to think sleeping with open windows in January is only Right And Proper?

[RevoltingPeasant]

Seriously, surely this is normal? DH just made his 'pained face' when I popped up to air the bedroom prior to retiring. Over Christmas I opened all the windows in my mum's and PILs' insanely overheated windows before going to sleep. I almost always have open windows to get fresh air whilst we sleep.

I don't know how anyone can sleep in a stuffy room with the windows shut all day and all night! DH keeps saying 'But it's December'. Apart from the fact that it's now January, isn't he BU??

I can't sleep with any breeze in the room, or if it's cold. Different strokes really.

Our house is a modern, well insulted hose and never gets much below 12 degrees. During the day we have the heating on so it reaches a balmy 16 degrees. So a bedroom with the windows shut gets stuffy.

What usualsuspect said.

How can your bedroom possibly get stuffy if the heating is off and your door is open?

I'm assuming that you lot are living in early days of January in the Northern hemisphere, like me.

piprabbit it's not balmy at 16C. I prefer over 20C.

"balmy 16 degrees"

We put our coats on to go outside when it's 16 C outside. Especially the DC wouldn't survive long if the house was 16 C in the day and 12 C in the evening!

CoteDAzur I think piprabbit is made of much sterner stuff than you and me .

How are these bedrooms getting so hot & stuffy that you need a window open all night?

I was just thinking that I never want to live in the UK. Ever.

"Balmy 16 C... house never much below 12 C" sounds ARCTIC to me!

If it's -2 C outside at night, it will be pretty much the same in your bedroom if you leave a window open all night. How is that fun???

When I married dh, he liked having the windows shut in winter. He would whine and then sniffle every morning. He is from Scandinavia, ffs, he should be used to the cold.

We used to have stealth night wars where he would wait till I was asleep and shut the window and I would wake up stuffy and open them and so on.

Now, after 16 years of marriage, he has come around. In fact, he opens the window before we go to bed

What I crave now, is cross ventilation. I need two windows on different walls open to get a good sleep.

Our heating is on all the time, since we have underfloor heating downstairs. But it goes into a night mode, so hopefully we are not 'blowing away' money, so as to speak!

I have no heating in my bedroom and sleep with the door open, I don't like warm bedrooms either.
I don't leave the window open though, that would be just too much.
Considering this is the Highlands we have a lot of strong gales. I usually have my kitchen window open all the time for the cats, but at this time of year I'm having to close to stop all the doors slamming and things blowing of the window ledge.

"How does a room get stuffy with no heating on?" - dh is a veritable nuclear reactor when it comes to giving off heat. If the cats are under the duvet too it's like being in some kind of slow cooker!

foam mattresses are really insulating too...

I have no idea if anyone is BU. I like fresh air, every day and every night, I have an electric blanket to jump into thankfulky

Had no idea that so many people felt so strongly about this!

I wear long pyjamas, have a really thick duvet and, as of last winter, the luxury of an electric underblanket, but still need the windows closed or I'd freeze and not sleep.

I really don't get the stale / unhealthy air thing or the black mould problem - we've never experienced any of this.

I air my room out in the day and have the windows closed at night. I live in London so too noisy to sleep with windows open at night and bloody freezing as well.

As a foreigner from a Scandinavian-type country, I have to say that the Brits have a VERY unique attitude towards the cold. I like the house warm. I also mentally roll my eyes any time a British person says to me "but you are from XXXX, you should LOVE the cold!" No, no, no, NOOOO! We, people from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Ukraine, Russia, you name it, developed excellent strategies for keeping the cold OUT. We have well-insulated homes, with good heating systems, thick walls and double glazing. We had it for ages. We are constantly beguiled by the freezing draughty British housing. We would never dream of standing half-naked in club queues on a January night like the Brits do. We like our parkas and furry boots. We may open windows in our houses in the winter, but just a crack, for ventilation. Keeping them wide open would be just insane. We like being able to go to the loo in the middle of the night and not freeze our fannies/willies off.

From our perspective, the British are a perplexing and extremely hardy nation. Their love of the cold is one thing we will never ever grasp. Along with the two taps thing.

" British are a perplexing and extremely hardy nation. Their love of the cold is one thing we will never ever grasp. Along with the two taps thing."

Exactly! What's with the two taps? Why???

My Canadian relatives would agree with you Autumn (taps too)!

I wonder whether it's the same mentality that insisted that babies should be put outside to sleep, a couple of generations ago. A rational explanation for that might be that in the days of coal fires and everyone smoking, it's possible that outdoor air was cleaner, despite coal smoke etc.