08: How to Dress Your Baby at Bedtime
In This Episode:
Though sharing a story about 7 month old Ella and her middle-of-the-night temperature story, Jessica outlines practicable tools you could utilize to assess your baby's temperature and comfort level. Plus bonus tips on how to read your child's cues so that you feel confident in how you dress them while keeping safe sleep recommendations in mind.
The Big Idea
Babies tell us when they are too cold.
Questions I Answer
What can my baby’s gestures and body language tell me about what they need?
What are the signals that your baby is cold?
What is the best temperature for sleep?
My child has high sensory calming needs, how can I help them sleep?
What is the best sleep sack for my baby?
Actions to Take
If you have more questions or you're struggling with sleep and you're craving some support, schedule a one hour call with me and let's get you back to sleep as soon as possible.
Sign up for our newsletter so you can continue to fill your parenting toolkit and won't miss out on my new episodes. (Use the Keep Up With Sleep form at the bottom of this page)
I’d love to see what your little one(s) wears at bedtime and other moms will too! (To give them some ideas to figure out what works best for their baby!) Feel free to tag me on Instagram @SleepHappy or send them to me via DM!
Resources/Links
Listen to Episode 004: It’s Not About Finding the Right Product for your Child for more information on what children need to sleep well.
AAP Sleep Guidelines for safe sleep.
Kyte Baby How to Dress Your Baby for Different Temperatures Resource Chart
Kyte Baby Sleep Bags Discount code coming soon!
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(00:00):
Hello friends, and welcome to Good Mornings. I'm your host, Jessica Bryant. This is episode eight, "How to Dress Your Baby for Bed".
(00:13):
Welcome to the Good Morning podcast. I'm your host Jessica Bryant. I'm a pediatric sleep strategist and founder of Sleep Happy Consulting. Many parents today are spinning their wheels, living from sun, up to sun, down in a cycle of overwhelm, frustration, and some serious exhaustion. I'm here to tell you there is another way. Let's follow that frustration together. Find out what's not working so you can decide to change course confidently and move towards a better tomorrow. A better tomorrow starts with a good morning. Having good mornings is more than sleep. It's about being intentional with how you set your child up for success in the world, how you show your child to care for their mind, their bodies, and others so they can reach their full potential. And you, you are the best person for the job. So let's decide to have a good morning,
(01:25):
Okay today we are gonna talk about how to dress your baby for bed in the winter. I can't tell you how many messages I have gotten in the morning when I've been texting with clients that led with panic, full panic, my baby woke up and their hands were cold and I feel so bad, I feel terrible. They were cold all night. And so that first time that you feel your baby's hands and they're cold and you think all of this doubt rushes over you and you're so worried that maybe you incorrectly dressed your baby, maybe the temperature was colder than you planned or mother nature changed path in the middle of the night and really brought the temperature down of the house. So I wanna help you not feel that way and not feel stressed and give you some practicable tools to know how to assess your baby's temperature and comfort in a sense.
(02:31):
So let's dive in today. I want you to know that you can learn how to read your child's cues so that you feel confident in how you dress them for bit. Babies are the ones they'll tell us, they'll tell us what they need and it definitely mean takes some trial and error, but it just keeps that conversation open and you feel more in tune with your baby as they're telling you and you're responding and that back and forth grows as as they grow and develop. So I wanted to tell you a story about a baby named Ella and her temperature story in the middle of the night. She was a seven month old baby and she was sleeping through the night somewhere between 11 and 11 and a half hours a night. She was eating really good during the day, so she no longer needed any feeds at night.
(03:28):
And so there was one night where she woke up out of the blue in the winter and her parents used my three p’s and she paused and mom thought to herself, Hmm, this is strange. She hasn't woken up in a couple of weeks. And I wonder, I wonder what she's saying is she's saying that she's mad to be awake. No, I feel like this is a different cry. It's something else. How is her feeding? She ate really well. So I don't think it's feeding related, health related. She's not congested. There's nothing, she was totally herself today, but this kind of feels like a cry. It's a full cry, and I think it's signaling that she needs help with something. So I'm gonna go in. So not only did the mom pay attention to her sound communication, now she's arriving in the bedroom and she's going to pay attention to the gestures and the body language.
(04:34):
She's still full out crying and she notices that her bottom lip is kind of quivering while she's crying and she kind of thinks, oh, it is kind of chilly in this room and the nursery, it's a little cold. I wonder if she's cold. So she picks the baby up and she checks the back of their neck and it is cold. So she thinks through what else she can add, the baby sleeping in a sleep bag or a sleep sack, and she's got on a long sleeved top and a long pants for the pajama, but her feet are open. So she decides to put on some socks and redress her in the sleep bag, sleep sack, she cuddles her a little bit, she's calm at this point, and then she puts her baby back in the bed and Ella goes back to sleep. And mom also goes, and she checks the temperature in the house.
(05:34):
You know, generally she keeps her heat on about 68, 69 at night and she notices that it's a little lower than that. So she adjusts that as well and baby goes right back to sleep. And mom reports that the next morning she slept all the way through and mom feels confident that she understood Ella's communication and she met her needs that, Hey mom, I'm cold. It's making it a little hard to sleep. Can you help <laugh>? So that's just one example of some cues that Ella signaled to indicate that she was cold and mom was confident in those cues and tested them out and came to find out she was right. So she's gonna put that experience in her toolkit to use for next time. The other way that mom's gonna use that information is she's gonna reflect on what her child was wearing. So she had the socks.
(06:35):
So she's like, well tonight, if the temperature is the same, should I go ahead and put her in a footed pajama and the sleep bag sleep sack? And she's thinking that's kind of her plan, but she also knows that later on in the week it's gonna get much colder. So she's wondering, she might layer the socks underneath the footed pajama, or she might also put a t-shirt or a short sleeve onesie underneath the fleece footed pajama with the sleep bag or sleep sack over it. So that's what she's thinking in her head. She might change her mind, but she's using that information from last night. And Ella's call for some help in the middle of the night to plan ahead for better sleep the next night and to make sure that she's dressing her for Ella's individual temperature needs. So you may be wondering, what are the signals that your baby could be cold?
(07:37):
And so some of them are tiny goosebumps, bluish extremities. Think about when you're newborn, back when your newborn came out of the bath, maybe in the winter or maybe just in your house, and they were crying and maybe in the process of getting them dry and everything, some of the body parts extremities and things were a little bluish. So if you think of that knowledge of your individual child, that's a good jumping off point for my child is cold. Not that it's a problem, but you're gonna address it. I mean, coming out of the bath, we do our best, best that we can with this, with a wiggly slippery baby to keep them safe and get them warm as soon as possible. But if you're experiencing that cold problem out of the bath, there might be times where you turn up the heat in the bathroom or you have a portable heater that you could turn on and warm up the bathroom before the bath or, and maybe you have lots of help and you could have warm towels from the dryer, but generally, and then you can turn that portable heater off, you know, because you don't need it except for getting right out of the bath.
(08:56):
But those are just some ways that you might help with that newborn bathing in the middle of winter. But so the cold neck and the full cry are signals of I am cold. Another thing you can check is their chest, but a baby's hands and feet are not a good indicator of temperature. So really dive into their neck. That's what I usually suggest in the middle of the night so that we're not undressing them and checking their chest and making them more awake and harder to get back down. But the neck is usually pretty easily to check in the middle of the night. The AAP recommends babies wear an extra layer than their parent. So whatever a parent is comfortable with, wearing an extra layer, which I feel like is a little tricky because I might have long pajamas on, but I'm gonna get into a bed that has a heavy comforter.
(09:56):
And so you know, we're not doing that with a baby because of safe sleep recommendations. Their blanket in a sense is that sleep bag or sleep sack. So wanting to know how heavy is that sleep sack. And some sleep sack brands come in different weights and other ones are just fleece or a Muslim fabric or a light cotton fabric. So I think that's so individual for your family in terms of what your layers look like, and then also where you live and what the normal temperature is for your child. Generally, there's a wide range of temperatures that promotes good sleep. I looked at a couple of research studies, but I usually say 68 to 72 degrees, but that's in Texas <laugh>. So our temperature gauge is a little bit different than say, someone who lives in Canada. And so I found various studies that said 60 degrees to 72 really promotes good sleep.
(11:07):
So you can use that information to kind of figure out like what helps your family sleep the most, what temperature is doable for your family? Another thing I like to take into consideration is for, especially for infants, is babies who have high sensory calming needs. And if this is something that you don't understand, please reach out, ask me a question. But I work with a lot of children who are strong voiced, very determined, and they need a lot of sensory input to calm and organize their body for sleep and in a sense like calm their system, wind down and be ready to allow sleep to come on. So these are children that sometimes I recommend a certain weight SleepSack, I recommend that we test that out and see how they do, especially when if the family has transitioned out of a swaddle around two or three months old, then I really wanna look into whether they need a heavier weight sleep sack.
(12:18):
These are not babies that I recommend, the Muslim or the lightweight sleep sacks. And sometimes they might be using the Merlin sleep suit, which again is very warm. So when we're talking about layers, there are so many differences. So that's why I really encourage you to think in terms of your baby. Are they a hot box or are they always cold? Is there anything else playing into their comfort? And if it's at night and I have a little one with high sensory needs that maybe is, you know, three and a half months and in a Merlin, we're not gonna dress them in a footed pajama necessarily if they're in Texas versus farther north in Wisconsin or Maine or Nova Scotia. So that's a specific detail that if you're trying to decipher what you maybe baby needs to wear, let's talk about first what they need for calming, and if that's a specific item of clothing, you can adjust everything else you put on them.
(13:25):
Okay, here's what I wanna really add to your toolkit is what are the danger signs? What is a temperature communication that really needs your attention in is not normal because I really wanna build your confidence in how how much is just normal and it's okay. I don't want you waking up in a panic because your child's hands were cold, they weren't freezing, they were just on the cold side. Um, that's totally normal part of part of life and babyhood. So signs that your baby is too warm, these are dangerous signs, they're sweating, they have damp hair, they have a heat rash, they have red cheeks and they have heavy breathing. Definitely if this happens in the middle of the night, this is definitely a case where I would get up with them, I would go into the living room, I would take them out of what they're wearing and I would sit with them and just observe and see how they responded so that you know, like, okay, changing their clothes, solved our problem, or no, something else is going on and I need to address it.
(14:47):
Danger signs for too cold, a baby is hard to wake up, lethargic, decreased appetite, difficulty eating, pale skin, limp muscles, vomiting, unexplained irritability. Both of those too warm and too cold, definitely need your attention and most likely need a healthcare provider, pediatrician to weigh in on what's going on or call to the nurse. You may remember that one of my previous episodes was all about, it's not about finding the magic product that leads to sleep for your child. So be sure to listen to that if you're interested. But I'm about to dive into a product that I do like for children. Does that mean that all children have to have it for sleep? No, but it is very popular and the reason I like babies to wear a SleepSack or a sleep bag is that it gives them sensory input in their empty crib. It allows you to follow the AAP sleep guidelines for safe sleep.
(16:01):
And it allows the baby to have, especially in the winter, you know, the coziness, the sensory input of, I have a layer on top of me, so everyone has a different sleep sack. So the first thing you consider when you're thinking about how to dress your baby for bed is what is the weight of your sleep sack? What is it made out of? There's definitely weighted sleep sacks, which some of those are quite heavy. There is sleep sacks that have different tos, which for example, kite baby sleep bags, they have a five, a 1.0 and a 2.5, and that is just how they communicate a different weight of the fabric and how it feels on the baby. And so in their minds, the 2.5 to is the appropriate weight, heavier sleep bag for temperatures 61 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit and 16 to 20 degrees Celsius.
(17:08):
So that's more of our like winter weight in the kite baby bags. Another type of sleep sack are quilted sleep sacks. And these I've seen on my European clients, they're a lot bigger and they're very similar to like your grandmother's quilt that she puts on her bed. So it's a little bit more substantial in terms of how it feels on the baby and and for warmth then say a cotton sleep sack that someone might use in South Texas. And we've got the Muslim sleep sacks, the fleece sleep sacks, and the quilted ones. And so there's a couple variety of those. So first it's to consider what you have on hand and then secondly, you know, generally you're wearing long PJ socks and a sleep bag slash sleep sack in the winter. If it's super cold, you might have a t-shirt under your long pajamas with socks in a sleep sack.
(18:09):
And obviously if you're not doing socks, you know you can do footed pajamas as well. I have a really great chart that I will put in the resources on the website for you to download that kind of explains for different temperatures. It goes from 61 to 63 degrees all the way up to above 75 degrees, and it kind of gives an explanation of a great visual of how to dress your baby for different temperatures. So I will link that in the show notes and I'd love to hear your comments. So feel free to jump on Instagram @ SleepHappy and let me know you're listening and let me know what your questions are. And feel free to take a picture of what your child wears at bedtime because other moms love seeing what little ones are wearing and what other moms are doing to just give them some ideas to figure out what works best for their baby.
(19:14):
Now that you know the danger signs of hot and cold for your baby today, I have equipped you with the danger signs so you know what's too hot or too cold. And my hope for you is that that builds your confidence and helps you better assess what your child needs to wear to bed for their own temperature gauge so that when you do wake up and their hands are cool or cold, it's not causing you that panic and that rush of self doubt because you know, sometimes our hands are cold, but that my baby would've let me know if they were really cold and really uncomfortable. And you know what? They didn't call out. They didn't call for me to help them. And so that means they were good. They were sleeping soundly and getting the rest they needed. So today's quick win is to pat yourself on the back.
(20:12):
You added a new tip to your toolkit and now you've covered the lesson of how to dress your baby for bed and how to figure it out. If you have more questions or you're struggling with sleep and you're craving some support, schedule a one hour call and let's get you back to sleep as soon as possible...well you and your baby! I hope you enjoy today's episode and I would love for you to hop on over to my website, www.sleephappyconsulting.com and sign up for our newsletter so that you don't miss a new episode and you continue to fill your parenting toolkit. Thanks for joining us today and helping us on our mission of lifting up more moms and dads and helping more families have good mornings.
(21:08):
I sure hope you left feeling encouraged. I loved hanging out with you today and I am so grateful you were here. If you would like more information about Sleep Happy, be sure to visit our website at sleephappyconsulting.com and sign up for our weekly emails. If you liked what you heard today, please share this podcast with your friends or your favorite parenting group. I can't wait to get to know you and learn more about how I can lift you up in the journey of parenting. Fulfilled families are our mission. I'm Jessica Bryant and this is The Good Morning's Podcast.
Jessica Bryant helps parents stop fighting sleep with their young children. She provides strategies to help babies sleep through the night, take naps, and stay healthy.
