Baby learning to sleep peacefully in his cot with a blanket
Trying to keep your baby covered at night to keep them warm and comfortable while sleeping can be a real chore when you have a baby who likes to rock ‘n roll in their sleep.
Keeping baby warm
Snug as a bug in a rug — that’s what parents often think when it comes to tucking their baby in at night. This perception of needing to keep a baby snuggly covered at night isn’t all in their heads when you think about it.
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Stabilizing
When your baby is born the nurses are careful to swaddle and wrap the baby snuggly to keep them warm, so your sub-conscience just tells you to follow suit…for the next two years. Not! Your baby is snuggly wrapped those first couple of days to stabilize their body temperature; getting them used to being outside the womb.After that, however, the swaddling is done more for comfort and security than warmth.
In fact, you should be careful to swaddle your baby with light-weight cotton wrappings to keep them from getting too warm. There’s also all that talk about keeping your baby free of too many coverings to prevent the dangers of suffocation. So, is it really necessary to keep your baby covered at night?
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A baby wrapped in a blanket for the night
How much cover is necessary
In short, the answer to this question is not much if you’re talking about blankets.
Most babies and toddlers wiggle around in their sleep. They very rarely ‘stay put’ all night long, so it’s only reasonable to assume their covers won’t either. So rather than weighing them down with blankets, it’s best to dress them for sleeping and add a light-weight blanket to ‘lock in’ the warmth (if necessary) and for security purposes.
Dressing for sleep
When it comes to trying to keep your baby covered at night, you’ll have a lot more success in keeping them cool and comfortable or warm and cozy if you dress them for sleep. You can dress your baby for sleep by putting them in…
- A sleep sack or gown
- Snug (but not tight) fitting PJs with feet or socks
You should also use cotton blankets that are breathable and don’t weight your baby down; making them feel trapped.
Did these tips help you in trying to keep your baby covered? If you have anymore tips on how to keep your baby covered, please tell us about them! For more on trying to keep your baby covered when they are acting fussy, watch this video:
