One of the most heated debates in home flooring today is between using carpets or hardwood floors. We’ve written dozens of guides to help you make the best decision between the two and plan to keep doing so until there are no more questions left to answer. In the mean time, although hardwoods have grown in popularity over the last decade in the US and Canada, the fundamentals of comfort and design haven’t. While hard wooden floors work well in a number of places in the home, people are inherently going to be happier when they have access to a soft floor in certain areas of their lives, and one of those areas is the bedroom. Today we’ll share why carpets are the best choice for child and adult bedrooms alike.

Carpets make rooms quieter by muffling sounds, which results in better sleep

If you’re like most people, you sleep better when it’s quiet around you than when it’s loud. It’s not fun to wake up simply because your partner decided to enter or leave the bedroom. It goes without saying that a carpet will always be quieter to step on than a floor made from wood; the more you can mask footsteps, the better you’ll sleep. The sound deadening can be particularly important when sharing a room with a partner who has a different work schedule. Beyond footsteps, carpets will absorb all sounds in general, while hard floorings tend to reflect them; speech, music, and other sounds of daily life will be much louder with a bare floor and much quieter with a carpeted one.

Carpets are warmer and softer underfoot, resulting in a feeling of comfort

It’s no secret that most people would rather stay in a warm bed each morning than leave it while jolted awake by an alarm clock. However, even if we can’t escape work, it’s nice to at least have a warm and soft floor to walk on when we leave our beds. The transition from a bed to a carpeted floor is psychologically less stressful than that from a bed to a hardwood floor; similarly, it feels better moving from a carpeted floor to your bed at the end of the day. There’s a reason why people don’t generally sleep on hard floors unless they’re behind bars; comfort matters.  If you don’t want a carpet, at least invest in well-chosen area rugs.

Carpets are safer when you slip or fall, making them better for babies and young children

However, using carpets in bedrooms and nurseries isn’t just a matter of comfort; it’s also a matter of safety. Whether as adults or as children, we’re far more likely to slip and fall when we’re tired, which we’re highly likely to do when crawling out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Similarly, young children aren’t known for their gracefulness, and toddlers, preschoolers, and even elementary-aged children can and will fall frequently. If you have babies, the choice is even clearer: skip the hardwood and choose carpets to give them softer landings when they crash.

Carpets reduce allergies far more than hardwood by trapping allergens in the fibers

Finally, if you still need convincing of the merits and benefits of carpeting compared to hardwood floors in bedrooms, think of allergy reduction. Although it’s a common myth that carpets increase allergies, the reverse is true. Carpets are actually the largest and most effective air purifiers in any home, even those with dedicated, whole house air purifiers and HEPA-class vacuums.

If you or someone you love suffers from asthma or pet, plant, or environmental allergies, a carpet is likely to make a significant increase in your quality of sleep and a significant reduction in your symptoms compared to a bare floor. The reason behind carpet’s effectiveness is that the fibers trap allergens and keep them out of the air (as well as out of your body). You can then remove whatever trapped allergens exist through a powerful, HEPA-equipped vacuum (e.g., a Dyson Ball Animal 2 for an upright or a Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog for a canister).

Which vacuums clean both hardwood floors and carpets effectively?

Whether you choose hardwood floors or carpets (or both) for your home, it makes sense to have a vacuum capable of cleaning both. To effectively clean hardwood floors, we recommend vacuums with dedicated Parquet heads. A Parquet head will both efficiently scoop up pet hair, dirt, and dust (instead of blowing it around with air currents) while polishing your flooring.

However, you’ll also want a vacuum with an electric brush head, as these are essential for getting every last bit of dirt out of a carpet’s fibers. The problem is that most vacuums on the market don’t include both heads, and instead opt for less effective combination heads that don’t do a particularly good job on either surface. Two wonderful exceptions to the rule are the Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog (reviewed here and here) and Miele Compact C2 Electro+ (reviewed here and here). Both canisters are among the most reliable vacuums on the market, and each has the power to make quick work of any bare or carpeted floor.

You  can buy the Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog here on Amazon or buy the Miele Compact C2 Electro+ here.

Canadians can buy the Miele C3 Cat & Dog here or buy the Compact Electro+ here.

If you find our research on PMC helpful, you can follow our efforts to keep maniacally reviewing home cleaning tools by shopping through our links above. We promise to keep fighting the good fight against every horror children, animals, and grown, yet messy humans can inflict upon a clean home.