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A closed bedroom door might not seem like a sleep issue, but it could save your child’s life.
In this episode, Allison shares an important fire safety message that every parent should hear: close your bedroom door before you go to sleep, and close your children’s bedroom doors, too.

After seeing a Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) video demonstrating what happens to two bedrooms during the same house fire, one with the door open and one with the door closed, Allison was stunned by the difference. The bedroom with the open door reached temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while the bedroom with the closed door stayed under 100 degrees.

In this episode, Allison explains:
— Why a closed bedroom door can dramatically slow the spread of heat, flames, and toxic smoke
— Why the amount of time families have to escape a house fire has decreased from roughly 17 minutes decades ago to just about 3 minutes today
— Why so many home fire deaths happen while people are sleeping
— How a closed bedroom door can buy firefighters valuable time to reach sleeping children
— Why parents may want to keep a baby monitor even after transitioning to a closed bedroom door
— How to introduce a closed-door bedtime routine without creating unnecessary anxiety about house fires for young children
— How older children can learn about closed doors as part of their family’s overall fire escape plan
— Important reminders for checking and maintaining your home’s smoke alarms

Allison also shares why her own family changed their nighttime routine after she learned about this research, and why she now sleeps with her bedroom door closed.

This is a simple change that takes just seconds but could make an enormous difference in a fire emergency.

Resources Mentioned:
Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI): Close Before You Doze campaign
Allison recommends watching the FSRI video demonstrating the dramatic difference between an open and closed bedroom door during a house fire

Looking for expert guidance on your child’s sleep? Allison offers two free age-specific guides to help you discover how much sleep kids need to thrive—at any age. Get your free copy now: 0-2 Years Old or 3 to 10 years old

From baby sleep to toddler sleep, daycare naps to sleep training—How Long ’Til Bedtime? is the podcast for parents who want practical, guilt-free sleep tips they can actually use.

Hosted by pediatric sleep coach Allison Egidi, each episode delivers real solutions for every stage—from navigating newborn sleep struggles and weaning night feedings to helping your 3-year-old fall asleep independently (and stay asleep!). Whether you’re trying to make sense of daycare sleep patterns, craving your evenings back, or simply need a working mom podcast to keep you grounded, you’re in the right place.

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Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode.

254. The Fire Safety Reason Your Child Should Sleep With the Door Closed
Allison Egidi: Before we dive in today, let’s talk about school being back in session. I’m recording this the day after my girls went back to school. And we had a great summer, and I would say it flew by. The girls and I were both chatting about how it felt like the fastest summer yet, even though I think it may have been a week longer than usual. And I am happy that it is time to settle back into my typical work hours and schedule.

This fall I’m giving some talks at schools, both to students and to parents, about sleep, and I’m planning some other exciting content for my community, so stay tuned. So here’s to routines and productive falls, and here’s to also knowing that by the time May rolls around, I will once again be desperately ready for a break from the routines. That is just my cycle. I am desperate for the routine in the fall, and I am desperate for the break come spring.

Okay, on to today’s episode. This one is a really, really important one about fire safety. It’s one you may not even think you need, but I want to encourage you to listen because it’s about a small but very important fire safety tip that does relate to sleep and can truly save lives.

A few years ago, I came across a YouTube video from the Fire Safety Research Institute, also known as FSRI. And I don’t remember exactly how I came across it, but it stopped me in my tracks. In the video, they set a house on fire and they used thermal cameras to show what happened to two bedrooms in that house simultaneously.

One of those bedrooms had the door open and the other had the door closed. And the difference was staggering. The bedroom with the door open reached temperatures of over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And after they put the fire in the house out, everything in that room was black. The bedroom with the closed doors, and they were right next to each other, the temperature was under 100 degrees. And once the fire was put out and they opened the door, the room looked virtually untouched. There was just smoke marks around the frame of the door. Same house, same fire, same amount of time being exposed to that fire. And the only difference was that the door was open on one and closed on the other.

I read the research that came from over a decade of work by the Fire Safety Research Institute and led to this public safety campaign called Close Before You Doze. That’s why they produced this video. And the findings from that research are pretty sobering. 40 years ago, people had about 17 minutes to escape a house fire.

Today, because of the widespread use of synthetic materials in our modern homes, that window has shrunk down to just three minutes. Three minutes, you guys. That is not a lot of time. And here is a statistic that also shook me. 50% of home fire deaths happen between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. That is when everyone is typically asleep. That is exactly why keeping bedroom doors closed when we’re sleeping matters so much.
Let me share what else I’ve learned since initially seeing that video. A fire needs oxygen to burn. I think we all know that. But when you close the bedroom door, you are cutting off the fire’s oxygen supply to that room. Without oxygen flowing freely, the fire cannot grow as aggressively into or around that space. So the door really does act as a barrier, slowing the spread of heat, flames, and smoke. And smoke is actually one of the biggest killers in home fires. Most fire deaths are not caused by burns. They’re caused by smoke inhalation. Toxic smoke can fill a room and incapacitate someone before the flames ever reach them.

So let’s look at what the research shows. The open-door bedroom reached temperatures of over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit and measured an extremely toxic 10,000 parts per million of carbon monoxide. And the oxygen level in that open door room dropped to just 8%, which is extremely low and not survivable for very long. And in that closed door bedroom, temperature stayed under 100 degrees, carbon monoxide measured approximately 100 parts per million, and oxygen levels remained at a breathable 18%. That is a hundredfold difference in carbon monoxide exposure and a 10-point difference in oxygen that is quite literally the difference from being able to breathe and not. And in experiments, a victim in the closed bedroom was found to be in survivable condition well after the fire department would have arrived. The closed door doesn’t just buy someone seconds. It bought minutes. The minutes needed for firefighters to get to the home and reach the people, or in our example, reach our children.

So here’s what an FSRI researcher said that I think every parent should hear. He said, if there’s a fire, there is not time to act. If you are a parent with children in the home and that smoke alarm goes off, potentially you cannot get to your children’s room because you’re cut off by smoke. If you close their door before you go to bed, if you’ve already put that safety barrier in place, then you know your children have longer to survive in that situation. You might not be able to get to them, but if their door is already closed, you are giving firefighters more time to get to them. That is the power of a closed door.

And here’s something that surprised me when I first read about this research. Nearly 60% of people sleep with their bedroom doors open. Many under the mistaken belief that it keeps them safer in case of a fire because it would make escaping easier. And prior to seeing that video, my girls slept with their doors closed because I was protecting them from the sounds of the house, so our talking after they went to bed, the TV, the dogs moving around, etc. However, my husband and I always slept with our own door open because we thought it was important and it would allow us to hear the kids. But then I watched that video and I realized if there were a fire in this home, our kids might survive, but we would be in serious trouble. And we have slept with our bedroom door closed ever since.

And I have to tell you guys, having slept with my door closed for years now, I realize that I still absolutely hear my children if there is an issue. But if your kids are a bit younger or you are a great sleeper yourself and you are not easily woken up, this is just a great reason to keep that baby monitor longer. So shut the door, keep the baby monitor.

Now, I want to give you some practical guidance on how to introduce this habit if your child currently sleeps with their door open and you are already anticipating it is going to be an issue. I do not recommend telling young children that we close the door because of fire safety. Because for toddlers and these young kids, introducing the concept of a house fire can create real bedtime anxiety that is probably unnecessary.

So instead, I recommend framing it in a simple and positive way. You can say something like, We close your door at bedtime because it keeps your room comfy and cozy. It helps you not get woken up by the sounds that the dog makes or the sounds dad and I are making when we’re cleaning the kitchen and getting ourselves ready for bed. These things, when you say them, I mean they’re completely true. And it focuses on comfort rather than this safety concern.

And then for older children, you can absolutely have a more straightforward conversation about fire safety and explain why closed doors matter. And when you do, it’s also a great opportunity to talk about your family’s fire escape plan, you know, where the smoke alarms are and what they should do if the alarms go off. So we recently had a false alarm and it prompted us to talk to our girls about fire safety. And I actually, for the very first time, talked to them about the whole idea of having the bedroom doors closed. And if they’re they ever were to open the door and they were to see it were too smoky for them to leave the room, that they should shut the door. So if you talk to about fire safety with your older kids, you can incorporate the door concept and what their plan should be if there is a fire.

And along the lines of fire safety, I hope that this episode is your friendly reminder to also check on your smoke alarms. Here’s another stat that kind of stopped me in my tracks. Roughly three out of five home fire deaths happen in homes that do not have working smoke alarms. Or they had no smoke alarms at all. So no working smoke alarms. That means the single most important warning system wasn’t there when it was needed most. The recommendation is to test all your smoke alarms monthly and replace the batteries annually.

If that low battery beep woke you up in the middle of the night recently or sometime back, because let’s be honest, it’s always going to happen in the middle the night, and in the middle of the night you decided to just take that smoke alarm down and you haven’t put it back up, this is your reminder to go put that smoke alarm back up. And if your smoke alarms are more than 10 years old, replace them.

We’ve been in our house since 2012. And so we actually replaced ours, I think when it’s a couple years after we moved in, but then replaced all of them again just last year. So make sure you have smoke alarms inside every bedroom and outside every bedroom and on all floors of your house. And check on them. Check on them regularly to make sure they are working.

So to wrap up, 50% of home fire deaths happen while families are sleeping. Three out of five happen in homes without working smoke alarms. And a closed bedroom door may be the single most effective additional thing you can do to protect your family if a fire breaks out while everyone is asleep. A decade of research by the Fire Safety Research Institute tells us this. Firefighters who have rescued children behind closed doors are preaching this. As they say in their campaign, close before you doze.

So tonight, close your door. Close your children’s doors. And then share this episode with someone you love because this is the kind of information we all need to be sharing. I’ll link to the YouTube video and the closeyourdoor.org website in the show notes so you can see this video and the research for yourself.

If this episode or any of my episodes have helped you, would you please take a moment to rate and review the podcast? It is one of the very best ways you can help us reach more parents and support my small but mighty team. And as always, thanks for listening. I hope you’ll come back again next week. Bye for now.