So it gets quite bright in our kids' bedrooms. They have these standard blinds which still let quite a bit of light through. I have found these blackout blinds called UBlockout. They get pretty good reviews, are expensive, but really seem to block out all the lights. But now my wife says, she would ideally want a "dual" solution with one layer of blackout blinds and also some sheers under them which let light in during the day, but don't leave you completely exposed to being seen from outside (so that your choice is not to either sit in complete darkness or everyone can look into your room - it's a private, cul-de-sac street, but sometimes there are delivery people, etc.). I couldn't really find something like that online - not sure these blackout blinds could just go over the existing blinds. Has anyone solved a similar issue for themselves?
Our kids have west facing rooms with a lot of light in the evening. We have wood blinds that do okay but some light still gets through, obviously. Sure…they complained for a little that “the sun is still up” when going to bed as we get into the summer months. We explained why it’s brighter and all for education purposes. But ultimately, it Doesn’t matter. It’s 8 o’clock and that’s bed time, whether or not it’s light out or dark. Deal with it.
With our kids, it's the opposite - they say they like the light coming in and that they can sleep anyway - but they turn into ultra high energy human beings just when they are supposed to go to sleep, and they stay awake for as long as humanly possible. Any pretense is good - needing to go to the bathroom 10 times, wanting water, etc. etc. etc. It's just me thinking that maybe, just maybe, if it were really dark, I could work on actually getting them to sleep before 8 pm - more often than not, it ends up being more like 9:30 or even 10 pm or later.
What the meth heads do is use tinfoil on the windows, tweak all night, sleep all day So that's an option.
We used blackout curtains and normal blinds. So, during the day, the curtains are retracted and daylight comes in through the blinds. Then, at bedtime the blackout curtains can make the room completely dark. Back when I was a shift worker, I used foil and I can confirm it works. But, not ideal if you ever want daylight from that window at other parts of the day.
