Heating too expensive but I have a 3 month old and worried she’s too cold

[Lols6457]

I live in a flat and our tenancy still has 9 months left. Our flat is absolutely freezing. The central heating is costing ridiculous amounts (£8-£10 an hour) as it all runs off an electric boiler. I’m on SMP and my partner pays all of our bills. My money goes towards all our stuff for baby ie formula, nappies, wipes, petrol to take her places. I do put some money towards bills. But my partners salary just isn’t enough for us to have the heating on as often as we need it, especially not at that price. We have oil filled radiators in every room and only heat the rooms we are using but even so the heat just doesn’t stay for long at all and we can’t afford to keep the radiators on constantly. Without the radiators the flat is 9° 😩. I put radiator on in our room before we go to bed to get it up to temperature but can’t afford to leave it on through the night. We are using almost £15 a day in electric. We turn all plugs off when not using them. Don’t use the tumble drier. Boil the kettle and keep it in a flask and just use that instead of constantly boiling the kettle. Only heat the hot water for showers and baths as and when we need it. And yet we’re still spending £15-£20 a day. I don’t know what else I can do at this point. I just worry my baby is going to get too cold. I put her in a baby grow, plus a fleecy Sleepsuit, plus a 3.5 tog sleeping bag in the night but it still feels so cold when I wake up to feed her that I end up sleeping with her on me so she has some heat from me to keep her warm. I’m really stuck for what to do. We have my parents moving in to help us with the bills but that won’t be for a few months. If anyone has any other advice on what I can do I’d really appreciate it. I don’t want her getting ill from the cold ☹️

I have a 3 and 1 year old and we have CH off at night, in fact barely on! during the cold snap it was down to 9 degrees C in the bedroom… obviously this may not be something you’re comfortable with and you must follow safe sleep advice for bed sharing, but we have both the children in our bed. Keeps everyone warm! If baby is warm sleeping next to you, just make sure you’re following the safe bed sharing guidance, then it’s ok 😀

Realise it’s not much in the way of advice regarding heat but don’t want you feeling like it’s wrong to have baby in your bed to keep her warm - bed sharing is absolutely fine if you make sure it’s safe.

I think it will be ok as long as no hood and she won't overheat (unlikely!). It's been dropping to 13° where my baby sleeps too and he sleeps through the night fine and it's all he has ever known. We do worry more, rightfully, when we have small ones so I do understand. I recommend the heated throws. You can get a decent one for about £50 and I heat it up and lie on top of it. I have no solutions on the cost other to say that it does seem like the icy weather is warming up fingers crossed so won't be as painful

£8-10 p/h = £192-240 per day

Even accounting for the difference in gas and electricity prices, that would be £80 p/d on gas. It is 28kWh X 24 hours.

There's no way it can cost that much to heat a house.

Are you tracking the actual daily usage or getting freaked out when you turn on the heating and see the projected cost on a smart meter?

Once the house has achieved temperature, the cost should fall to a much lower amount - e.g. 3kWh (£1 p/h).

@ThisGirlNever we tried putting it on for a few hours one day and the cost was remaining the same no matter how long we left it on for