To want to keep my son warm?

[Lkhtw]

DH and I have very different ideas on what is a comfortable temperature in life.

I love to be warm. Wherever I am. My preferd holiday is anywhere hot, I like fluffy bedding, I have fluffy throws on the sofa and so on.

I'm not always cold (though sometimes I am to extremes) but even if I'm an OK temperature I like to cover myself with something fluffy because I prefer a slightly above average temperature. And I hate being cold in any way and take action to stop myself from getting cold in the 1st place rather than trying to warm myself up after the fact.

DH is so far oposite. He hates being even slightly warm. He is constantly saying he is too warm. As soon as it goes over 12°c in the UK he declares it too hot and needs to take action in the house. He opens windows, runs fans, takes my blanket off the bed. My biggest pet peeve is him walking into a room I'm in, such as the lounge, declaring "it's too warm in here" opening the window, AND THEN FUCKING OFF! YOU ARENT EVEN GOING TO BE SPENDING TIME IN THE ROOM! STOP DECIDING MY TEMPERATURE! He has incredibly poor circulation and blood pressure (you can play noughts and crosses on his hands waiting for the blood to return) so when he touches me with his hands of ice I'm always warmer than them in comparison (but so is the inside of the freezer) so he says I'm not cold and so should have the fan on.

My problem is he is now deciding the temperature for our DS (5 months) and we can't agree on it. Every time I turn my back for 3 mins he has taken him and changed his clothes to something thinner or without arms and legs claiming he was too warm. Every time he holds him he turns the fan on and sits directly in front of it saying the baby is overheating. I know DS isn't going to want to be as warm as me but every time I take him back he's freezing! He snuggles back in and burrows trying to warm up as soon as he can. I've not got him in 4 layers and under a pile of blankets. I've got him in a regular cotton onesie or tiny tracksuit bottoms and t-shirt and then under a single blanket at night for bed time. We have a digital thermometer so we know he isn't getting too warm like DH suggests but he does it any way.

AIBU to want my son to be warm? He's making me doubt myself he has said it so often. Should babies be kept cooler?

When he's in the house saying he's too hot he's always in lounge trousers (bobbly cotton. Or bobbly now anyway. They're old) and a t shirt.

That drives me 🤪!

Can remember this time last year when rising fuel prices were really beginning to hit , a series of news reports of vulnerable people looking sad and talking about how terrible it was, as they sat their in short sleeves in October/Nov/Dec!!

Yes, the prices were terrible but for gawd’s sake, put on a bloody jumper.

Leave the subjectivity out of it.

You go by room temp and baby temp, according to recommended levels and using a thermometer to measure. Open windows once a day for half hour to air the house out. Objective measures and an agreed temperature.

Your DH only gets to adjust things in a room if he's going to be spending time in it and if you're there as well, you need to follow the recommended temp if baby is in the room and agree a happy medium if it's just you and DH.

If he can't stick by these things then he has a medical and/or psychological problem.

It does sound as if you're fairly sedentary and he's racing around the whole time, maybe syncing up your activity levels a bit might help?

I prefer it cool and DH hot so when ours were babies we had a thermometer in each room. Nothing fancy like a gro egg just a very basic one and we went off that. There was a guide I had which showed roughly what a baby should wear in each temperature. I know its a bit basic but we really struggled judging clothing and having something fixed helped. There were times when we diverted from it using judgement but at least we knew roughly what to aim for.

22 is warm though! Who would set their thermostat at 22?!

For night time if you've got a room thermometer why don't you get those sleeping bags that literally tell you what the child should be wearing at different room temps. Then it's there in black and white for him.

*Mikimoto

Sounds like your husband is looking after the baby perfectly.
19º and reduced chance of overheating therefore reduced chance of SIDS*

Where do you get 19 degrees from. 12 degrees is the number he likes

Cross post with the person above. Great minds

Aparently not. No clue. I think it's one of those things where if it's yours you don't mind? Who knows. But I am now curious what it feels like to have a beard 🤣

I had this infographic open on my phone for well over a year. Made me feel so much more confident.

It does sound as if you're fairly sedentary and he's racing around the whole time, maybe syncing up your activity levels a bit might help?

🤣 try telling that to the arse groove he has worn into his computer chair!

Who said we had it at 22?

We settled on a house temp of 19 years ago. And we do have thermometers in all the rooms we go in (no one cares about our dining room currently used as storage)

A lot of the time when he says DS is too hot the room is at 19 like we agreed, and wearing appropriate clothes, but he feels warm to his hands and so "the baby has a fever. We need to cool him down"

Yes we set it at 19 in winter- that's the hall though, other rooms are usually warmer and we haven't had the heating on since June. I keep a thermometer in the living room to save arguments about how hot it is, or isn't.

I’m a bit like you - I’m always cold, my DH is warmer type. We compromise: I wear joggers, warm socks, T-shirt or top and fleece around the house while he is in light joggers and a T-shirt. And then the heating goes on when I’m cold. I sleep with thicker duvet and warm pjs.
DD goes after her dad. When she’s a baby I asked our health visitor about temperature and then bought thermometers for bath and air and followed her advice. At some point DD had trouble sleeping so HV suggested that maybe her room was too hot, we put 18 instead of 19 and it helped, we had smart heater in her room to keep temperature constant. So that’s our approach.
The main difference is that my DH is not so extreme in his views and we can negotiate things. He accepts our differences and we try to find a compromise. He wouldn’t deprive me of heating.

By the way you’ve mentioned your DH’s low blood pressure. I’m a bit surprised as in my experience it’s people with low blood pressure who usually have poor circulation and always cold.

So in this case you check your baby temperature with a thermometer and say: No, he doesn’t have a fever. End of conversation.

One problem is, OP, that 19 degrees is hell for a person who feels the heat. So even if you and he have agreed to it, he'll still find it extremely miserable. It isn't even so much that your body feels warm (as you can always take your clothes off) - it's the airlessness and stuffiness that are unbearable.

It's another reason I am glad not to live with my ex husband any more - he was always putting the heating on and closing windows when I was perfectly happy just as I was. I can now have the windows open all year round without anyone to moan about it.

Though that's a different matter from what's suitable for a baby, and there is plenty of objective advice on this, and a room thermometer is the obvious answer.

He just likes controlling things. He likes to impact your world and make you notice him when your attention elsewhere.
It could be considered a form of bullying.

Other things, is your DH overweight?
Have you asked him to shave his beard and see if that helps with HIS heat problem.

It sounds really really annoying.
He sounds like a controlling arse.

On our bed we have the summer weight duvet all year around, with a fleece throw over that, then in winter a single 13.5 which sits on top of that and is over on DHs side only. Works very well.

Tell him you'll raise his concerns with the community nurse and get her opinion on how warm the baby should be.

My youngest was born during a heatwave and we had to stay in hospital for a week. I had a fan in my room while he was ICU which made the temperature bearable, but when baby was moved out of ICU and into my room the ICU nurse insisted that the fan was removed from our room and I was too hot to sleep for the rest of our stay. He's wasn't premature and was a really good weight. Based on that I very much doubt it's wise to put a 5 month old premature baby in front of a fan. I'd speak to HV about it with DH present.

Someone else night have said it .....but if babies can't be at average temp then medically it's better for them to be cooler rather than hotter.

I can't remember all the exact terminology (it was 25 years ago in endocrinology lectures at Uni!) but the hypothalamus control of the pituitary gland isn't fully developed at birth so they don't manage to cool down very well. They can however shiver, raise tiny hairs on their arms etc, to warm themselves up.

So technically OH is correct, it IS better for babies to be cooler rather than warmer. However that's in normal circumstances, purposely trying to make your baby cold isn't correct. (Well not unless you're wrapping then up like a fluffy fleece burrito and he's finding he needs to stage a medical intervention because baby is dangerously hot). Check their temp on they back of the neck and remind your OH he's not a good measure of temperature because of his condition, but the baby thermometer is.

I agree that you need some more professional advice to support joint decision making, as your DH is not going to be able to adjust his thinking without that I suspect. Cooling the baby down in front of a fan does not sound appropriate to me, 19 degree rooms should be fine, getting agreement on how many layers the baby needs is a bit more nuanced.

Good luck!

This. Stick a chart on the wall that tells you what the baby should be wearing in different temperatures and follow it. Whether you or DH feel hot or cold has nothing to do with it. He shouldn't be pointing a fan directly at a baby. They should only be used in extremely hot weather, and not pointed directly at a baby. If you are in the UK a fan for a baby is completely inappropriate at this time of year. He needs to do some reading on safe sleeping . If he won't listen to you, I would ask a health visitor to speak to him.

Oh my bad, I've read the rest of your posts now. Your OH is a fucking loon. You've got someone with no sense of normal temperature who's taken by a comment by a midwife out of complete context. You need to get your visitor re-explain this concept and get him to listen up. He's at the point of your putting your child at health risk. Idiot man.

@Lkhtw I've not read the full thread but I've read your replies.

Is it possible your husband is suffering with anxiety around the premature birth? Is it possible there is some trauma there that he hasn't/isn't processing? Plus potentially something traumatic from childhood that's caused him to be so obsessive with temperature? Maybe he was kept in an insufferably hot house as a child?

I would agree with PPs that printing a temperature guide that shows what baby should be wearing at a particular temperature, combined with a gro egg should be sufficient to stop him.

Combine it with an inner ear thermometer if you must. That way if he claims the baby is too hot you can take the baby's temperature, show him, and show him the baby isn't sweating. If their temperature is normal and they're not sweating then they're dressed perfectly.

But... These should all be sticking plasters whilst he addresses the actual underlying issues. I would suggest speaking to him and ask him if he would be open to speaking to someone cause you're worried about him and his obsession over the baby overheating.

This. Are you both quite anxious people?

When my first baby was born in a Mediterranean country the only question I asked the person who came once was Is her room OK? and she said that she saw more problems from overly warm babies than cold babies.

I think the house he grew up in did have an effect on him but the oposite of how you suggest.

I've stayed in the house he grew up in (in his childhood bedroom) with my inlaws over Christmas in winter many years in a row and its the single coldest place on the planet. Old Welsh farm house, single glazed windows with old stone walls. He was also one of the younger kids too so they got propper bedrooms built as bedrooms upstairs and he got a room that was likely originally a dining room or lounge converted into a bedroom.

My theory on why he prefers it cold includes the fact that he just got so used to this that anything warmer he can't cope with and the cold is just his norm.

We had other issues related to him being early (jaundice and low blood sugar) and he doesn't focus on those.