Too hot at bedtime / wakes because cold at night?

[stefwef]

We have a princess and the pea situation and I don't know how to tackle it. Our baby is always boiling - must have her dad's metabolism. At the end of the day her little furnace is pumping and she will scream at bedtime and wake screaming 30 minutes after bedtime because she's too hot in her nighttime sleep sac. Without the sleep sac she falls asleep easily and sleeps the first hour - as her body cools during sleep she then wakes up because now she's too cold! So what I do is I put the sleep sac on her at the one hour wake-up and we're good to go. However this is really annoying and I wonder how people tackle this issue. I've thought of putting the A/C even colder before bedtime and switching it to a warmer temp when she falls asleep, but it beeps really loudly when you switch temperatures so I can't do that. Perhaps there is no easy solution to this one...

[katie80]

Hmm, that does seem a little tricky. How old is your baby? Have you tried to switch to a less heavy sleep sack and different pjs to see if that might help at BT? Do you give her a bath before bed? I think it's natural for body temp to drop a bit after a bath, so maybe you could try to give it a little earlier and then have some quiet time before bed, so she doesn't warm up again so much. You could sure try the AC trick as well... I would think some white noise in her room would be enough to drown out that beep; lots of kids seem to sleep pretty deeply those first few hrs, so it might not be an issue.

Neither of mine have been quite that sensitive to temperature, so I'm not sure any of this helps. Hopefully, someone else might come along and I can ask around too.

[brummum]

No suggestions but can I tag along? With the hot weather recently in the uk we are having the same issue, he has to go to bed in 1 tog sleeping bag otherwise he wakes up within the hr all sweaty and hot but then we have the problem of him waking up at a later point cuz he's too cold. Just can't win!

[creations]

I would do like Katie said, lighter pjs and lighter sleep sac or ditch the sleep sac, maybe leave the room cool but I'd add a blanket before the NW.  I does depend on how old your LO is, where/how they sleep and if you are comfortable to add a blanket (SIDS wise younger babies are safer in the sleep sacs).  Our house is drafty so the temp drops quite a bit at night and I've added a blanket (or several) since he was quite young (although prob not much under 6 months and he slept in a hammock which meant he couldn't wriggle down under a blanket anyway).  TBH I've been really pleased with the early/er introduction of a blanket because he seemed to learn how to sleep with one which some LOs can find a bit tricky later on.  if it is not pulled up too high and tucked under the arms it's safer.
I also used the fleece sleep suits in place of the sleep sac as it keeps arms warm and covers the whole chest up to the neck which is warmer and in the warmer weather just a regular cotton sleep suit, either way I added a blanket later on.  he now has a duvet and I still go and add a blanket when I go to bed!

[Khalam's Mama]

What about woollen sleep suit or sack, warm in the cold and cool in the hot?

[stefwef]

Thanks for the advice! She's 8 months and we use a light footless cotton pj with either a Marino Kids sleep sac (67-70F when AC actually wins battle over weather) or two halo cotton sleep sacs (when it's a little warmer in her room, like 73F). The Marino Kids actually really makes her boil at bedtime so that one I can't get away with putting on her right off the bat. Lately I've been putting one of the halos at bedtime, and the other one an hour later.

[Khalam's Mama]

Can you get away with laying her on the open sac and not doing it up until half hr later?

[stefwef]

That's a thought! The Marino sleep sac zips around the body instead of up the middle, and ends up all bunched around her legs, but it might work with the halo. I'll give it a try!