Newborn babies are unable to regulate their body temperature, unlike adults and therefore rely on you to maintain their body temperature throughout the year. A baby’s core body temperature is between 36.5 and 37 degrees, this is easily maintained by keeping the room temperature between 16-20 degrees.
Checking your baby’s body temperature is easy and you do not need to have a thermometer, just check the back of their neck to see how warm or cold they are, remember Babies generally have cold hands and feet, this is quite normal. If they are cold the most natural way to warm them up is by having a cuddle sharing your body heat. Other ways to warm up or cool down your child is by adjusting the amount of clothing they are wearing or the heating in your home.
Night time is the longest period you are away from your child and you want to know that your child is sleeping safely in the next room. Research shows that conventional bedding can overheat a child or can be kicked off by your infant which will leave them cold. Baby sleeping bags are designed to maintain a constant temperature throughout the night whilst allowing your child to move freely without the risk of getting tangled up.
Baby sleeping bags come in a range of different weights/togs to suit all seasons and have many additional benefits which include the usage in a car seat or buggy, being able to change a nappy without disturbing your baby when it sleeps and helping to establish a bed time routine for your new baby. These are called travel bags.
Choosing a baby sleeping bag and which is the correct tog weight depends mainly on the room temperature. Please see a tog guide here.
If anyone else has information about regualting a babies body temperature, we'd love to hear your thoughts.
