Sleeping Bag or Blanket

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I brought a mama designs multi tog sleeping bag (1.0 tog in the summer and a 2.5 tog that zips out).

I was under the impression the new advice was for babys to sleep in sleeping bags. I attended a Grand Parents antenatal NHS class last night and the teacher said sleeping bags aren't recommended and they recommend blankets.

Ahhhhhhh so much contradicting information being throw about! What's everyone else's experiences? xx

I wonder if she meant for newborns? Ds wasn't big enough for bags until he was about 6/8 weeks old i think, they're too small for them and would just dissappear into them. Once he was big enough for them he slept much better in them though I would highly recommend. You can get newborn sleep sacks from Jojo Maman Bebe now though so that might be an idea??

It's all about personal preference with a lot of things.
I'm not sure sleeping bags are recommended for newborns unless they are specifically design for newborns.
But it's the same as swaddling isn't recommended but all my midwives taught me how to swaddle properly.

For my twins I swaddled for the first couple of months until they started to wriggle and escape, except when they ended up in our bed. Then we used sleeping bags which we still do now at 16 months

I had an NHS antenatal class yesterday and the midwife said either was fine as long as the sleeping bag fit the baby properly (i.e. not too big), but in this hot weather a sleeping bag would be too hot, which I'm inclined to agree with. We have a GroEgg room thermometer in our bedroom (I'm 39 weeks and waiting for baby's imminent arrival!) and the temperature in there has not dropped below 21.5 degrees celcius at all since we plugged it in a few weeks ago despite the window being permanently open and sometimes running the fan in there when it's been as hot as 23.5! I'm rarely covering half of myself with the duvet at the moment so I imagine being in a sleeping bag in that heat would be hot and uncomfortable for baby so will probably use thin blankets/sheets whilst the weather stays like this.

The minimum weight for a Grobag is 8.8lb, and you need to check that the baby's head is big enough that it can't slip down through the neck hole. So if you have fairly big babies, you can use grobags from birth; otherwise you'll have to wait a few weeks.

I swaddled my summer-born newborns in big muslins until about six weeks and then switched to 1 tog grobags while the weather was still warm.

I'm not sure on official guidelines so wouldn't like to say. Personally I don't like sleeping bags and don't see the need for them. So I used blankets and the coverlets that came with the crib then the cot bedding sets. I never swaddled either as didn't see the need. Ds was happy with the blankets until he went in his toddler bed at 17 months and he had a quilt.

Are they talking about newborns? Usually they have to grow a bit before they are big enough to use the smallest size grow bag. We used the Love to Dream Swaddle (it’s a swaddle sleeping bag especially for newborns) for the first month then swapped to a sleeping bag. Ensure the sleeping bag fits properly, especially around the neck and that there’s no possibility of baby slipping inside and they are very safe. I don’t like blankets at all for older babies that move around a lot at night, from 4 months DD was usually facing the opposite way in her cot compared to how we’d left her, if we’d had blankets she would have had her head underneath them. If the room is very hot then you just adjust what baby wears underneath, so in the south of France with no a/c 3 month old DD was just in a 0.5 toy sleeping bag and a nappy.

I think the baby has to be a certain minimum weight before they can be put in a gro bag. Thinks it's 10lbs, not sure so you'd have to check.

I started using one when my dd was about 12 weeks old. I found them great to use. My dd was using them until she was at least 2 years.

You can get lighter ones for summer months.

Check out gro.co.uk/what-to-wear/

A major advantage of the sleeping bags I've found is that baby can't kick them off.

And even in warm temperatures eg 20/21 degrees, mine seems very happy in a tog 1 bag with a babygro on

Sleeping bags are supposed to be done on weight rather than age.

I wasn't aware of this when DC1 was a newborn and put them straight into a sleeping bag after struggling with blankets for a week or so as I just went with the 0-3 months label on it, and in reality it was absolutely fine size wise but it's obviously not the official advice.

I've got a love to dream swaddle this time round for DC2 (I'm 40 weeks) but that's partially because it's summer and I think the sleeping bags winter born DC1 had will be too warm.

For a teeny one , blankets and sheet. But once they are older, sleeping bag all the way.