How to keep your baby warm at night, and why your baby's hands feel cold (2024)

It's easy to worry about whether your baby is warm enough at night – but keeping them comfortable isn't as complicated as you might think. The trick is striking the right balance so they don't get too hot or too cold.

It's important to get the temperature right: Dressing your baby in too few layers or too many layers can lead to more frequent wakeups.

And it's crucial to create a sleeping environment that's both comfortable and follows safe-sleep recommendations to reduce their risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

It's not safe to use any sort of loose bedding in your baby's crib for the first year. Loose bedding such as blankets and quilts can cause accidental suffocation or overheating, which is a risk factor for SIDS. So don't let your baby sleep with blankets or stuffed animals until they're a year old. Also, don't use crib bumpers, let your baby use an inclined sleeper, or put your baby down to sleep in products not intended for sleep, like an car seat, swing, or baby lounger.

The good news is there are some easy ways to tell if your baby is chilly – and some easy ways to warm them up if they need it.

Putting your baby in layered clothing for sleep is practical, and the safest way to keep your baby warm while they're sleeping. Pajamas with feet are a good choice. Look for ones made from heavier fabrics like fleece for cold climates and seasons. Put a wearable blanket, swaddle, or sleep sack over their jammies to keep your baby cozy.

Resist the urge to put a hat on your baby while they sleep, though. Babies regulate their body temperature through their heads, so putting a hat on them increases the risk of overheating (and is also a suffocation risk, if the hat falls off while they sleep).

You can use newborn gloves or mittens for sleep if you're worried your baby's hands will be cold or that they might scratch themselves. There's no significant risk of overheating with hand coverings, but check your baby's mittens to make sure there are no choking hazards, like loose strings.

Swaddling your baby is also an easy way to keep their arms and legs warm during sleep, but stop swaddling once your baby shows signs of being able to roll over. This usually happens around 3 or 4 months, but can be as early as 2 months.

The ideal temperature for a baby's room

An ideal room temperature for your baby is around 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. As a general guide, your baby needs one more layer than you do to be comfortable. (So if you're wearing long sleeves and pants, dress your baby in their regular pajamas, plus a sleep sack.)

You may wonder whether you can put a space heater in a chilly nursery, but this generally isn't recommended (at least not while your baby is sleeping in there). No space heater can ever be fully fireproofed or made safe for use in a child's bedroom, even if your baby isn't crawling or mobile yet. Not only does a space heater pose a fire risk, it can quickly make a room too warm for your baby and raise the risk of overheating.

If you need to use a space heater to warm up your baby's room, run it for a little while before your baby goes to sleep and turn it off when you put them to bed.

To warm cold sheets, place a hot water bottle or a microwavable heating pad (not the electric kind) in your baby's crib for a few minutes before bedtime. Just be sure to remove it before putting your baby down.

How to tell if your baby is too cold or warm

Here are some simple ways to tell whether your baby is cold. If they're showing any of these signs, dress your baby in an extra layer:

• Their skin is blotchy or pale
• Their arms, legs, or cheeks feel cool to the touch
• Their chest or the back of their neck feel cool to the touch
• They seem overly sleepy or are hard to rouse
• They're extra fussy or keep waking frequently

Here's how to tell if your baby is too warm:

• They're damp or sweating
• Their skin, especially their ears and neck, feels warm to the touch
• Their skin looks reddened or flushed
• They have signs of heat rash

Too much moisture can lead to prickly heat, even in the winter, so if your baby is sweating take a layer off or change your baby's clothes so more air can flow over their skin.

Why your baby's hands are cold

If your baby's hands feel ice cold and it has you worrying their sleep environment is too chilly, know this: Young babies still have underdeveloped circulatory systems, and their bodies regulate temperature differently than our adult bodies do.

In other words, cold hands are typically not a sign that the whole body is cold. Babies lose heat quickly from their hands, but it doesn't tend to affect the way their body regulates or maintains heat. Your baby's hands don't need a lot of blood flow, so their body is busy circulating blood to other areas.

Unless it seems to be clearly bothering them, you don't have to do anything to keep your baby's hands warm while sleeping. As long as their room is around 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit and they're not showing signs of illness or distress, you can assume they're comfortable.