Nursery Blinds & Shades

Every product in this collection can be ordered without an accessible operating cord. Our faux wood blinds and most of our cellular and pleated shades come cordless only. On roller and Roman shades you choose the control, and that choice matters: alongside cordless and motorized, some also offer a chain or cord loop. In a child's room, choose cordless or motorized and nothing else. If a shade you like is offered only with a chain or loop, choose its motorized version instead.

Cordless lift on our core blackout roller shades goes up to 84 by 84 inches. For a larger window, motorized is the cord-free answer. Under the industry safety standard, ANSI/WCMA A100.1, a motorized shade counts as cordless, because there is no operating cord at all. Keep the remote and any spare batteries where a child cannot get to them.

How Dark Is Dark Enough?

Blackout fabric stops 99% or more of the light that reaches it. Room darkening fabric typically blocks around 95%: the room goes dim, but you can still see the shape of the window. For an older child who simply needs a calmer room at bedtime, room darkening is often enough. For a baby who wakes with the first light at five in the morning, or naps through bright afternoons and long summer evenings, blackout is the one to choose.

One thing worth being clear about: no shade makes a room completely dark on its own. The fabric stops the light that hits it, and what remains comes in around the edges. That is where the mounting decision comes in.

Stopping Light at the Edges

Light leaks at the sides, the top and the bottom, and how much depends mostly on how the shade is mounted.

An inside mount sits within the window frame. It looks neat, but it has to be slightly narrower than the opening so it can move freely, which leaves a small gap down each side. An outside mount sits on the wall above the frame and overlaps it by a few inches on each side, so the light that slips past the fabric meets the overlap rather than the room. In a nursery, an outside mount is the single biggest improvement you can make.

On roller shades, add the cassette valance to close the gap above the roll. Side channels are not part of our range, so the overlap of an outside mount does that job. For the darkest result, layer blackout curtains on a wide rod over the shade: the shade does the daily work, and the curtains seal what is left at the edges.

The Best Options for a Nursery

Blackout roller shades are the most flexible choice, with the widest range of fabrics and colors, from wipe-clean vinyl to premium fabrics. They take the cassette valance and come cordless or motorized, and they are the most affordable way to black out a nursery.

Blackout cellular shades add a honeycomb of air pockets behind the blackout fabric, which helps insulate the window in a room you want at a steady temperature. They are cordless, and one version comes top-down/bottom-up.

Day/Night cellular shades pair a blackout fabric and a light filtering fabric in one shade: darkness for sleep, softened daylight for play.

Roman shades with the Premium Blackout liner give a softer, more decorated look for a nursery that doubles as a sitting room, in cordless or motorized.

Room darkening roller shades suit an older child's room where a little light at the edges is welcome rather than a problem.

Faux wood blinds are cordless, tough and easy to wipe clean, which makes them a sound choice for a child's room. But slats never close completely tight, so they will not black out a room on their own. Pair them with blackout curtains if darkness matters.

What to leave out: see-through solar shades, sheer shades and unlined woven wood shades are built for daytime views and soft light, not for sleep.

Naps, Play and Night Feeds

A nursery is used around the clock, and the window has to keep up. A top-down/bottom-up shade lets you lower the top for daylight while the bottom stays closed, so the room stays private and bright enough for daytime play.

Motorized shades earn their place here. With a baby in your arms, a remote lowers the shade for a nap without putting the baby down or reaching across furniture to the window. And for a nursery that becomes a bedroom, the same remote still works when your child is old enough to ask for the shade to go up.

As the Nursery Grows

Cordless and motorized controls stay right as a baby becomes a toddler who climbs and explores, and the advice on furniture does not change: keep the crib, then the bed, away from the window. When the nursery becomes a big-kid bedroom, the same shades carry on doing their job. Our kids' room collection covers the wider range for that stage.

Measuring and Ordering

For an outside mount, measure the area you want to cover rather than the glass, and add a few inches on each side and above the frame for overlap. For an inside mount, measure the opening in three places for width and height and give us the raw figure – we take the deduction. Our roller shade measuring guide and cellular shade measuring guide cover both mount types.

Order free samples for the nursery and hold a blackout sample against the window in daylight next to a room darkening one: the difference is obvious in seconds. Every shade is built to your measurements, shipping is free within the continental United States, and the MeasureSafe™ Guarantee covers you if a measurement goes wrong.