How did you keep babies warm years ago?

[GarlicCrackers]

Posting here for traffic and visibility.

Also maybe a slight AIBU for being totally ignorant and naive!!

I am due my second child in Feb, due to recent events with my dearest wanker of a half - I am now single and my first thought was, well I better reduce the energy bill if I want to financially survive.

I am 33 so have never lived without central heating and modern amenities.

Sat down, looked at electrics, you know vampire devices, plugs that get left on. Moved on to heating. I like being cool, I dislike the heat so I think well hot water bottle at night and wear my oodie during the day. Heating off at night and we will all be fine. Will have the dogs upstairs and we can all share heat.

and then I remember….I’m pregnant, I’m due a baby in cold cold February. Babies can’t regulate heat they are tiny.

How did we keep babies warm before CH? I have grobags and blankets. Can they have hot water bottles? I can’t afford heating on all night but dear god will I get into energy debt if that’s my only choice

I know this sounds stupid, I just realised I have no idea. I see people talk about how no heating = constant chest infections etc

Please be careful, some of this advice is NOT safe sleeping guidance

I don't want to hear of any times where a baby has been smothered or died of SIDS because they were sleeping down someone's top or had 26 blankets and a woolly hat on.

We never had heating on overnight - you can get really cosy sleep suits with socks and hand bits, and grow bags/sleeping bags. We had a gro egg to keep an eye on the room temp too.

I grew up in a house with one coal fire, there was 7 of us children and we didn't freeze! My daughter was born in winter and I've never had the heating on overnight, and she's 3 and fine.

@GarlicCrackers dont forget that you’re due in February, that’s the end of winter and spring will be coming through in March. New born babies for the first however long wear little hats as their heat escapes through their head. It’s also about keeping their core at the right temperature - not too hot. Think of layers etc. and warm the person, so that would help with your other child and you too.

We never have the heat on at night. Not even when we had newborns.
It makes us all feel rough somehow.

Get a billion pairs of socks (which double up as gloves for babies!) And buy some hats & a baby sized quilt.

The quilt is multifunctional, providing warmth, something nice to do tummy time on & something nice to sit on in the garden too.

A proper squidgy quilt made of squares.

It’s really not if the bed is safe (no duvet), unless you/partner smoke, baby is low birth weight or you drink/take drugs.

The midwives made sure I could feed lying down before we left hospital and advocated safe co-sleeping.

All of the baby deaths are where people have accidentally fallen asleep in an unsafe place (bed with duvets and pillows or sofas mainly), or where drink/drugs are involved.

NCT keeping baby warm this winter

Oh yes, I got that. It’s the original poster claiming we were all about to expire suddenly in 19 degrees, and if we demurred we must all be Mr Blobby-level obese who’s the weird one, not you. Sorry to be unclear

Are there any mnetters from the cold countries here?maybe I need to ask my Norwegian family?or is it not adjustable because of genetics,lifestyle,clothing,food etc.
What I do no is you all need my aunt to knit u all a proper Nordic jumper.my god you'd never feel cold again!😃

November baby here

Energy crisis or not, i never had the heating on at night. Actually, the heating in our room (where baby slept) is broken and we cannot fix it 😐
We kept the door open during the day to let warm from other room come in.
Then we used hot bottles to warm up bed and crib.
Baby was in a thick overall that can be closed on the hands too. Plus a winter sleep bag.
Also our bodies were sort of "warming up" the room

I'd actually ask your health visitor this as advice changes so quickly.

When I had mine 14 years ago all the advice was about not overheating. They also said for baby to have i more layer than you.

I also dont have heating at night anyway, but the house has been heated in the day so it doesnt drop to much from the point it was heated too. A totally unheated house will be much colder.

Remember that central heating wasn't widespread before the 1970s (which co-incidentally was when we last had a fuel crisis and soaring inflation).

So do talk to those for whom all this was normal life. Either directly (family, friends, neighbours) or by poking round secondhand bookshops in hope of finding a how-to baby book of that era. They were all written in the expectation that bedrooms were unheated except in exceptional circumstances ( so portable heater if someone's ill.

Firstly, babies cry if they're waken by being cold (it's not like overheating which can do that but can also make them drowsy and less likely to cry), so it's more a comfort and quality of sleep thing (theirs and yours)

Thin layers and out of drafts. Good quality cellular blankets trap more air than flatter ones (look for second hand ones - they last forever, so should be around, or buy one good quality full size one and cut it up). Consider swaddling. Consider mittens (or garments with integral mittens if you have an undresser). Warming pan equivalents (no, not the traditional hot brick, but a hot water bottle before bedtime, that's taken out when the baby goes to bed.

Honestly quite shocked at the idea that people might have central heating on overnight. I have left it on by accident and woken in the middle of the night too hot and it’s awful. We have it on for an hour twice a day when it’s really cold (new build house) but only when the temperature drops below 17/18. Cannot bare over heated houses and my children have really warm snuggly beds and are fine. As babies, we co-slept (safely) and they definitely didn’t require any extra heating but I did make sure the bathroom was warm for bath time.

I’m actually quite depressed at the idea that people have the heating on at night!!

There are lots of baby sleep temperature guides online. Most look something like this, which I found really helpful with a small baby during the heatwave.

Basically, if it's cold a warm sleeping bag, a sleepsuit and a long sleeved vest should be fine.

The only annoying thing is that most sleeping bags need your baby to be 4kg to use safely. Before that you need blankets instead which my baby would determinedly remove every night.

Hi? I grew up without central heating and just a gas fire in the lounge. We l all spent a lot of time in that room. So effectively you heat one room only. At night as a child I remember being tucked in with blankets and hot water bottles - remember that the bedrooms never got any heat.

Now what did mum do with us as babies - I can't answer.

My last baby was a January baby born in the south east during the snow in 2021 so pretty cold.

Look up swaddling. I used a large muslin to swaddle him. At night I would feel his temp and if necessary in the middle of the night at the coldest part would put a thin blanket over.

We spent 18 hours pretty much on me during the day - that regulates his temp and a short period over night in his crib sleeping

Wool, especially merino, is much more effective at regulating a baby's temperature (or anyone's) than synthetic fibres.

I'd probably not bother with merino clothing for a tiny baby because they grow out of it quickly, but I'd definitely look at wool/merino-lined sleeping bags and blankets. Try Cambridge Baby and Dilling. Superlove Merino is lovely but very expensive, but possibly available 2nd hand. H+M had some good stuff a few seasons ago.

Years ago, people were able to buy bags of coal or logs, most houses had fireplaces, so you could heat one room and the boiler (typical of the house I grew up in - the bedrooms were freezing all winter) and it usually lent its warmth to the bedroom above, the chimney breast ran through the house. Now we can't, we're 100% reliant on imported fuel.

Paraffin heaters were very common but they were really awful things that stank and were probably a fire risk too.

I believe that those 'oil filled' radiators that plug in are a bit less expensive than running electric heaters if you can't afford your gas on. They might be an option to take the chill out of the baby's room. Fingers crossed that the conflict in Ukraine is over by next spring, OP.

And.....I'll say it again, lots of uK housing stock is old and does not retain the heat. Just because your house does, lots of people's DOESN'T, and it can easily drop to 13-14 degrees in Jan or Feb in the night, indoors, if the heating does not come on for an hour in the middle of the night. Nobody is suggesting running heating all night long to keep the temp at some of ridiculous hot heat, actually ha have some awareness not all homes are the same!!!!

Except this is a thread about keeping warm in winter. I don't think the people advocating sleeping with baby are doing so without a duvet or any blankets.

My heating needs to be on for several hours a day in winter just to keep to 18. Old house. You are talking about 'only putting it on if it drops below 17/18' for a lot of people in poorly insulated properties it can drop below 18 within an hour or two of the heating going off!!!

Don't over dress as it is better they are slightly cold than too hot. I would say vest, babygrow and sleeping bag or vest, fleecey babygrow and a blanket (cellular blanket).

Where do you live? Mine was February and he was just in what I have described above.

No heating on at night here or electric blankets. Thick Pj, nice thick duvet - when they were little on gro bags things and fleece blanket on the top. Duvets make a huge difference. Those microfibre ones are rubbish - we have like wool duvets they were really expensive ten years ago but my god they are as good as new.

co sleep share body warmth but air is a good insulator. Layers. But you forget Scandinavian homes are built to be insulated and they have nice warm fires 🔥

We never put the heating on all night (DD born 2020 so not advice from years ago!) And she slept in a short sleeve vest, long sleeve sleepsuit, cardigan and sleeping bag or blankets when it was very cold.

Thankfully no it hasn't.

When my DB was a baby (1965) we lived in a really cold flat - draughty, damp and with really high ceilings. The only heating was coal fires, electric fires or fan heaters. Burst pipes were a regular occurrence in the winter.

DB was dressed in multiple layers: woollen baby vest, a romper made of a sort of thick brushed cotton, knitted cardigan, woollen leggings and shawl and then over the top went woollen cellular blankets. My DM used to drape blankets over a clothes airer round his cot to try and minimise draughts, too. Changing a nappy took hours, because of all the layers. Oh, and terry nappies, too, no disposables, they were too expensive.

Babygrows had just been invented, but they were expensive and DB grew like a weed, so he only ever had one of them.

We've never had our heating on overnight, on the coldest nights we've put it on for a 2 hour burst around 1am, that's probably once or twice each winter. I bedshare with our babies, keeps them warm, skin to skin regulates their breathing and temperature. Long sleeve vest, sleepsuit, sleeping bag, socks as well when it's one of the aforementioned coldest nights.