Last time we talked about things to consider when doing a bedroom for your child who has special needs. For this post we’re talking about specific items that can not only make a nice addition to the bedroom, but may also help your child if he/she has trouble going to sleep/staying asleep/gets bored/scared or any combination of those. Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with bedroom ideas for kids, especially when your child has special needs to keep in mind.

One thing I think is very helpful for a child’s room is giving them something interesting to look at while trying to fall asleep or if they wake up in the middle of the night and need to go back to sleep. I am a huge fan of the paper Japanese lanterns that come in just about every size and color. I put together a neat little display just for fun and it’s so relaxing at night when the lanterns are the only light in the room. I placed mine in a cluster at different heights in the corner, but I realize some children might not be able to fight the temptation of wanting to touch them/play with them. If that is the case, you can always place them out of reach throughout the room. I used fishing line to hang mine, and small screw eyes that I screwed into the ceiling. I also hung some at the bottom of lanterns that were above others, to keep them level but also close together.

There are a variety of lights you can get for the lanterns, from Christmas-type strands of lights, to battery operated lights (which is what I used, I tied them in clumps and put them hanging in the lanterns).  There are even fairy light strands and fairy lamps that have remotes for the lights which makes things a lot easier. Some are electric, others are battery operated, so there should be something that works for your situation.

For other bedroom ideas for kids, let’s move on to sound. I like sound machines a lot. I like them because most of them have a variety of sound options and you might have to try several different kinds of sounds to see what works best for your child. I am a very light sleeper myself and I sometimes use the sound machine if there’s some noise outside that prevents me from going to sleep. These days there are also all kinds of options for continuous music that can be played when you’re child is sleeping. Amazon’s Alexa(Echo dot/ Amazon Echo )might be a good option for music if your wifi is pretty reliable.

Sensory Bottles
Another thing you may want to try are sensory bottles, or “calming bottles”. It’s something you can make with your child so they can choose exactly what they want in their sensory bottle/bottles, and they can be taken anywhere, including the bedroom. Maybe tell them they can keep a bottle in bed with them to look at a tilt back and forth to help them get to sleep. Once they get “old”, or your child tires of the ones you have, just make more! You can try new things each time to see what they like the best.

Hope some of our suggestions are helpful. If you have some suggestions or things that worked for you and your child, e-mail us or post it on social media and tag us!