asking about it them presumably it's not a completely loopy theory, though it's by no means proven.

That said, I leave the landing light on in my house and the DCs' doors open.

seeker bit of both! Parents who read will likely have children who read.

I did examine identical twins once who were indistinguishable apart from their spectacle prescriptions. One was twice as myopic as the other When asked about reading they both agreed that the more myopic girl did lots more reading than her sister.

Anecdote rather than evidence but there is a general shortage of identical twins in my patient base so hard to gather evidence!

I wish I could find the site - some national bedwetting site that was linked to some time ago - it had the info on that.

Nightlights are supposed to affect the production of melatonin which can lead to other problems.

chipmonkey, that's interesting. I was scared of the dark and had a little lamp on all night. In practice I used it to (secretly) read by instead of sleeping. I am short sighted (although less so than my parents). That would be my main worry.

chipmonkey - there's also the angle that a shortssighted child is perhaps more likely not to want to do so many sporty things ad might therefore read more?

jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/jc.2010-2098v1 This is a study about light use before bedtime - although it also mentions 50% melatonin drop with nightlight use.

There's still no consensus about melatonin's full range of effects, but it is known to play a role in cell protection and survival mechanisms, and stimulate the expression of antioxidant and detoxification genes.

So am guessing a 50% drop in melatonin production every night is a very very bad thing. My DD has used a nightlight for about a year since starting to have nightmares, will definitely start weaning her off it starting tonight.

Interesting about the melatonin angle. I wonder how living somewhere very far north where they have midnight sun would work, then. I mean, sure, blackout blinds, but still lots of hours of daylight!

It's to do with circadian rhythms, isn't it? I had heard about the links about melatonin production and poor metabolism and even cancer, but I wasn't aware that these had been proven to everyone's satisfaction.

I'm cosleeping with my 5 week old and we have the bedside lamp on a dimmer, because otherwise I'm paranoid about his position during the night, and it also helps to latch him on. But he often protests if I turn the light totally off, which worries me, because clearly I'm setting him up to need light at night to sleep by. And I'm desperate to sleep in the pitch dark again myself!

ReshapeWhileDamp - that's exactly the situation I was in with my son. We co-slept, and it was for my peace of mind that the beside lamp was kept on at its dimmest setting, as I was paranoid I wouldn't be able to monitor DS' position or that I'd suddenly wake up confused and panicky, not knowing where he was (which happened a couple of times, anyway!)

He's nearly a year old now and has got used to there being dim nightlight. I'm intending to get him used to a dark room soon, however.

Tee - I was wondering about that too.

Most children don't become shortsighted until they are at least 11 or 12 though, seeker. There are some younger ones but they are in a tiny minority.