Impossible to have a dark room for sleeping

[HH171222]

Hi. I need any tips which I know will be difficult. I currently live in an apartment and waiting for a house to move in to.

Quick back story My baby is waking up too much at night and I realised that I'm not following wake windows properly. Today is the first day ill be putting my 5 month old to bed early ( between 730 and 8 which is when he gets tired but i was ignoring this). I'm currently looking after my mums house whilst she's away so it should be doable here it wont be pitch black still .
Anyway to the point the apartment has two almost ceiling to floor windows with paper thin blinds. The bedroom upstairs has open bars so its not closed off and so any light from downstairs comes up into the bedroom too. We dont use the bedroom upstairs its currently a mess. Baby is going through regression so is sleeping with me in bed at moment. He just screams in his cot. My bed is currently downstairs as it was easier after giving birth and just left It there. When I'm back to mine in a few days how am I meant to put baby to sleep in basically broad daylight. the days are so long and the room will be so so bright. The only thing I can think off is getting a co sleeping crib thats alot higgher and then covering the top of the crib with a blanket so it blocks out light. That would only work if he slept in a crib though. Helppp please 😭

Cover the windows with foil, or there’s blackout adhesives sold in amazon that you can stick in the glass of the windows! We did that and her room is now a dark cave 🤩 she just goes there for naps and nightime so I don’t mind that it’s not possible to “open the curtains”

Groblind. We have curtains and still use that directly on the window in the summer.

Also take on holiday etc

Baby sleep in whatever conditions you get them used to if you insist on silence or dark changes disturb them as they get older. Just put them to bed where their bed is

My sons bedroom had a glass pane above the bedroom door to let light onto the landing therefore no curtains or blinds were appropriate especially as it was 6 1/2 feet off the floor and I put a poster over it and that worked a treat.

The guidance is they're with you asleep until six months and that includes naps. I just mention that because at five months mine would fall asleep on my boob and just sit on my lap or sofa next to me until I went up to bed. But in practical terms I also have a blind that you stick on the glass with suction from Tommee Tipee.

Definitely don't cover the cot the temperature alone could be very dangerous.

We bought thick paper stick on black out blinds and covered the windows. They concertina folded and pegged up in the day. They weren't the last word in style but my goodness they earned their money.

When I'm back to mine in a few days how am I meant to put baby to sleep in basically broad daylight. the days are so long and the room will be so so bright.

He won't need total blackness; just a dim room. Get curtains with blackout linings ( the lining fabric is not black; ours are white) and there will just be a dim glow round their edges.

I got a Velcro sticky tape and put it on top of the window and bought a cut of blackout material, cut it to size and put it on each night. It was cheap and effective while baby in that room before she moved to her proper room

I'd say get a travel black out blind. Sticks to the window with suction cups and is really big. As pp have mentioned I think ours is tommee tippee. We used one in DDs room until we got blinds fitted.

I made a blackout blind for a shift worker.

Bought a length of blackout material to fit into window recess.
If recess is wide, buy two lengths & sew them together vertically.
There is no need for any fullness in the curtain. It just needs to fit. Flat across the glass is fine.
Sewed a half inch turn-over hem, top and bottom.
Put a spring loaded pole meant for net curtains, through the top hem and fitted/sprung it to fit into recess.
Turned day into night.
Rough and ready but worked well for 3 years, as required.

Gro blind or something like this

Deal: FCOOL Portable Blackout Blinds, 300x145cm 100% Blackout Material for bedroom Temporary Blackout Blinds No Drill Blinds for Bedroom Nursery Office Rental Apartment Travel https://amzn.eu/d/fBSYJ2v

This.

You can get snoozeshades for cots - google snoozeshade cot. It says it is air permeable, you would want to do tour own research on the safety of these. I remember looking at them
for DS, but in the end I wasnt comfortable not being able to see him
properly on the baby monitor. But perhaps you could leave the top flap open and just use it to make his surroundings a bit dimmer.

Exactly!

We cut up the cardboard box that the cot came in into rectangles to wedge into the window frames, cost was zero and they block out the majority of the light.
The original idea was to block the heat but they do the job both ways.

Black out blinds aren't expensive. Ll our babies rooms have them in without them they used to wake soon as sun rose now they sleep 7-7.30 all 3

I've never made it dark for naps, they'll just sleep too long and then you can't get them to sleep at night.

Wake windows are probably not the reason your baby is waking up at night. I'd imagine they are waking up at night because they are 5 months old and it's perfectly normal. I expect you aren't doing anything wrong and your baby is just being a totally normal baby. How often are the night wakes?

We bought some blackout curtain fabric and some of those Velcro sticky strips and created a sort of night time routine of sticking them up - like you we had a sort of mezzanine bedroom with no real door so I attached it to the staircase and the roof! It did make going to the loo at night hard. But worth it for sleep

Foil.

It will look to people outside as though you are expecting martial but bluetac or sellotape sheets of foil across your windows until fully covering the glass.

We used to do this on holiday when we needed dc rooms to be dark to make sure they could sleep. Remember to take the foil right to the edge of the glass.

Expecting Martians!

I use opened out black bin bags taped together in an emergency.

When DD was little I used to use those suction black out sheets. I took them with us when we went to stay with family/holidays etc. They're pretty good.

@FigAndOlive this is one of the best answers thank you so much. The adhesive sounds really good but it would completley block any light even throughout the day. Thinking maybe to do some panels of the window with adhesive and some foil and just remove the foil in the day. Hopefully only another month or two before we get the house!

@lifehappens12 gro blinds wouldn't work with the size and would just be too expensive overall if I got multiple to cover.

@jannier I don't really understand what you have written here. Few words are missing. Are you saying not to get them used to the dark because if that changes later it'll disturb them? I don't do complete silence