Night one newborn hospital

[choccychipcookies1988]

Hi all - I can’t really remember with my dc1 so wondered if someone could help. Night one at the hospital it’s usually warm in hospital - did you bother with a sleeping bag or just used a blanket for baby? I rmemeber it was the only night dc1 slept without being held.😅 Feel like its
too hot /
baby too small for a sleeping bag so a blanket would be better but is this not a Sid risk?

So far as I remember DS had a little hospital issue breathable blanket, but then it was so cold in our private room that the Paediatrician insisted they bring a portable heater in!!

Blankets are fine, as long as done safely eg baby’s feet at the bottom of the cot, blanket tucked in below their shoulders.

First night at hospital I used the blanket the midwife wrapped them in.

Day/Night 1 was vest, sleepsuit and hospital blanket, and hat.
He was having his temperature checked every 4h as he was needing his ability to regulate his temperature monitoring. The aim was for it to be between 36.5 and 37.5. We had him in just a nappy for about 20 minutes trying to wake home for a feed but were unsuccessful. They did his temperature not long after we got him dressed again and it was 36.4 given he had been in a nappy for a while they came back in an hour and it was back in normal range. After another check it was 37.5 so I took the blanket off for a little bit until he felt cooler at next check 4h later he was 36.6.

It doesn't take much to send them a tad cold or a tad warm but at the same time it doesn't take much to correct it either.
Layers that are easy to take on and off and keep and eye on how they feel

ward was toasty warm from recollection and I just took cellular blankets

I didn't take any bedding. Hospital provide blankets.

Both mine were born in a heat wave, no aircon. The midwife kept wrapping DS1 up in a cellular style blanket, and wrote in my notes that she’d done so, despite him feeling clammy. DS2 just wore a vest. I had a large muslin for the second layer (and could fold it for more warmth) but he didn’t need it.

Swaddle in a lightweight breathable blanket. The ward had suitable ones that could really be described as a thicker-weight sheet rather than a blanket but are just right, and the midwives demonstrate how to swaddle with a square cloth if you ask. You don't need a fancy swaddle tube but the ones that have individual tubes for each arm hugging the arms into place are good (though with skill you can get the same effect with a square). Newborns have no control over their limbs and will hit themselves in the face if they aren't swaddled.

Both DDs were born in mid-May. It was temperate: not too warm, not too cold. Both had a vest, maybe a sleep suit. After the first afternoon, the hat was forgotten. Both DDs slept, wrapped in a hospital cotton blanket, in a little plastic hospital box on a trolley. No one was thinking very hard about this 15 - 18 years ago in my quiet southern county.

When DD2 was in infant, the windows were open on the ward and the standard-issue, NHS medium-blue sponge-print curtains billowed in the breeze. DD2 watched these with great concentration. I actually read a magazine!!!

Baby was born in march, so it was chilly outside.

He slept in a vest and sleepsuits with a hospital provided blanket. When my mum came to visit she brought a lovely cellular blanket she had knitted which we have used ever since.

Had dc3 last week, they wore a vest, sleepsuit, cotton hat and then when they were in the cot just a cellular blanket on the top. Feet at the bottom of the cot, and the blanket tucked in at the bottom and sides (under their armpit height)

To be honest though that first night I only put them down for a maximum of 10 minutes and I stayed awake all night full of adrenaline, just staring at them and holding them.

Used the hospital towels as blankets

Thank you everyone really helpful. I’d forgotten the advice re baby feet at the foot of the cot. Thank you