I Came Up With a Weird Nighttime Trick, and It Saved My Kids’ Sleep

In the last few years, I’ve lived in both a 106-year-old house and a 120-year-old house. They’re charming, historical, unique … and they are creaky! Both homes have wood floors throughout that squeak and groan at the worst possible moments — like when I’m trying to moonwalk backward out of one of my babies’ rooms after finally getting them to sleep. In our last house, first with a 13-month-old who detested sleeping alone and later with a newborn, I was constantly trying to avoid the squeakiest spots in the floor, searching for some way to get out of a totally pitch-black room without waking the kids. These creaks would groan even under cushy rugs. 

I can’t remember how it occurred to me or my husband, but one day we decided to use glow-in-the-dark gaffer’s tape to identify which areas of the floor would creak if stepped on. We crossed the floors of the kids’ rooms literally step by step, and each time we identified a creak, we placed a small (about an inch-long) piece of tape on it, repeating until all spots were covered. 

It worked! Though it did mean that, from the baby monitor, the other parent would occasionally witness a fully grown adult contorting themselves through the room in a high-stakes game of “The Floor Is Lava” just trying to make it out the door. 

Eventually, we became so familiar with the glow-in-the-dark spots that we were able to remove the tape. 

As Cubby contributor Kristina has found, you can also use glow-in-the-dark gaffer’s tape as a hack to spot furniture you might otherwise stub your toe on in the middle of the night in your kid’s room. I’ve used it to indicate where my kids’ cribs and gliders are in their rooms so that when the inevitable blackout curtain-inspired darkness descends, I’m able to safely deliver them to their beds. I’ve also used it along the area where our stairs begin, to avoid stumbling down them en route to a middle-of-the-night feed, as well as on the undersides of the stairs, to avoid falling up when all the downstairs lights are off. 

It’s not a glamorous solution, but it’s one that’s stuck.