Keeping Your Baby or Toddler cool at night ...
I've been watching the temperature creep up at night in my daughers room ... just last week it was a comfortable 25 degrees ... last night it was a very uncomfortable 29 degrees! My little girl who slept amazingly well for her first two summers ( bizarely the hotter it got the more soundly she slept ) is now not liking the nighttime heat in Spain at all and is able to vocally tell me that 'my room is too hot' ... so although it's only mid June, it seems a summer of broken nights sleep is about to start, and I am bracing myself for the worst ...
I remember reading up on keeping bedrooms cool when Bella was born, afterall when you have a baby in Spain, hot summer nights are part and parcel of it all, but funnily enough although I was actually more frightened about her overheating her first summer, it seems that this summer now she is two and a half is going to be the worst. It's so hot that she's stopped napping too and is taking a long time to settle at night, so all in all she's losing sleep which I'm not too happy about. Time to take some action I think!!
Here are some of the tips I remember from reading about keeping your childs room cool in Spain ...
* You can put a fan ( or two, or three ) in a babies room, but when they are very small have it pointed away from the baby so they only get the breeze that bounces off another wall. This worked well for us, although I do remember having three blaring in the height of summer, all stragetically angeled at different positions ...
* As far as I can remember you can use air conditioning in older babies bedrooms. We never did this, I always thought it seemed a bit unhealthy, but a friend of mine has used air conditioning in her son's bedroom ever summer since he's been born, and he's never seemed to suffer from it. Again angle the breeze away from the baby's bed ...
* One thing we did do last summer, was put our portable air con unit in Bella's bedroom for an hour or so before she went to bed to cool the room down and then put the fans on .... this didn't keep the room cool all night but did make it more comfy for a few hours ...
* Try to keep shutters down during the day so your babies room doesn't get too hot ...
* I remember reading a funny tip which was to soak towels in cold water and hang them in the baby's room opposite the fan. I tried this when it was really hot during bella's first summer in Spain and it did lower the temp by a few degrees ... trouble was when the room is 30 degrees plus the towels dry in about 5 mins! Worth a go though!
* Obviously strip your baby down as much as you can .... newborns normally get colder and may require a vest or light sleepsuit, toddlers can sleep in as little as nothing .... check out the sleep cover / temp guidelines which tell you what clothes / covers a baby should have in different temps .... there is a good one on babycenter.co.uk
Happy Sleeping!
Babies and small children often find it impossible to regulate their body temperature..meaning they get hot in the night, then sweaty, then damp, then cold...which is why they often wake up unhappy in the night.
ReplyDeleteIf the mattress is synthetic then it won't be allowing for ventilation and a good circulation of air. We recommend a natural and organic mattress which has superior ventilation, keeping them cool in the Summer and warm in the colder months..meaning your little one should sleep right through the night..naturally :-)