In case you didn't know, we're kind of obsessed with sleep environments around here. As a pediatric sleep consultant, I see firsthand what a difference the right environment can make. As moms, we love our sleep and have learned that an ideal sleep environment lends itself to better sleep for the whole family!

Listen in as Kayla and I break down the science behind our obsession with room temperature, darkness levels, and white noise.

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Episode 9: Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments

Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to sleep talking moms. We are on episode nine. And today we are going to be talking about sleep environment and all those things that can help your baby and child and yourself sleep at the optimal level. So Carianna Yes, take us into this one. I cannot stress enough like, these things are non negotiables when I work with families, because I know how much they help. And while it's not necessarily a magic fix, I can't tell you how many times I've like gotten on the phone with somebody. And before we even started working together, they implemented a darker room for naps or white noise for sleep. And it's made a huge difference. So I just can't I can't stress the importance of this episode. Enough. But I'm sure that you have heard this yourself, Kayla, I often get the question. Well, how long? Do I have to have this like ideal environment for my child to sleep better? I have heard that from both sets of mothers. Absolutely. That was like when I first implemented these things into my children's sleeping arrangement. That was the number one question is like, when are you going to get rid of that? How? How can you continue to do this in all of the places? So I know we will get into those answers later on. Yes, yeah, I want to hold off the answer to that question. I know it's a burning question. I want to hold that off until we've kind of talked through some of the specifics and sciency stuff about sleep environment.
Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments So should we just start off with talking about room temperature for sleep? Yes, let's dive on in. Okay, so an ideal room temperature is going to be 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are Celsius, 20 to 22 degrees Celsius. That is what we're looking for as far as room temperature goes. And honestly, cooler is better than hot when it comes to sleep. Okay, so if we're going to err on one side or the other, we air on the cooler side rather than the warmer side. Okay, so can you tell us why cooler temperatures are better? Absolutely. So our body actually needs a natural dip in temperature in order to release melatonin at bedtime and melatonin we're going to talk a lot about melatonin, but it is our sleepy hormone. So it helps us initiate sleep. And you know, if you think about it, like if we didn't live in homes, in environments where the climate was, you know, so well controlled. You know, if we lived outside like our ancestors, we would experience a natural dip in temperature in the evening. And so that's just what our bodies need to help initiate sleep. This is also you know, oftentimes when you hear about bedtime routines, a bath is included. Or a shower where to the stage now where we're doing showers at night with my boy it's like a whole new world. But that's why we recommend that because if you think about it when you get out of a warm bath or out of the warm shower you actually your your body temperature plummets and gets cooler initially right and so that helps with the sleep onset that helps with the melatonin production. Even
Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments as adults like we will often wash up even if we're not taking a full on shower, like washing our faces. I don't know if you do that before bed, Kayla, but yes, I'm in my 30s so I've got to do a face regimen. Oh, you have a whole face regimen. Wow. I do. I Oh, I'm impressed. Very impressed. I do not you think I would because my mom is the Mary Kay consultant, but I just use water. Ooh, sorry, mom. Sorry mom. I know you're listening. So anyways, we we have our own ways of doing that to where we wash our face with warm water. It helps drop Our body temperature a little bit so temperature is huge cooler is better 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. That's what we want to aim for. Okay. Should we move on? Yeah, I think so. So you talked about temperature. Next let's talk about darkness. Yes, darkness. super important. I can't stress this one enough. We want it pitch dark. Pitch Black pitch dark basically when you're in your child's room, whether it's nighttime I'm early morning, naptime. You don't want to be able to see your hand in front of your face. That's how dark it should be. You should be running into things. Almost And, you know, there's a couple reasons why I would say the reasons are different depending on If we're talking about night Or if we're talking about You know, early morning Time So let's let's talk about night for Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments And again, we're going to talk about melatonin, our sleeping hormone. Okay melatonin production now Not only is it right related by temperature, it's also regulated by light and darkness. So, if your retinas are sensing light, they You're going to send a signal to your brain that it's not time to produce melatonin yet. So, another reason we want to kind of dim lights during the bedtime routine, kind of start lowering the level of light And then for sleep, we want no light so that we are not inhibiting that melatonin production when we're Talking about early in the morning or we're talking about half time, you know we're not having that surgery. Have melatonin like we are at night Okay, so That's not necessarily helping For that, ask But darkness is is still important. So we have to remember that our little ones aren't motive. Good sleepers right Kayla? You You wake up and you look at the clock and it's 4am you don't wake up that early. No you don't wake up that early. You I know you wake up early but you don't start your day better not not afford just now. difference but no, not at four. So if you wake up and you see it's four o'clock, what do you do? I'm going to turn over and go back to bed. Exactly because you know like, I need an extra hour of sleep. I will feel Better I will be happier. I will have this smoother time with my kids right like you can reason through that, yes, our kids Don't think that way so if they wake up they Can't tell time some of them so So that darkness level And making sure that it is pitch black when we want them to sleeping. That is like there. Biggest signal So if they wake up and they're like, Oh, I think I see light I think it's playtime. They're not thinking Oh if I don't go back to sleep, I'm going to be really crabby all day and I'm going to feel like crap. They they're not motivated like we are so that darkness how With early wakings with naptime and just making sure there aren't distracted actions for them and that it's sending that Strong cue to their brain Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments Yeah Can I recommend And something that I'm sure that you do this with you Your families but I know For us what helped, even during like the getting into naptime process, whatever that looks like because I know people have bedtime routines and I know that people often have an naptime routines as well. I know that here I Like shut the blinds and I pull the curtains. So that you know like this 1530 minutes before now Time, it's a little bit darker. I don't really know if that helps out scientifically or biologically with the kid but it helps me And maybe hopefully I'm free to understand like, Oh, it's Getting closer to naptime. Things are darker So if that's if your kid is somebody who's, you know, my kids are both very, very hyper. Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments So if your kids are like that and you think that that might help signal like okay, we're getting close. I totally wrecked doing it because I know that it helps us know I love that idea. I think that's absolutely good. To help because you do that on a regular basis and it is almost It helps bridge naptime and bedtime not that they're gonna think that naptime is bedtime because that's not something that happens once our circadian rhythm is developed around three months. But you are showing them Very strong association that It gets dimmer and then we Do our routine and then we go to sleep. And they're seeing that concern Instantly I think that's awesome. Kayla, you Yay, yay Oh Hey, let's talk about white noise. The third main factor in our sleep environment. Kayla Are you a fan of white noise? Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments I'm a huge fan of white noise and I actually have the ones that you recommend. I know that you will talk about that a little bit later, but The ones that we have are portable and so and they're battery operated and they're rechargeable, so you can use them in the car. If you're on a trip, you can Use them at the hotel room at the Airbnb that you Mother in law's whatever wherever the kid is, you can Move this thing and again Help you no matter where you are Yes, I'm obsessed with white noise. I'm I'm literally obsessed with white noise. I love it. I use it myself. Me too. Me too and I we've recently started that I don't know maybe in the last Each year or a year and a half, so it hasn't always been something that I've done, but I have noticed a difference. I know a Especially for my husband. He is the Lighter sleeper like I'm pretty much dead to the world when I'm asleep. Now you are Don't wait. I am not One of the moms who is like hearing every single sound my kid makes and waking up I'm like dead. But my husband is a very light sleeper and he would go through periods of really having trouble sleeping. And when we added white noise, I think he would say that it has significantly helped. So it's huge not just for babies, you know. So with white noise, what I recommend is We're using true white noise. So we're not using things like oh waves or lullabies or rain sounds. We want that Just a very continuous consistent sound that doesn't have a bunch of up and down stimulating things going on and we want to aim for like 60 to 70 decibels as far as loudness goes, and we want it to play Pretty continuously so we want it playing all night long. Every nap. Basically if you want your child sleeping, we want that to be playing in with all the things that you've talked about temperature during And now with the white noise. What is it about the white noise that makes it It's so important to sleep with white noise. It mainly acts as a buffer, Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments okay, so even when we're sleeping our brain is still Always processing stimuli. And if we happen to be in a lighter stage of sleep, when there's a noise around us, you know whether it's a car door outside of our house or someone washing dishes or whatever a dog barking if our Brain picks up on that and we're in a lighter stage of sleep, there's the chance that it will fully pull us out of sleep and wake us up. So white noise acts as a really good buffer to keep us from hearing those external sounds that we don't need to and you know, we do have studies that show Show us sleeping with white noise decreases the time it takes us to fall asleep. It increases the time we Spend a sleep overnight, and that overall it just improves our quality of sleep. So very much backed by research that that white noise is helpful and again, not just Four little ones for all humans. Honestly, I have a friend too. Even that white noise for her dog and And it how long with Dog Yeah, I mean, it's not just a human thing. Although Don't ask me to show you studies on that, but well, and I was gonna day two. I'm over here. I live in a pretty populated neighborhood. Our houses are pretty close together and the City has been doing road work right in front of our house for like the past two weeks. And if you're like me, I'm a control freak. Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments I'm type A I honestly I'm very proud of that. Should be but one thing like For some reason, they've been starting Like literally five minutes after I put it down For his nap oh oh So I have been like every single time they do it I like you know kind of stress. I feel it in my shoulders, a little bit of tension. And the white noise mixed with I mean, I'm sure mixed with all of these other things, but White Noise especially has been a lifesaver because I don't have to worry as much Because he's not hearing the beep, beep beep when they Back up, they're not hearing the jackhammering He's just out. Yeah, so If you're like me at all And you're concerned about the noise level
in your neighborhood, your apartment complex wherever it may be. This is a huge, huge help to keep them from Waking up so that you can get your stuff done or you can get a nap or do whatever you need to do. But that time Yeah. And another thing that you didn't mention other siblings, right, like, yeah, yeah, I mean, you don't have to worry about trying to keep your older child quiet while baby sleeps when when Campbell my second was a newborn we had white noise In this room and we actually had To sound machines Outside in The hall just because the way our house is set up. The living area where Ethan would always play is actually you know, it's not that far from Campbell's room and I could just turn all three of them on and then I didn't have to constantly be telling Ethan like, you need to be quiet. Be quiet. Your brother's sleeping. I could just kind of let him go more live your life. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so now we should probably get to the question When can I stop using these things for my child sleep. What do you think Kayla? I'm putting you on the spot. Yeah, well, I ain't know the answer to this because one I followed you forever. You're my best friend. We've talked about this before. I mean, optimally never. If it's not broke, don't fix it. So if these things are working for you, then just keep it up. I mean, obviously you're going to see yourself in situations where at Little bit noisier you're in a hotel room and I don't know if there's any hotel rooms that don't have blackout curtains but you know any of those things like sometimes you're going to forget the way noise machine or whatever but I think all Ultimately, if you're giving Your kid the gift of beautiful sleep, then why would we fix it? Yeah, no I agree I'm I'm in the camp of if it's not broke don't fix it. I do think that you You can experiment like if you're really it shouldn't go Add a bunch of light in your child's room for some reason you can experiment with But if you notice, like, Oh yeah, this really makes naps rough. Then I would go back to the basics because there's a reason that we benefit from all of these things and why they help us sleep better. The other thing that I would say is As your child gets older and does start to become more of a motivated sleeper like us adults then When I think you know, it would make the most sense to start messing with these things if you're really wanting to get away from white noise or if you really want them, you know, to, to not have blackout curtains on their room or whatever You know, I would wait until they're three plus years old to really mess with those things when they start figuring out that their body feels good when sleeps and you know We do have more of that. internal motivation Helping them leap instead of them. Just viewing Sleep as you know, the time When the playing stops, which is kind of where we're at for the first several years, they just, you know, they're like, well, I don't want to sleep I want to keep playing and that's totally normal for them to feel that way. But yeah, I think you can experiment with it if you experiment and it goes back Go back to the basics that you know work. There is nothing wrong with using white noise for years and years and years. You know, as long as it's at the appropriate level, there's no issues with that. And it's just biology that we sleep better in the dark and in that ideal environment, but also guys, like don't be afraid to make your house look like a meth lab and put up some aluminum foil. It's okay. It's okay. I'm giving you permission to make your house look like a meth lab. I'm so glad you said I've had clients send me pictures of like their babies window from outside of the house and be like with a loom. tinfoil taped up to block out the light and they're like, yeah, my house looks like a meth lab. Thank you Carrie. Yeah. They continue to do it because it works with sleep. So, you can use aluminum foil in a pinch. I love a blackout easy window curtains are not curtains their window covers that. Velcro up. I love, love, love those for white noise. I love love Your fan. I will link All of the products that I use in the show notes, you can check them out. But I have pretty good Consistently recommended. The same products All along. If you're traveling slumber is a great idea. option. It's like a A privacy pod that goes over the Pack and play or over you know what toddler cot to provide that separation in that darkness. So lots of things you can do even if you aren't in your own home. Firstly we are so glad you joined us for the sleep talking moms. podcast today. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a second to grab a screenshot. Share it in your stories and tag us of all this sleeps See you next time. Why I'm obsessed with sleep environments