Is 13 degrees too cold for 14 month old?

[Emmchur]

I wanna start by saying I have ordered a portable heater for her room and have tried a plug in but, can’t leave it in at night as it’s a fire risk and the room dropped cold so quickly after I turned it off as I didn’t want to sleep leaving it on. Her radiator doesn’t work and I am waiting for parts for it to be fixed.

the rest of our flat is also freezing and we are always cold here every winter. The radiators we do have barely heat to a room and border on pointless.

her monitor has been dropping temp over the last few days and I know 16 is the lowest ideal temp. But, I can’t be sure that’s accurate as it says it can be off by degrees either way.

she’s currently wearing
vest
socks
thick fleeced leggings
pj long sleeve top
fleece onesie
2.5 sleep bag

In theory it does sound quite cold, but when she’s rugged up, what does her back feel like if you stick a hand down her neck? If she feels toasty, and if she’s not waking and fussing in the night, then I wouldn’t worry too much. There’s the slightly macabre saying from when I did my maternity nurse training — a cold baby cries, a hot baby dies. She’ll let you know if she’s uncomfortable with the cold.

Yes as babies lose heat 4x as fast as older children & adults.

My concern here is that it’s actually getting a lot colder in the middle of the night.

Could you buy a portable oil radiator? These are cheap to heat and give off a consistent temperature for a long while once on.

I'd say so yes

Do your radiators need bleeding? 13 degrees to me is absolutely freezing!

Can you move her into your room for winter? Or at least until her radiator is fixed?

I live in an old building in Scotland, we’ve never slept with the heating on. Every winter it would drop down to 13 degrees in all of our rooms. However, I always bundled my kids up and they were warm and comfy. I used to buy the Jojo 3.5 sleeping bags with long padded arms that popped on. I’d put them in warm, but breathable layers, socks too. I also used to put a large cellular blanket over them, making sure it was tucked in and wouldn’t ride up over their faces. I always checked their temp when I went in for wakes etc, they were always warm but never sweaty.

Sounds like your radiators need bleeding? Why are they not working? It's really quick and easy to do.

OP it really isn’t that many generations ago where nearly every house would be that cold in winter. If not colder!

Baby will complain if they’re too cold.

Is it ideal - no but you know that already.

Let’s remember though that central heating is relatively new. I’m in my 40s and didn’t have central heating growing up. We wrapped up and made do.

The oil filled radiator is a good shout. Our downstairs is freezing and it works well to keep it at a higher temp without draining electricity.

I'd probably have her in with me so you were at least sharing body heat, honestly though she'll be fine and she'll wake if she's cold

I would also pop a thin hat on her (like you did when she was a newborn). Not ideal but it is what it is. Plenty of layers, thermal vest, blanket, fluffy socks. When mine was a toddler he wouldnt sleep under a duvet. On really cold nights, bring her in to your bed. She’d be waking up if she was cold.

Can you co sleep until the radiator is fixed? Another vote here for the oil filled radiators - they do a bang up job and have a thermostat

At that temperature mine would definitely have slept badly, and then we would've been up overnight with them and freezing while we walked the floors.

40 odd years ago when my children were born, I did not have central heating - all I had was a couple of open fire grates where I burned what ever I could afford/find at the time. The house would be very cold overnight, we sometimes had ice on the inside of the kitchen window on getting up in the morning. We just wrapped up warm and got on with it... My kids are now in their early/mid forties and doing fine! As long as you have good blankets/duvets/sheets on your bed and possibly a hot water bottle, you don't need any form of heating overnight!

could be warmer but my little one has always been fine even when we had no heating last winter - when she was smaller I had those onesies with the fold over hands and that kept her hands warm…

when we go camping it gets colder than that and she’s always been perfectly content.

co-sleeping does help - I find I can check on her better and the shared body heat helps. She’s actually too warm some nights

I would be comfortable leaving an oil filled radiator on over night. Ask around friends and family to see if you can borrow one.

You're not meant to put hats on newborns!

Get a 3 tog sleeping bag. My son's room can get cold and he loves it. Used to wake up in 2.5 tog as he got too cold.

As pp says don’t put a hat on a baby indoors!

Definitely get an oil filled rad. We have one with a timer and thermostat on it,very safe and very very effective.