Collection: Nursery & Kids Curtains

What are the different types of nursery curtains?

The category sorts itself by how much light it stops, and in a nursery that is the whole decision. Light-filtering panels soften daylight without stopping it. Room darkening blocks most of it. Blackout takes the room to genuine dark — makers quote it anywhere from 90% to 100% depending on who is measuring, so read the number rather than the word.

Where our panels sit:

• Standard lining — on every panel, blocks up to 70% of incoming light. Room darkening: dim, private, still clearly daytime. Fine for an older child's room; usually not enough for a daytime nap.
• Blackout lining — the optional upgrade, and in a nursery it is the one most people actually want. Full darkness at any hour, plus thermal insulation.

This is the room where we would tell you to take the upgrade rather than talk you out of it. A nursery is used for sleep in the middle of the afternoon, which is exactly the case the standard lining does not cover.

What are the best materials for nursery curtains?

The lists you will read name organic cotton, linen blends and polyester blends. We make two of those three. Most of our panels are a 70% polyester / 30% cotton woven blend with a semi-matte finish — the polyester is what holds colour in a sunny window and takes daily handling, the cotton is what gives it the hand and the way it falls.

Our linen designs are a 70% cotton / 30% linen blend. We do not make organic cotton or velvet panels, so if one of those is the requirement, we are not the right shop for this room. What we would say for the blend: it is the fabric type the category generally recommends behind a blackout lining, because it stays flat, resists fading, and is easy to live with in a room that gets a lot of use.

What are the safety considerations for nursery curtains?

Cords are the hazard everyone means — and a curtain on a rod does not have one. Child-safety guidance for window coverings is unanimous on this point, and the risk it describes comes from blinds and shades: the pull cords and inner lift cords used to raise and lower them. A curtain panel hangs on a rod and is drawn by hand, so there is no operating cord to reach — and nothing ships in the box that could become one.

That does not make the window safe by itself. The rest of the checklist is about hardware and placement, not fabric:

• Anchor the rod properly. Into studs where you can find them, wall anchors where you cannot. A rod that comes down when it is pulled is the injury nobody plans for — and a child will pull it.
• Keep the cot away from the window. Anything within reach of the cot rail is within reach, including the curtain itself.
• Nothing dangles from ours. A panel ships as a panel — no tiebacks, no tassels, no cords, no ties in the box. If you add a tieback from somewhere else, keep it out of this room: anything that hangs in a loop is the thing to avoid.
• Re-check the hardware as the child starts to pull up and climb. What was out of reach at six months is not at eighteen.

We are not going to claim a safety certification we have not published. What we can tell you is how the panel is built: a rod pocket, grommet, back tab, back tape or pinch pleat header, on a rod, opened and closed by hand.

How do I choose the right size nursery curtains?

Wider than you think, and this is the one room where floor length is not automatically the answer.

1. Measure the rod, not the window. If the rod is not up yet, take the window width and add 8–12 inches on each side. That is wider than the rest of the house on purpose: in a nursery the extra width is what stops daylight leaking around the edge of the panel, which is the thing that wakes a baby at 3pm.
2. Multiply for fullness. 1.5–2× the rod width. Two times is the safe default. Skip this step for pleated headers — see the note below.
3. Divide by 53 and round up — that is your number of panels, because every panel is 53 inches wide. Round up rather than down here: in a nursery the surplus width is what seals the light gap.
4. Then decide the drop, deliberately. Floor length gives the best light seal and looks best. But if the cot sits directly under the window, sill length is the safer choice — there is nothing hanging within reach. Both are made to order here, so this is a decision rather than a compromise.

The drop is the only number you type. Panel width is fixed at 53 inches, so you choose how many panels rather than how wide each one is — and the drop is cut to the number you enter, with no standard-length list to pick from.

Pleated headers have their fullness sewn in. Back tape and pinch pleat panels arrive already gathered, so the finished panel is narrower than its 53 inches of flat cloth. For those, skip step 2 and divide your rod width by the finished width shown with the header.

How do I install nursery curtains?

High, wide, and screwed in properly. Brackets go 6–12 inches above the window frame — higher than you would elsewhere, again for the light seal — and extend past the frame by the 8–12 inches from step 1. Use a level, mark before you drill, and use anchors anywhere you cannot hit a stud.

Light gets in at the edges, not through the fabric. If the room still reads bright with blackout panels closed, the answer is almost always a rod that is too short or mounted too low, not a lining that is not working.

Are kids' room curtains different from nursery curtains?

Same fabric, same construction — the light and safety calculation just relaxes as they get older. A toddler or school-age child is not napping at 2pm, so the standard room-darkening lining is often enough, and the cot-under-the-window problem goes away with the cot.

That said, if you are shopping for blackout curtains for a kids room rather than a nursery, the lining option is exactly the same — and plenty of parents take it for kids bedroom curtains anyway, because in summer bedtime arrives well before sunset.

What changes is that the print starts to matter to them. Kids room curtains get chosen twice: once by you, and once, loudly, by the person who sleeps there.

On colour: the trend guidance across this category has moved away from strong pinks and blues toward neutrals — sage, beige, cream, soft grey — on the argument that a bedroom should not be visually busy at bedtime. Worth knowing, easy to ignore if the person in the room has other ideas.

How these are made

• Designed in-house — every print, drawn by us. No third-party catalogue, no drop-shipping
• Made to order — 53 inches wide, cut and sewn to the drop you enter, floor length or sill length
• Production: 5–7 business days
• Free worldwide shipping, no minimum
• Sold as single panels, so you buy exactly the number of drops your window needs
• Returns: because each panel is made for one specific window, returns and exchanges are accepted on defective items only. Measure twice before you order.

Looking for something else?

For the room next door, see bedroom curtains — the same light-control logic for grown-up sleep — or living room curtains for the tall windows.

If the print is what you are here for, start with floral curtains or boho curtains; the full library is in patterned curtains. Every panel is made to your size, with your choice of lining and header.