Room Temperature for Baby - HELP Post Reply

[DinosMom]

I need some serious help here. We live in an old 3 story house in Wandsworth (I'm sure everyone lives in an old house here ) It is very drafty and just plain cold if we don't run the heat all day. Even then, some rooms (north facing, conservatory, are ice cold). We swapped my 5 year old and baby's room so hers would be insulated by 3 walls and only one exterior wall. She has 1 big heater in there. It gets nice and warm, but with her door closed at night it ends up HOT by 2am or so. So I closed it off and put a smaller space heater (radiator style) to warm up room, but it's either too hot or too cold. Last night her hands were icicles when she woke. I've tried Grobags or just blankets tucked in.. The Gro Thermometer is always wrong.

The nights were we miraculously get it "right" in there she only wakes 1 time and I nurser her back to sleep. If it is too hot or too cold, she wakes 4-6 times! I don't want her learning to nurse back down every time like this, because she doesn't take a pacifier and she is 7 months and on solids and really could go all night with no feeds. I need some sleep!!!

What do you all do? I prefer a bit cooler air and bundle her, (better for breathing and skin) but then she can't roll and gets frustrated. I personally don't like the Grobags b/c her arms get cold (and hands) and they twist up and don't teach her how to eventually pull covers over her. (We used sleeping bags with my son and he only just now at 4.5 can pull the covers over himself!)

SHould I just use the heat and dress her like we live in a warmer climate? I would open her door for circulation and to let some of the warm air out, but I am afraid my sick cat will go in there and throw up or meow (he's Siamese and it's an annoying meow). He sleeps just outside her door under a heater. Maybe I should try it anyway.

Please advise me how to deal with this freezing weather and old heaters. I am so spoiled with central heat and air back in America. 70 degrees in every room all the time.

Thanks, Deborah

[ekf]

I bought a 2.5 tog sleep suit from Mothercare. That way the arms are covered as well. I do also leave a heater on on extremely cold nights. I find that 19 degrees is the perfect temperature for my 12 month old. Any colder and he wakes up at 4 am and won't sleep until I bring him into our bed under the duvet!

[sparkletiger]

It's so tricky to get temp right. Perhaps try a sleeping bag with arms. Jojomamanbebe do one, or a fleece sleep suit on top of baby grow. I put a cardigan on under sleeping bag and over baby grow. Babies tend to throw off covers and so get cold or tangled.

At 7 months tho I think expecting to go all through the night is a bit optimistic. Even if on solids. I've got an almost 1 yr old and almost 4 year old and neither slept thru til after first burthday. You may be lucky but if she/he needs fed then you gotta go with it. It's not forever.

If you've got the house/space does your cat need to sleep in the doorway? Move the cat I'd say but then I admit I'm not the hugest cat fan.

Good luck. Oh yeah if the gro egg thermometer isn't correct get it replaced?

[Camille]

We have exactly the same problem in our 3 storey house which permanently feels like we have left a couple of windows open....can feel the draught as i type!
We invested in a couple of oil heated De Longhi Bambino plug in electric radiators (one each time I gave birth!). We leave them on all night as they have built in thermostats and maintain steady temperatures in the baby's and toddler's bedrooms. They also look quite attractive compared to most plug in heaters.
Other than that you could move into some boring, fully insulated, new build apartment...but then you could be living anywhere in the world and miss out on how us Brits shiver through the winter

[balhamite]

We also used to use a De Longhi plug in radiator on a thermostat.

[DinosMom]

thanks everyone. we have 2 delonghis - 1 in each kid's room. i just needed to lower the thermostat on it and dress her in 2 layers. been working!

[Sandimous]

At night I've been turning off the central heat and using cheap Argos basics fan heaters in the bedrooms. They sort of have a thermostat setting. So far so good.

[lawrence]

Same problem in our house,and we end up paying huge gas bills...its either that or be freezing,at least i know my kids wont get colds and runny noses,its better pay bills,then be sick.But we will consider moving in well isolated house,when time is right.

[MrsOctober]

We have a 3-storey victorian house, which we completely renovated and replumbed and insulated yet we had a similar ongoing problem in one of our bedrooms. Before turning it into a nursery, we'd never realised quite how cold it got in there. It has 3 outside walls and is in the eaves, so not much space for loft insulation either. We did what we could with loft insulation (only a few inches in which to work) we replaced the window with a new double-glazed sash, but at night once the central heating went off, the general lack of insulation meant that the temperature in that room dropped well below the temperature in the rest of the house. We weren't happy to leave an electric heater in there as we were even more worried about safety and the possibility of overheating our baby. After all, cold babies cry & as for hot babies, well, we've all read the warnings...... We resorted to moving our child out of there during the winter but then when another baby came along we needed the space. The bedroom in question is above the boiler cupboard so we simply got a plumber in to replumb the radiator in that room and give it its own wireless thermostat, placed near the cot. This means that whenever the temperature falls below 18degrees in that room, the boiler kicks in and warms it up, leaving the rest of the house controlled by the original thermostat.
As for gro-bags, I've only ever used gro-bags. They're the only way of ensuring that your child stays at a constant temperature all night. My sister never liked the idea of gro-bags and didn't get a proper night's sleep for about 8yrs as she was constantly tending to cold, miserable kids who'd kicked-off their bedding. My eldest son went into a bed at 2.5yrs & came out of a gro-bag a few months later. He was in a cotbed with the sides off and rather than use a cotbed duvet, we bought a single duvet turned sideways and wrapped around the mattress. After about a year we turned it round the right way, tucking it in using a large cotton blanket over the top. He's never kicked his covers off. My friend's daughter just loved her gro-bag and stayed in it until she was 5, at which time she could unzip it herself when she woke up. She then used a duvet with sheet over the top to tuck it in and never had a problem. It seems to me with your fluctuating temperatures you should really give the gro-bag thing a go. A 2.5tog sleeveless gro-bag with 2 long-sleeved tops & pyjama trousers underneath should cope with temperatures as low as 16degrees (which is cold) And the ones in JMB with sleeves cope with temps lower than that. The only problem is when your temperatures fluctuate, it's impossible to safely dress a child for bed if the min/max temperatures they will experience vary by more than a few degrees. Sorting out your heating is a costly solution but it sounds like your energy bills are going to be astrnomical anyway, so you'll get the money back in future savings. A good night's sleep for your household is also priceless as any parent will tell you. Best of luck.

[bambinomerino]

Merino baby sleeping bags are perfect in situations like these. It's such a common scenario in our old houses/changeable climate.

Merino is really fine, non-itchy wool and it helps babies regulate their body temperature. It's breathable and keeps them warm but not too hot when the temperature changes during the night.

Our sleeping bags are lined with fine merino and don't have a fixed TOG rating as they work with your baby's body temperature to keep them at a constant level. In cooler weather the merino fibres trap an insulating layer of warm air against the body. Conversely if the room is warm and baby starts to get hot, excess heat is drawn away from her body in the form of moisture and evaporated in the air.

There's no possibility of baby overheating and we get emails from parents all the time crediting our sleeping bags with getting their babies sleeping through the night.

They're designed for year round wear and fit for two years so are much better value than buying multiple sleeping bag sizes/weights too.

If you do want to give them a try please give us a call on 020 8877 1111 or find out more online at
http://www.bambinomerino.com/Bambino-Me ... c-16/p-29/

All the best.

[pieinthesky14]

I agree that Merino bags are the way forward. My daughter has the duvet weight bag. They can sleep in them until they are around 2. I just checked and they have a code on Facebook - which may help to get it cheaper

To receive a fantastic 25% off these products, just use the code FB2401 on our website but there’s limited stock available so hurry! We also have free shipping until February.
http://www.merinokids.co.uk/shop/gogoba ... eight.html