The nights are coming in fast. It’s becoming colder outside day by day, and your mind can only think of cozy jumpers, steaming mugs of coffee, and plenty of exercises to keep yourself warm.
All these circumstances at the same time declare that winter is on its way. And with coldness comes the challenges of keeping your baby’s room warm. Fortunately, baby shops are more than happy to ride with the tide by filling their display windows with dazzling winter baby clothes and accessories.
However, with warm clothes and accessories during winter, babies need a warmer room. The big question is; what is an ideal temperature for your baby’s room? Well, if appropriately dressed, babies feel warm and calm at the temperature of 20° to 22.2°C.
Fortunately, that’s where we come in! If you are fed up with getting a variety of information through baby books that provide little or no actionable knowledge on keeping the room warm and cozy, this article will probably help you.
This post discussed some simple but effective ways to keep your baby’s room warm.
1. Heating the room
Heating is one of the most significant conducts of maintaining cozy temperatures in your baby’s room. To achieve this, you will have to invest in an efficient AC system, especially if you are looking to warm up your entire household.
Unfortunately, such a system is not an affordable or practical choice for many homes. However, this doesn’t mean that you should not heat your baby’s room. Several practical options are accessible such as panel heaters, space heaters, and oil heaters. These options provide adequate background warmth at a lower cost. After installing any of these, note that the warmth should not exceed 22.2°C. Overheating the room often causes Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, for which a healthy baby may die unexpectedly.
2. Bedding layer Protection
Just like you prefer to layer your body with warm clothes on cold days and nights, it is also important to layer your kid’s bedding. This will come in handy, especially on those nights or days when the weather can’t make up its mind. To achieve this, spread a blanket at the bottom of the baby’s bed beyond their feet so that you can pull it up when it becomes frosty. Woolen underlay or polar fleece sheets are good pieces to keep the baby warm.
Duvets can also be a good option, but they tend to fall off due to subconscious movements. Luckily, you can keep them in place by strapping them with grips that go below the mattress. If these are not practical options for you, place a blanket or sheet across the bottom half of the baby’s bed and tuck it on both sides to keep the heat in.
3. Keep the cold out
Fitting thermal curtains on external doors and windows will come in handy in keeping cold air at bay. You can also weather-strip doors and windows to stop entering cold air. And if you can, covering the entire room will produce meticulous results in keeping the room warm.
4. Take the cold off
Before your baby goes to sleep, place a hot water bottle under the bedcover. It helps a lot to maintain a warm bed. Remember to cover it up. Be very careful and refill it immediately after it becomes empty. Please don’t leave it under the beddings, or else it could be destructive.
If you have access to an electric blanket, it will also do a perfect pre-warming job before bedtime. You only need to turn it on 30 minutes before your baby goes to sleep and plug it off immediately after he fell asleep.
NB: You should arrange an electric blanket facility only when your babies become toilet trained.
5. Embrace the open air
Even when the weather outside is chilly, temperatures within the house can still be high. Luckily, the simplest solution for a hot nursery is open windows.
This not only refreshes the room but also allows cooler air to circulate. However, the weather can change drastically. So if you intend to leave the windows open, ensure that you are regularly in and out of the room to ensure that it doesn’t become intolerable for the baby.
NB: Do this during warm days only with close and regular supervision. Avoid overheating since it can increase the risk associated with cot death mentioned above as SIDS.
Besides this, here are a few tips to make you careful while warming your baby’s room.
• Never dress a baby in a hat when going to bed or when indoors because babies lose excess heat through their heads. Covering the head could result in overheating, which could be disastrous.
• If your baby is below one, never use a duvet as it can suffocate. As duvets are heavy, babies can’t move them away from their faces. Additionally, they can also cause blistering.
• Keep away a hot water bottle or an electric blanket when the baby is sleeping. Though they can be very comforting to you on chilly nights, remember that unlike adults, babies under two years old can’t control their body temperatures.
• Never leave your baby to sleep next to or near a radiator or any other heat source. This could result in nasty burns as well as overheating, which can be mortal.
After achieving a cozy room temperature, you need to monitor your baby to ensure that they are comfortable. Feel the baby’s abdomen, back, and chest to track the temperature. Overheating will make the baby moist and damp due to sweat, more so on the chest, back, and head. He/she might also have a rapid pulse, red ears, or even develop a fever. Try to understand the overheating signs and if you notice anything like this, remove some clothing and find other ways to bring the room temperatures down.
