What are you doing about the cold weather and heating?

[hawalkden]

As titiled?

Just wondering what you're doing about Winter this year and you're Los?

I personally can't afford to have the heating on for so many hours in the day/mid evening. So need tips on how I can keep the house warm. Mainly Isaac's room. He's 11 months now and sleeps in his cot with vest, sleepsuit, fleecy blanket which he cuddles and at the moment one of my knitted cardigan which he's obsessed with. We check on him twice during the evening and before we go to bed. He's usually done a 360 turn and all the quilts are off him.

He's got sleeping bags but he wants to have the cardigan too to go to sleep with at the moment so don't want him to overheat. In the morning when I go and get him his arms are freezing and his quilts are off him.

He's got at my parents a junior bed and a junior duvet I don't know the tog. We're currently house/dog sitting and he's sleeping in his travel cot. I'm tempted to buy a junior bed due to needing the cotbed he's in we'll be needing that at the end of Feb with second bumps growing out the Moses basket.

So how do you keep them warm?

Also what shall I do about this whole junior bed? Getting one after Christmas he'll be 13/14 months old then?

 

[Amber4]

Could he wear fleecy baby grows? That way with him kicking off the covers at least he'd still be warm. We only have the heating on at night and it's staying warm. It comes on for half an hour a few times a night and Brooke's room has been at 19/20 degrees x

 

[aimee-lou]

We haven't had central heating since before Earl was born. Our old house had oil-fired which was extortion so we bought a few oil filled radiators and plug in timers. Worked great! This house has 3 small convection heaters with timers in the bedrooms and 2 large storage radiators downstairs. I only ever actually have 1 of them on and the heaters upstairs come on for an hour 6am-7am and 6pm-7pm each day. Last winter I ended up opening windows as it got too hot! The storage heaters are great for just keeping it comfortable, and there's a 'boost' button should we need it.

For keeping baby warm, I used to put the radiator timer to go on for a couple of hours in the middle of the night - say if it had been on 6-7, then it would come back on at 10 (around his dreamfeed time) then again around 2am (usually woke up around 3 for a feed) for an hour each time to keep it topped up. I would also wrap him up in a vest, sleepsuit (fleecy or otherwise) socks over the top and sometimes a jumper/top. I would then put a sheet (tucked in) around his legs and a blanket over that. This was for the depths of winter though, when Earl was 2-3 months old. Second winter Earl had his junior bed (was 15 months) from the Jan, and he loved his duvet. He still does, although because normally they're only a 4tog, he also has a blanket over the top. Having said that, I have a bedspread over my duvet lol.

 

[PandaPrincess]

Try the oil filled radiators you can plug in. You can set the temperature/time and they only costs pence to run per hour. Xx

 

[sandilion]

Sorry i haven't read the other replies but just wanted to say my LO was a new born (8 weeks prem) all through Autumn and winter here in Aus. And to be honest it's recommended babies are in a cooler room, but rugged up. So if you have plenty of blankies (you can get thermal blankets - check ebay)

After all, SIDS is higher in winter than the warmer months as people think they need to crank the heaters as well as rug up their LO's - when in fact LO's are better off with a cooler room, and warm bedding. I read all about it s he was born just before Autumn.

Also fleece is good and keeping them warm - it isn't a fabric that breathes though so keep that in mind. What you can do is put them in cotton clothing, put a cotton blanket over them and then a fleece one over that one. It's still good to use fabrics that breath even when it's freezing cold.

I will also add though that it doesn't snow where i am from, but it does get bloody cold in the winter.

 

[emsie_123]

Best thing I ever bought was a heater for our room.

Whenever it goes bellow 17, it will boost the temperature up to 21 and turn itself off. Its amazing! It lowered our bill massively as we didn't need to heat up the whole house during the night.

Another money saving advice is thermal curtains in the room.

Edit: what panda said.

 

[Reno]

We have all the radiators in the house turned off, apart from ours and LOs room, and put the heating on for an hour or two at night. We also keep all the doors closed so there are no draughts! my baby monitor beeps if it goes below 16 degrees at night, then I can put the heating on boost for an hour!

If its at 16 degrees when he's going to bed, I put him in a sleeveless vest, long sleeved vest and regular sleepsuit, with a 2.5 tog sleeping bag. Sometimes his hands and feet are cold in the night, but as a PP said its better for them to be too cold than too warm!

 

[Lois22]

We also have a heater in her room which turns on when it drops lower than 19 and turns off when reaches that temp.

I have the airing cupboard in my room, which she's in atm. It stays 22/23.

Xx