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

I never used overnight heating. I kept the baby in her cot next to my bed (or in my bed) until she was 12 months old. Flannel sheet, pre warmed with a hot water bottle, long sleeved vest, sleeping bag and a blanket where necessary. With us all in one room and the door shut the room didn’t get that cold overnight anyway.. maybe 16oC.

When I had my first baby in the 80's, we'd have wool bonnets for day time and plainer ones for winter nights. I had single glazed wooden windows, but some people had started to get double glazed and they made a difference. Children had more respiratory issues, old pictures show permanent snotty nose etc. Grants started to be given out in the 90's for damp and draught issues because we found after people adhered to safe smoking that children were still depending on antibiotics. Over winter, November to February if people could afford it they'd use a heater in the room the baby was in until a couple of months old. We layered up, only cellular blankets, topped with a proper wool blanket was recommended. Blankets for the bed if co-sleeping. My grandmother always used to comment how there wasn't as many 'sickly' kids about and children never used to have the shiny hair etc of the children in the 80's. A good portion of the babies didn't do well.

Cold air causes the airways to narrow and babies have narrow airways anyway. I would personally read and stick to the infant sleeping guidelines rather than any personal experience. Monitor the temperature and if it dips a lot below the minimum you’ll need to heat the room. A short blast of heating will be enough to raise the temperature. And monitor babies temperature on their torso and not their hands. Whether you need heating will depend on your house, the outside temperature and whether you’ve had the heating on during the day. I didn’t find it took an enormous amount of extra heating to keep the temp above 16 but it would dip nearer to single figures on a really cold day in my house without it

I never heard any temperature guidelines when DS was a baby. Warmer country but single digits in the winter and many uninsulated houses, no central heating where we were. I was just told to dress him how I would dress myself, dress for the temperature, and how to tell if they were hot or cold.

I wonder if @Oldcottoneye was drunk last night.

freezing to death at 18c? Fucking nuts. And as for being paranoid about smothering a baby with a hat but then advocating a bonnet which by definition have strings/ties or straps…. Outrageous. You’d seriously put a baby to bed with something with straps on its head/around its chin?

The lullaby trust (who specialise in safe sleep) recommend 16-20c. Weird that @Oldcottoneye says she’s paranoid about sids but seems to think babies would freeze at 2 degrees higher than the experts recommend as a lower end temp.

This. MN has a very rosy view of the past/all things ‘natural’.

You know you don’t need the heating on overnight? I’m beginning to understand why some people’s heating bills are so high.

I never have the heating on at night and when it is on it is set to 18 degrees. Didn’t even have any until just before eldest was born in ‘98. I used “gro bags” for both DCs when they were babies. I was always told that too warm was worse for them than slightly cool.

my heating is on for two hours in the morning and threw hours in the evening and this has been since before these fuel increases so we might knock down the temp a bit and reduce the time.

Thank you, @Baoing

It is very tiresome to be continually painted with the stupid brush.

DS was born in 1981, that winter we had extremely cold temperatures, feet of snow and no electricity or running water for a week because the ice brought down the electricity lines and the water pipes froze.
We lived in a tiny cottage, no CH just a wood burner and an open fire.
I also had DD who was 2.
We camped out in one room (the kitchen where the wood burner was), mattresses on the floor and basically did whatever was needed to survive!
We never had CH when my DCs were growing up, they were dressed in layers (vest, babygrow, socks, fleece onesies, cellular blankets etc.)
Somehow they survived!

This is true of some babies who die from SIDS, but not all. Safe sleep advice has reduced SIDS deaths in the U.K. by over 80%, but it has proved very difficult to work out why those deaths that do still occur still happen even with safe sleeping, no smoking etc etc. This is where research on missing enzymes etc comes in to play.

1980s - no central heating, gas fires in the downstairs rooms, though only one room was heated regularly - light layers of clothing and bedding for baby upstairs and an oil filled radiator with a thermostat on a low setting for the coldest part of the winter (minus temperatures at night and 3/4 degrees during day). Thick curtains to help retain heat.
Obviously DS is now a strapping 6’4” and DD 5’11”, fit and healthy.

Weighing in on this discussion as I think I'd pass out if the room temperature was 18/19 at night. Outside temperatures need to be hovering around freezing before I'd shut the window vent.

I'm 9st for reference. 😆

I co-slept with both of mine.

I’m really shocked by the overnight heating too, and my house does NOT hold the heat - one morning we got up and the thermostat hadn’t worked; it was 9 degrees in the kitchen (where we have a little thermometer).

I was born in the 80s, my parents had three children in a house with no CH before we moved. As toddlers we wore dressing gowns and socks in bed, shared bedrooms. Although a crib was always set up in their bedroom, my Mum Co-slept with all 9 of us as babies.

A bit of common sense needs to be deployed. I recall using the guideline of - whatever you have on, the baby needs one more layer.

I live in the Highlands in an old house that does not retain heat well and has ancient storage heaters.
I bought a special sleep sack from Australia that was a very high tog- and I layered up my babe, with vest, sleepsuits and then a warm swaddle over that (sourced that from Poland) because my room temperature could get very low even with storage heaters on.
I kept her in our room for a long time so I could afford to heat that room as much as possible and didn't have to heat anywhere else.
Had an extra oil filled radiator at night near her cot.

I agree that advising people not to put heating on at night with a newborn is not the way to go as you don't know how their house retains heat, some remain an ok temperature due to good insulation, others do not.

Get a room thermometer and monitor your temperature up to the birth so you know what you're dealing with. Only you can monitor your own house and adjust guidelines (hat/no hat etc)
Don't have a hot water in the cot/bed while they are in it- only to heat it up first!!

You'll be ok- just plan ahead and sometimes the best babywear for colder climates comes from places with harsher winters- so have a look round and research.

Yes, I’m bemused by the ‘but it might get down to 13 or 14 overnight!!!’ thing. Yes, I’m sure it does most nights in my house at certain times of year. But, and here’s the clever bit, I’m nice and toasty warm under my big duvet and blankets so I don’t get cold. And then the heating is programmed to come on 20-30 minutes before I get up, so it’s already warming up by the time I need to leave my nice warm nest and head for the (hot) shower and (hot) coffee. I thought this was normal.

In our current house we are on oil (rural village). The heating goes on for two hours in the morning and three hours in the evening, the evening slot is timed differently according to after-school activities etc so we’re not heating a house with no one in it. We don’t run the heating overnight. The kids have warm pjs and fleece blankets for over their duvets. As babies I safely co-slept with a bedside cot.

Do you then put the heating on or do you like it quite cool? Im often curious if it costs more to heat a house from 9 degrees to 16 degrees or a more normal 18 or to just leave the thermostat on 12 to 14 and sometimes risk the heater coming on at night.

Ours is often 11/12 at the thermostat by the front door when I go downstairs on winter mornings. Likely would stay a degree or two warmer upstairs, I have a thermometer now so can find out how warm this winter. Normally just heat the living room to 16 and bathroom is the overflow, other radiators on low but heat rises of course.

Ours wore the fleece all in ones over their baby grows.. I think grobags came in a little later.
The worry is blankets etc going over their heads and suffocating them as well as over heating.
I think a lot of it is just monitoring regularly and adjusting accordingly.

Not quite - they have found a cause of SIDS - one contributing factor. It doesn't negate all safe sleep advice.

If they have their feet at the bottom of the cot and blankets tucked in then they shouldn't end up with blankets over their head.

My point was DD as a baby slept in a room with no heating, and she’s made it to 17 with zero ill affects.