Heating the home for a newborn

[Blueberryscones]

Hi everyone,

First time poster here so apologises if this is the wrong topic to post under. I’m currently 38+3 weeks pregnant with my first child due in under two weeks.
With the recent snowy weather, I’ve been more aware of how cold my house gets. I live in 3 bedroom, Victorian end terrance with no carpet, and not very well insulated except having had the loft insulated last year. My partner and I generally never have the heating on, we can’t work from home so aren’t in during the day and I don’t get home from work until about 7pm most evenings- don’t know why we never have the heating on, we just have never really put it on unless it’s been unbearably cold.
I’ve recently had a new boiler installed in preparation for our little boy knowing that we will need to put the heating on and hoped by updating to a more modern system, it will help with its efficiency thus keeping bills down.
Currently sat in the living room with no heating on and the thermostat tells me it’s 9.9 degrees- I don’t feel cold though, my hands are warm and I’m sat under an electric blanket. From my understanding, 16-20 degrees is ideal for a baby- I would have to have the heating on all day to keep it regulated at 16 degrees, do people actually have the heating on all day and overnight? There’s no way I can afford to do this everyday. If in the day time, the temp was for example 14 degrees and baby is wrapped up and chest is not cold to touch and he doesn’t appear to be in distress, is this temp okay? Does it HAVE to be 16 degrees? Same for overnight, I spoke to my health visitor last month about whether people really did have their heating on overnight to keep them temp at 16 degrees and she advised this was unrealistic as most people can’t afford to heat their homes all day. I’ve invested in 3.5 tog sleeping bags and will also dress baby in guidance with the Lullaby Trust so I’m hoping this will be sufficient but just wanted to get thoughts from other parents about the temp of their homes during the day/overnight.
Naturally if when he wakes for feeds in the night and his chest is cold to touch I’ll turn the heating on but would like some realistic advice on whether they actually keep the house temp to a min of 16 degrees or whether this is just a guidance- I appreciate every baby is different but just wanting to get some thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

do people actually have the heating on all day and overnight

If they have a home that doesn't retain heat then I think they'd have to. Under 10° is unfathomable for sitting in during the day - it's not good for the health of anyone or the building to spend prolonged periods at that temperature.

If you need to run the heating all day and night to keep the place at 16° for the baby, then that is what you have to do.

Have you looked at getting insulation added to the external walls?

I wouldn’t go off whether he feels cold to touch, he’d probably be pretty upset before that stage in my experience.

We had a similar house when I had my toddler. Can you heat one room; either by turning off other radiators or by getting an oil radiator?

10 degrees is far too low. 13 might be manageable but isn’t great for baby, and they may well be upset.

Sleeping bags will help at night if baby will tolerate them, mine never would, but the room will need to be warm. You’ll likely want it to be warm too!

We did try to keep the temperature of the room we were in at 16, yeah. Not the whole house!

Surely once your home is up to 16°, turning the heat down to "low and slow" would help it maintain at that temp?

I think a lot of people heat the house to 19ish during the day and then because they have decent insulation it won’t drop to below 16 overnight even with the heating off. Under 10 degrees isn’t ok for anyone, especially not a baby and it isn’t great for the house either and could cause damp. Compromise might be get a plug in heater so you can just heat the room you’re in and keep that at 16?

Our house is around 14-17 in the day, I sometimes turn it on but normally I don’t feel the need to until around 4pm as we’re either out, or snuggled under a blanket (me and the baby that is).

Overnight I don’t normally, but I did set it to 15 last night and it kicked in as it’s so cold at the moment!

Toddler and 1 month old - all very healthy and never cold. My toddler strips off in my MILs 20 degree house!

I would definitely recommend an electric oil filled radiator as well. We're also in a Victorian house and although we do have the heating on most of the day when we're there (in winter), we turn it off at night and the temperature drops quickly. We don't mind a colder bedroom for us (I love my extra warm duvet), but tend to put the oil radiator on low overnight in my 2 year old DD's room. It works well for us and seems to keep it around 18 degrees. That being said, babies are raised all around the world in much colder places than here so I imagine temps just below 16 will be fine with a bit of planning, although I'd be reluctant to go too much lower for long periods.

Our heating is set to 20 day and night for me and baby, but otherwise I’d just heat one room, that should suffice.

Our house was cold too.
We'd tend to keep it at 13 degrees or so
She was wrapped up. She was a newborn and actually very small.
She grew up as one of those kids who doesn't get cold a lot.
We gave her the smallest room so it could retain heat and just had a little portable heater in her room which we put on a bit at night when she was in there.
And wrapped her up in the warmest grobag.

At that temp you must be damaging the house. Is it not damp? If so it could cause some pretty serious respiratory issues for your baby. Just heat the room they sleep in and the room you spend the most time in if necessary, but you cannot keep the rest at 9 degrees either way.

Our house is old and hard to heat. If we let it get down to 9 (easily could) it takes days to get it to keep any heat again.

Aim for 12 as a base over the next few weeks and go from there. Your baby will need more that you think but not the 20+ constant you read on here

Currently sat in the living room with no heating on and the thermostat tells me it’s 9.9 degrees- I don’t feel cold though, my hands are warm and I’m sat under an electric blanket.

Do you not see the irony here? Of course you won't feel the cold if you're sat under an electric blanket! Most people don't use electric blankets in their house during the day.
Yes your house needs to be warmed than 10 degrees for a newborn ffs. If you turn the heating on every day for the next few weeks it should start to warm up a bit. Never turning it on is bad for your house btw, it's going to get damp if it's not already..

This. It is a recipe for disaster not heating your home. Expect issues to crop up. If you own it’s going to be very expensive, if not your landlord will likely have something in the contract about ventilation and heating and you are risking your tenancy. Check.

In terms of baby, you have to heat. Also you may be ok now, but just practise sitting there for hours with a breast out feeding. Grim.

Yes, you’ll have to have the heating on.

It’s really unrealistic to think for a second that anything even close to 10 degrees is fine for a baby!

It is an increase to the bills that lots of people don’t consider. We didn’t particularly think about it, rarely had the heating on pre-baby, my daughter is 9 months nearly now and other than in the really warm parts of summer the heating has been on almost constantly. First and foremost she needs to be warm.

10C is madness! Echo PPs - pick one room and heat that to 16 at night. Extra layer in the day although if it's lower than say 14 I'd put the heating on in the day too.

16 is the minimum, 19 is actually ideal. We have young kids and our house is in the twenties

Pre-baby I wasnt bothered about having the heating on as I preferred using a hot water bottle/electric blanket. For the baby the heating is now set to 19 degs during the day, 17 degs at night.

It needs to be closer to 19/20.

16 is the recommended night time/ sleep temperature but you need it warmer in the day.

10 degrees is far too cold.

You need to find a way of heating the space, even if only the room the baby is in.

Haven't figured out how to edit my post so will reply to the last comment made but thanks everyone for your comments thus far- appreciate it. This is how I feel, pre-baby I'm fine with having a blanket/hot water bottle and not turning the heating on but once baby is here, of course I wouldn't let the house get so cold. I just wondered if the minimum guidance of 16 degrees was gospel all day/overnight or if there was a bit of flexibility- especially by a couple of degrees.
FTM so just trying to gauge a better understanding of how hard and fast these guidelines are but good to know about the cold also causing house damage/respiratory I hadn't realised that.

9 degrees is far too low. I’ve just checked my heating App. Heating is on (we’re not long in from school runs and forgot to time it before I left). It’s currently 14.8 degrees in the house and I feel cold. The heating is set to 19 degrees so won’t be switching off any time soon. I had a December baby and I had the heating on near constantly in the first few weeks and months. You can’t take a risk with a baby that small. Also as other people had said never having your heating on is a false economy. You’re saving short term on the bills but long term you’re causing issues with damp that are going to be costly to fix

I would say 16 is the absolute minimum for a newborn to be honest, you ideally want it 18/19

16 degrees is for sleeping.

You certainly shouldn't let it drop below that during the day and ideally it should be up to 19/20.

I live in a farmhouse with 7ft ceilings and no central heating. We have a solid fuel rayburn for cooking and heating the kitchen but it also heats two radiators upstairs - one in my DS bedroom and one radiator in mine and DHs bedroom (5mo DD sleeps there too). We have invested in a couple of electric oil filled radiators to top up the temperatures of the bedrooms as the rayburn doesn’t heat like electric or gas as it’s not constant. We aim for bedrooms between 16-20 degrees (most nights are 18 degrees) which means is doable with the oil radiators and shutting bedroom doors to keep the heat in.

In some houses it is cheaper to keep the house at a base temperature and then top it up when needed. In our old house, which was an old house, it was better to keep the house at a constant 18. DCs room was the coldest and we kept the thermostat in there. In this house, which is a lot newer, it doesn’t make too much difference cost wise but we’ve found it works for us by having 15 at night and 18 in the day but turned up to 20 if needed.

If you have a smart meter you can have a play around to see what having it on at a base temp does. You’ll have to discount the day you spend heating the house to that base temp. So do a normal weekend day when you night out the heating on and monitor it. Then do a day when you’ve kept it as 15/16/17 and then boost when you’re in the house.

I would get a small room thermometer (can get one from Amazon) to keep an eye on the temp where the baby is sleeping. As others have said you can use a small heater (not right next to the baby) in the room overnight if needs be, I would definitely aim for 16 minimum overnight. In the day ideally more like 18 at least for the first few months.

Longer term if you own the home I would look into whether you are eligible for any grants to improve efficiency.

I think 16 minimum during the day is fine. I don’t really heat any bedrooms in our house so baby’s room probably dropped to around 14 overnight but never much lower than that. They always had plenty of merino wool layers so we’re never cold or hot. We kept the house at around 18/19 during the day . I think it’s important that babyies’ rooms aren’t super cold to avoid damp etc