Toddler always gets cold at night whatever the temperature

[Felix2000]

We have a 22 month old who always gets cold at night even though the temperature in his room stays virtually the same. Some nights are worse than others but for example last night when as follows:

7pm - Room temperature was 23.8 degrees C. Started him off in a body suit and pyjama bottoms but no grow bags.

10pm - Room temperature was 23.6. Was starting to get a bit cold so moved him into a 1 tog sleeping bag.

11:30pm - Cold again so moved him from a 1 tog to a 2 1/2 tog sleeping bag. Room temp still about 23.6

2am - Cold again! Added a pyjama top so he is now wearing body suit + full pyjama set, is in a 2 1/2 tog sleeping bag and crazily the temp in the room has actually gone up a bit to 23.8!

5am - Slightly cold again but we did not put him in anything else.

Basically this happens every night (last night was particularly bad). Worse still is when he even slightly cold he stirs a bit and then groans loudly whilst trying to get back to sleep. Therefore it keeps everyone awake.

We're totally lost about what to do - we had to have the heating turned on for 24 hours a day last winter just to keep the temp right. We only turned it off completely at the end of May! The strange thing is when he was a baby he was fine - the first winter we did not have the heating on and he was perfectly OK. Something changed in him around 9-10 months and its been like this since.

We also tried moving to a quilt but found that we could not keep it on him. We tried clips etc.. but he would wriggle out of the top of it and so we found we were getting up 5 times a night just to pull him back under it.

Anyone else experienced this - a search on the net does not come up with much?

Firstly, are you sure he is cold? Cold head and feet are not good indicators of how cold he feels. It just sounds like he is wrapped up VERY warm for that temp (unless the room temp is wrong!). I always worried about DS getting cold (he's in a part-basement room, which currently averages 18-19 degrees at night in this current hot spell!) but realised that he was sleeping better with less clothes. He is now in a long-sleeved bodysuit and a 2.5 tog sleeping bag and nothing else in that temp and sleeps like a log! And all that moving in and out of clothes and sleeping bags can't be good for him getting a sound sleep either...

And where does he sleep? In a cot? Does he sleep in your room (sounds like he does as you said he is keeping everyone up?). Is something else keeping him awake other than the cold? I am sure someone else will come along with more helpful advice...

I was going to say if you are convinced it is the cold keeping him up (and if he's in a bed), you could consider getting him an electric blanket? They don't make cot size though as I think it's increasing SIDS risk though I imagine your DS at his age is not high risk anyway. You can get those that comes on with a timer... DH and I have one of those and it's great during winter!

Your body temperature drops when you fall asleep. I managed to sleep one summer with two duvets through the heat wave. Now I sleep with a blanket on my head.