child sleeping through fire/smoke alarm

[CloudBee]

Has anyone experienced this?

Where do you keep your smoke alarms?

DS is almost 11 and one of our fire/smoke/CO2 detectors is in the hallway right outside of our bedrooms. Last night it malfunctioned and the alarm didn't make him even stir. We had the fire department at our home a month or two ago because our system malfunctioned in a different area of the house. They checked all of our alarms and were happy with the placement, but I think now we need to place a unit in DS's bedroom. 

Not really needing advice, but curious about your experiences with a child not waking and general placement of alarms throughout your home.

[starburst604]

What kind of alarm is it, just the shrieking/beeping or is it the kind that talks? I remember watching a special about how kids especially can be such deep sleepers that they often will sleep through fire alarms. They recommended the kind that talk as well as beep for better rousing deep sleepers.

[cmeon]

All kids can sleep through normal smoke alarms, it's worse for boys. You can get alarms with a female voice alert, those work much better for kids. Our alarms are all connected (per code in my state), so if one of them goes, they are all announcing "Fire! Fire! Smoke detected!" It's honestly supper annoying, but roused the kids infallibly. It has to be a female voice, though- supposedly, mom's voice is even better- and there are alarms that let you record yourself.

[CloudBee]

Mar 4, 2024 9:43:20 GMT -5 starburst604 said:

What kind of alarm is it, just the shrieking/beeping or is it the kind that talks? I remember watching a special about how kids especially can be such deep sleepers that they often will sleep through fire alarms. They recommended the kind that talk as well as beep for better rousing deep sleepers.

It shrieks. And there's a secondary one opposite his bedroom as the main control panel for our security system is next to our bed. That speaks and shrieks. I couldn't believe how loud it was.

I will look into a stand alone additional unit that talks. The option for linked alarms that work with our system only talk at the main base.

[CloudBee]

Mar 4, 2024 9:46:33 GMT -5 cmeon said:

All kids can sleep through normal smoke alarms, it's worse for boys. You can get alarms with a female voice alert, those work much better for kids. Our alarms are all connected (per code in my state), so if one of them goes, they are all announcing "Fire! Fire! Smoke detected!" It's honestly supper annoying, but roused the kids infallibly. It has to be a female voice, though- supposedly, mom's voice is even better- and there are alarms that let you record yourself.

We use the model that works with our Ring devices, and this is the second time we've had a malfunction. It's so frustrating. They are all linked so the entire house was shrieking and practically vibrating. I think we would need a stand alone unit for his bedroom that's not linked, if we wanted a unit that speaks.

DH is so angry that we've had two malfunctions with the only alarms that are supposed to work with our security system, that he's going to research other options today. The main panel next to our bed speaks.

Really intrigued that I can buy an alarm with my voice recorded. He sleeps like a rock, but quickly wakes to my voice or touch. I could go into his room and put laundry away and he won't stir, but if I start talking to him he wakes. It's so strange.

[mrsGreeko]

We did add smoke detectors in all of the kids’ bedrooms. It’s now code that each bedroom have one and our house was built before that was a requirement so we just added battery alarms there to supplement the wired alarms in the halls on each floor. They have slept through smoke detectors going off though. But it was a malfunction on the wired alarm so the battery ones in their rooms did not go off. We’ve since replaced the upstairs hall with a beep plus voice. It hasn’t come up again that there’s been a test of whether they sleep through the ones in their rooms or the voice one yet.

I will say my 17 year old sleeps through allllllllll alarm clocks except the extreme vibration ones, so I don’t think she would wake up to a smoke detector at home. Interesting enough she now lives in the dorms and wakes up just fine to alarms there, but when she comes home on a weekend she sleeps right on through.

My other two kids now wake to alarm clocks easily so I think they’d wake to a smoke detector going off easily.

[shauni27]

PDQ:

About 15 years ago we were at a friend's for a party. We were young and mostly had too much to drink and went to bed sometime after midnight. I woke up to the house filled with smoke and the fire alarm going off. INSANELY loud fire alarm, flashing lights, etc. I did not have my contacts in and could hardly see.

The three other grown men in the house, including my husband, all slept through the alarm. I found the point of the fire (one of them had tried to make ramen and fell asleep and the pot caught fire) and put it out and aired out the house, all without contacts in, whilst screaming and hitting these drunk men in their 20s to wake up. Finally I got my husband to wake up enough and shouted at him "how did you not hear me screaming for you?!" and his response in the middle of all of that was "how am I supposed to hear you over this loud ass alarm?!" and then he went right back to sleep.

The three guys all continued to sleep until morning when they woke up and each vaguely remembered me shaking them awake yelling "fire" but that was it.

I still tell them all I am their hero as they surely would have perished in a fire if I were not there. They owe me for life on that one.

**they are all much more reliable now and do not drink like they did when they were 25, thank goodness.

[quesyrah]

My youngest sleeps through it too. In a true emergency we would have to go in and wake her.

She gets it from me. When I was a kid I could sleep through earthquakes lol

[icedcoffee]

Yep. The smoke detector in my kids room goes off if it gets too humid in there and both kids have slept through them every time. It wakes me up from down the hall.

[pinkdutchtulips]

I was this kid as a baby/toddler. I slept through a wind gusts from a nearby tornado breaking out the windows in my room (I was a about 2y and slept completely under a blanket on the regular). I slept through the warning sirens, the works. Once it was over, my mom was terrified of walking into my room bc of the glass but I was perfectly fine. 

We weren't in the direct path but we experienced some strong wind gusts miles away. 

Now, I do wake up to smoke/CO2 alarms, dogs whining in the night, kids waking up ... I wish I was the heavy sleeper I was when I was a kid lol 

[Jalapeñomel]

Mine is a flashing light and a sound, because I sleep through alarms .

[JayhawkGirl]

Ours aged out (10 years) and we got the kind that beeps and yells in a deep voice fire! They went off week before last and it scared the crap out of DD.

[penguingrrl]

If H is with me, I’ll sleep through alarms. I don’t think it’s that unusual to sleep that deeply. Several times in college the alarm went off in the dorms and H couldn’t wake me up so he carried me out and I woke up when I was hit with the blast of cold air from leaving the building in winter.

If H isn’t there I think I would wake up, but I don’t actually know because we’ve never had an alarm go off overnight when he wasn’t home.

[pugz]

Ours went off recently and the kids slept thru it. Husband jumps out of bed and seemed confused and tried to put clothes on and i was like “wtf go stop the alarm first!”

[ssmjlm]

I guess I haven't worried a ton about her sleeping through because our fire plan is DH does the dog, I do the kid and we have ladders in both rooms to exit out the windows.

The way our house is designed, her bedroom is next to ours, so the chances of us unable to reach her are slim. We've also discussed breaking through drywall if needed because her closet backs to our wall.


I remember touring houses in my parents new neighborhood and the primary bedrooms were so far from the only set of stairs and behind the other rooms that my mom fire escape thoughts were like "OMG they are so far from the one exit point they have from first and second floors." And when I mentioned that DH realized that yeah, in an emergency, they were screwed if they couldn't get to the steps.

[origami]

Yes this happened twice because of a weird electrical issue we have when the power goes out. My kids (both 13yo) slept through the loudest, scariest alarm I’ve ever heard. Twice! The first time I thought they were lying because it’s so loud it should have been impossible to sleep through. I have no idea how they don’t hear it. We’re getting a new system because this one is faulty and I’m going to have to think about what to do in their rooms.

[sillygoosegirl]

You're supposed to have a fire alarm in every bedroom these days, in addition to in the hall. But I honestly wouldn't expect them to wake children, teens, or young adults. My husband (and a bunch of the other students) would routinely sleep through fire alarms and parties so loud they drove me off campus to escape the noise. My daughter didn't wake up when the potty training alarm clipped to the outside of her PJs went off, and it was as loud as a fire alarm. MIL says DH was the same way with the potty training alarm, and she had to drag him down the hall and put him in a cold shower to get him to wake up. I would definitely expect that you will need to go wake your kids yourself in the event of a fire. Or perhaps drag them outside still sleeping.

You can get fire alarms now with a 10 year battery, so there's significantly less messing with the things now and middle of the night low battery cherps than before. BUT you do need to replace them after 10 years still, as the radioactive particles that make them work only last so long before too many have decayed for it to work reliably.

[wanderingback]

Mar 4, 2024 9:56:42 GMT -5 CloudBee said:

Mar 4, 2024 9:46:33 GMT -5 cmeon said:

All kids can sleep through normal smoke alarms, it's worse for boys. You can get alarms with a female voice alert, those work much better for kids. Our alarms are all connected (per code in my state), so if one of them goes, they are all announcing "Fire! Fire! Smoke detected!" It's honestly supper annoying, but roused the kids infallibly. It has to be a female voice, though- supposedly, mom's voice is even better- and there are alarms that let you record yourself.

We use the model that works with our Ring devices, and this is the second time we've had a malfunction. It's so frustrating. They are all linked so the entire house was shrieking and practically vibrating. I think we would need a stand alone unit for his bedroom that's not linked, if we wanted a unit that speaks.

DH is so angry that we've had two malfunctions with the only alarms that are supposed to work with our security system, that he's going to research other options today. The main panel next to our bed speaks.

Really intrigued that I can buy an alarm with my voice recorded. He sleeps like a rock, but quickly wakes to my voice or touch. I could go into his room and put laundry away and he won't stir, but if I start talking to him he wakes. It's so strange.

Yep that's pretty normal. The brain is amazing! 
Just like many parents would sleep through different sounds but if their child is crying or calling for them they'll wake up. 
Evolution keeps us alive