For the best part of a year, my youngest wouldn’t go down without a fight. And the fight was always the same one. The dark.
We tried a plug-in nightlight, but this one buzzed annoyingly like a wasp in a jar. A star projector also failed to last the fortnight that we had it. A torch under the pillow has also been given a go, but finding flat batteries in the dark of night for a wide-awake child is not a pleasant experience, and has not worked for us.
The thing that actually worked was a daft little LED neon sign shaped like a cloud.
Decoration on the wall, nightlight in practice
That’s the part that caught me out.
A neon sign can be a “teenager’s thing”, all brightly coloured letters and words like “good vibes only”, however most can be made soft and low to glow on the wall. My son’s neon sign has his name on it and he was made up that he could see it glowing there. It’s taken the edge off him being scared of the dark. Seeing his name on the wall must be a special thing for him, as the monsters in his room “don’t like the colour blue” in the sign.
The room’s not pitch black any more either, so he can see to get out, and he’s stopped worrying about what’s under the bed.
Why LED, not the old glass stuff
When I say neon, lots of people immediately think of old chip shop signs with hot glass tubes full of gas – no thank you! The modern ones are actually LED strips of lights housed in flexible silicone tubing, so totally child friendly.
They run on roughly 12 volts, about the same as a nightlight, stay cool to the touch and don’t hum. And if a little one batters it with a soft toy, nothing shatters.
The British maker behind these signs, Neon Daddy, have an excellent list of shapes and ideas for kids’ bedrooms. As I said, the cloud in my youngest’s room came straight off that list. There’s a huge range that would suit a child’s bedroom, so it’s a good starting point if you’re after inspiration. I’d recommend their neon sign ideas for children’s rooms guide.
There are two things to bear in mind when choosing your sign. The first is that they plug into the mains, so you need a socket within reach of where you plan to hang it. The second is that it’s best to plug your sign into a proper socket rather than the end of a daisy chain of extension leads hidden behind a wardrobe.
The bedtime bit nobody warns you about
This is where the sign really earned its keep. I hadn’t realised it until writing this, but it’s become a standard part of our bedtime routine.
Our house rule around screen time is to turn off all screens a good few hours before bed. We don’t stick to this as rigidly as we’d like, I’m afraid, but it helps to avoid the worst of the meltdown dramas when we fail to. I’ve written about our screen time plan and why I think every family needs one in our family screen time plan. It’s helped us tackle our own night time struggles with screens, and given the kids a good structure to wind down in the run up to bed.
A dimmable sign gives you a transitional light for reading. Big light off, sign on, story time. Then switch off the sign as well and go to bed.
The sleep advice for getting kids down all focuses on a calm, consistent bedtime routine. To be honest, I’m not sure what we’d do without this now. Our nightly routine is a chapter or two of our current book before bed. Often we’ll read the chapter together, then I’ll go to bed with the kids and we all drift off to sleep.
Choosing a Neon Sign for a Toddler’s Room
I deliberated far too long over choosing a sign for the nursery, so hopefully this saves others the same lengthy deliberation.
For kids’ room signs, names are a good starting point as they tend to hold a child’s interest for longer than a cartoon character. Shapes are also great, with options such as stars, rainbows, a moon or even a dinosaur for the little palaeontologists out there. Neon Daddy have a large collection of custom kids’ signs you can browse through for inspiration.
Kids grow up fast, and soon enough they go from toddlers to pre-schoolers and their ideas of what to hang on the wall change greatly. This was the case with my eldest. When she was younger she wanted something to do with shapes, like stars, rainbows, a full moon and even a few dinosaurs, but a couple of years on she now wants something with the name of her favourite football team on it. I’m starting to notice this is the pattern: they want something that represents who they are at that age.
While some colours suit a child’s bedroom better than others, warm tones are generally the way to go. Signs in soft pink, warm white or a nice warm amber are perfect for a child’s bedroom, as they help create a calm, relaxing environment and help your little ones get off to sleep. Colours such as bright red or electric blue are great for public places, or for kids’ playrooms, but for bedrooms they’re just too bright and can keep kids awake at night. If you want a neon sign for your child’s bedroom, look for one with a dimmer or even one you can operate with a remote. Those are perfect and can be used every day.
As for cost, you can get a custom-made neon sign from a UK workshop for around £60. I think there’s a lot to be said for supporting a local, UK-based business rather than buying on some faceless online marketplace. Yes, you may occasionally get a defective item, but at least you can email a UK-based seller and get it sorted within a few days, rather than waiting three weeks for a refund from a seller who’s disappeared off the face of the earth. Mine has a three year warranty and has been up on my wall for over a year now with not a flicker of trouble. It came with stand-off wall fixtures, screws and rawl plugs.
A couple of honest gripes
It isn’t all glowing clouds and gratitude… three minor annoyances, really.
With all neon signs there’s always going to be a cable. Ours just plugs into the wall above our daughter’s cot, but I can imagine in some rooms it’d need to run down the wall. We just hide it behind the furniture and hope no one spots it.
Cheap neon signs from unknown sellers can have a slight flicker that gets really annoying after a while. Check the reviews before you buy.
And once one child has a sign, the other starts wanting one. Not the sign’s fault, that’s just how it goes with siblings.
I was sceptical, but bought it on a whim after Christmas, as I wanted to do something for the kids to celebrate coming home from hospital. For something so cheap, it’s been one of the best baby purchases we’ve made. It’s even outlasted most of the “official” baby equipment we spent ages choosing in the shops. You can tell I was half tipsy when I bought it!