Smoke Detectors: Loud Enough To Wake The Dead...But Not Our Children

My 17 month old son is a good, sound sleeper. Until the phone rings. Or the microwave announces that my mac ‘n’ cheese lunch is ready with three cheerful beeps. If either of these disturbances has the gall to occur during my son’s lighter stages of sleep, well, needless to say my bowl of cheesy goodness will most likely have to sit and congeal, uneaten.

So how could it be that when, at 5:40 this morning, our ancient smoke detector decided it had had enough of its years of collecting dust in silence and raged forth with a mighty 85 decibel false alarm, my son did no more than twitch a leg and turn his head to rest peacefully on the other cheek? As I frantically ripped off the cover of the offending noise machine (which is, of course, mere inches from my son's bedroom door), and yanked out the battery with shaky, adrenaline drugged hands in the pre-dawn darkness my only thought was of how soon I would hear an answering wail from my other noise machine. But hark! I heard nothing but silence. I repeat, how could that be?

According to this article, many children do not wake to conventional smoke detector alarms. A study published in the journal Pediatrics shows that of the 24 children in the study, only 58% awoke when a conventional smoke detector was sounded. But when researchers used an alarm with a recording of the mother’s voice telling her child to wake and escape, 96% (all but one) of the children awoke, and at a faster rate. There are products like the one used in the study available in stores. Maybe now’s the time to get out of these PJ’s. I’ve got some shopping to do.