Have you ever walked into a bright room and immediately felt happy? Or opened the door to a dingy area and felt uneasy? Lighting doesn’t just light and decorate a room – it also sets the mood. Choosing the right lights for your child’s room is the first step to creating a welcoming and relaxing environment for sleeping and playing.
Choosing the Right Color of Lights
The science of how color affects your emotions is called color psychology. This study uses different colors or combinations of color and light to create specific feelings. The findings from color psychology will help you determine the best color for your child’s lights.
Warm Lights
Warm lights are known for their calming effect. Quiet sunsets after a long day, a fireplace crackling on a cold winter evening, a welcoming candle in a window – all these relaxing images include the warm glow of orange light. Warm colors range from 2700K to 3000K. They include yellows, oranges, and reds. If you want to add this color to your child’s room, use incandescent light bulbs to calm your child in the evenings.
Cool Lights
While warm colors and lights help your child relax in their room, cool lights make children feel alert and awake. Cool colors are those above 3000K on the color chart – and include blues, greens, and whites. Cool lights are ideal for brightening up a room. They will help your child see tasks better when playing, coloring, or doing homework.
5 Types of Lights for Lighting your Child’s Room
Here are five popular light options that people use in their child’s room to create an engaging and enjoyable atmosphere.
1. Replace a Ceiling Fixture with a Fun Light
Many rooms already come with a ceiling light. Just because your child’s room has a light, doesn’t mean you have to stick with the stock light in their room. Feel free to have a little fun with the light fixture!
Trade out the light fixture for a themed design that not only lightens up the room but gives the room a little extra decor. You can also add a colored light fixture to play around with mood lighting in your child’s room.
If you are considering adding a new light fixture, know the pros and cons between fixed lighting fixtures and hanging fixtures. Lights that are fixed inside the ceiling are out of the way, subtle, and simple. Hanging lights have more directions to spread light – making a room feel brighter.
On the flip side, hanging lights become the central focus of a room and can also be hazardous in rooms with lower ceilings.
2. Add Floor and Dresser Lamps
Some rooms don’t come with fixed lighting. This can be both frustrating and a great opportunity to customize the lighting in your child’s room. While fixed lighting limits your lighting options, free stamping lamps let you decide the best places for light.
Choose corners and open spaces so the lamp can reflect off of many surfaces and spread further throughout a room. Floor lamps tend to be larger and give off more light around the room, but can also be a danger to young children who might pull them down on themselves.
A dresser lamp is smaller but safer for young children. Desk lamps are also ideal if multiple children are sharing a room. One child can light his or her area of the room without disturbing any siblings.
3. Enhance Lighting with Decorative Lights
Not all lighting needs to be practical. You can also use lighting just to decorate your child’s room and make it a fun environment. Here are a few ideas for using lighting as a way to spice up your child’s room:
- Lanterns with light bulbs
- String lights
- Curtain lights
- Fairy lights
Decorative lights accent a specific area of the room – like a picture display, bed, or desk. They can also add mood lighting during certain hours of the day.
For example, if your child has a cool light fixture for during the day, a nice set of warm string lights will calm your child down when they are getting ready for bed.
4. Make Use of Natural Lighting
If your child’s room is near an outer wall or roof – take advantage of natural light. Natural light has many incredible health benefits. It’s proven to boost the immune system, fight off depression, and improve sleep.
You have two main options for getting more natural light in your child’s room: windows and skylights. Windows are in the wall of your child’s room and let in light from a single direction. You will need to consider the direction of the house before deciding if a window is the best option. A window that faces the setting sun may keep your child from sleeping.
Skylights work like overhead lights. They allow an even amount of light into the room from a central location. Your child will also not experience direct sunlight in the morning or at night. Roof Depot roof lights offer many different types of skylights that work with every roof type.
5. Add Nightlights for 24-Hour Lighting
Nightlights are essential for a young child’s room. They help children who are afraid of the dark to sleep – and allow small children to easily find their way out of the room when going to the bathroom or finding help.
Nightlights should always use warm colors as they will be on while your child is sleeping. They can come in the form of a simple wall light, decorative dresser piece, or a rotating star projector.
Red is the most effective color for soothing a child to sleep and keeping them in a deep sleep. Blues, greens, and other cool colors may be relaxing outside, but they will act as a stimulant in a nightlight.
Create a Welcoming Environment for Your Child
Whether you are decorating your high school student’s room or prepping a nursery for your newest arrival – there are light options for everyone! Start by selecting the color of light, then pick out the perfect fixture for lighting, decorating, and enhancing your child’s room.
Luciana joined our team as a mum blogger in 2020. A dedicated mum to a lively daughter and a dog, Luna, Luciana brings authenticity and passion to every post. Her expertise in parenting and lifestyle topics offers practical, relatable advice for real-life situations.