Do Babies Sleep Better in Complete Darkness?

Babies are born with no recognition of time, day or seasonal changes. They also have no concept of when it's time to sleep and when it's time to wake up. Newborns sleep when they need to, which is up to 18 hours in a 24-hour period, according to the University of Washington. By the time babies reach the age of 4 months, they begin to develop a pattern for their sleep and wake schedule. This pattern can be easily changed at such a young age, so many parents begin sleep training around this time. There are several things that babies need to get better and longer sleep, but complete darkness is generally not one of them.

  1. The Circadian Effect

    • Babies can sleep in light or dark, on a 24-hour cycle, because their circadian rhythm has yet to be developed. The circadian rhythm is the cycle that every human has, which relates when to be awake and when to go to sleep. It's like an internal clock, one that needs to be set in infancy. The circadian rhythm relies on light and darkness as cues, so it's important the baby learns to save his longest period of sleep for after dark. The circadian rhythm does not require full darkness, though; many babies develop their sleep-wake cycles with a dim light or night-light in the room. There is no evidence that the depth of darkness matters.

    Training in the Dark

    • Babies are eventually conditioned to sleep when darkness falls, but for many, this does not come naturally. Parents often must break the baby away from his 24-hour cycle to help develop a proper circadian rhythm. This is done with sleep training when the baby is about 4 months old. Sleep training involves developing a routine for bedtime, reducing nighttime feedings, teaching the baby to self-soothe and enforcing a difference between daytime and nighttime environments. Parents usually sleep-train the baby in a dark, noise-free room. However, in some homes, the baby must learn to sleep in light-noise and low-light conditions. Sleep training requires an obvious change in the daytime and nighttime environment to work.

    Consistency is Key

    • No matter which techniques you choose when sleep training your baby, consistency is the key. Sleep training is conditioning, and it requires the same routine and environment at the same time every day and night to be effective. Parents who begin the training with a night-light in the room should turn that light on every night. Babies who begin sleeping in full darkness should have the darkness every night. If you decide that your child would sleep best in complete darkness, make this a part of her sleep environment every night.

    Sleep Cues

    • In training the baby to sleep, the cues for sleepiness are important markers in those early days of learning. Sleep cues include eye rubbing, yawning, staring, crankiness and crying. These cues tell you when to put baby to bed that first night. On the second night, begin your bedtime routine 30 to 45 minutes prior to the time baby showed sleep cues in the nights before. This helps ease her into sleep training.

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