Where Do You Set Your Thermostat at Night?

We like it cold, so we set it at 63. We have an 11 mo old and a 2.5 yr old. They have never seemed cold to me. Remember that if you get the temp too hot, it can be associated with SIDS. I don't know what too hot is, but just keep that in mind. Hope this helps!

We have area heaters in each kid's room so we don't have to heat the entire house to be warmer for them, just their rooms. That would seem a good compromise.

It's important to remember that it's not necessarily the number, but what your house feels like. If the thermostat is in the hallway, is that really the temperature in the bedroom? Is your baby's bedroom and your bedroom the same temperature? (Because our baby's door is closed, and ours isn't, his room is much warmer than ours at night.)

Studies show that turning your thermostat down by 1 degree for 8 hours a day will save 1% on your heating bill. (I give home energy seminars.)

I also put many layers on my baby at night: onesie, thin one-piece with feet, thick sleeper & sleep bag. This lets us turn the temperature down to a fairly cool temperature in our house. He sleeps best when he has several layers on.

On my blog I wrote about setting the right temperature for your house: Another question I get a lot is "what temperature should I set my thermostat to?" You need to set it to the temperature comfortable for your household. I find that temperature is very subjective, so you need to find the temperatures that work for you and your family. My favorite way to figure out the right temperature is to run a little experiment: without telling the other people who live in your house, every few days turn the temperature down 1 degree. When the other residents complain that it's too cold, turn the temperature back up 1 degree. Bingo, you've found the right temperature for your family. The same works for the nighttime temperature. As a starting point Energy Star suggests that you should turn the temperature down at least 8 degrees for the most efficiency.

I don't think I'm supposed to post my blog URL here, but it's in my profile.

A.

Cooler temps help you avoid germs. They thrive in warmer spaces & while you're all breathing at night in your nice warm beds in your nice warm rooms (probably w/mouthes open) you're sucking in & pushing out all sorts of funky stuff.
Throw baby in warmer jammies, put an extra blanket on if need be & turn the thermostat down. Bonus, your heating bill will be lower!
Our house is set at 68 constantly. At night, because our house isn't insulated well, our boys' rooms down the hall are probably 5 deg colder than that so when it dips really cold outside I put our insanely safe space heater on a stand so it's blowing toward both of their rooms (doors are on the same side so this works). In the summer hubby likes it freezing (this is our first year w/AC)-no more than 67 or 68 & I go outside to defrost.

I've read recently some pediatrician said that 65 is the best temperature for babies for preventing sids. however, they really don't know what causes sids and could come out next year say 80 is the best temperature. but i keep mine at 65 with my almost 2 year old and my 6 month old.

when our child was born, the pediatrician told us that 72 was optimal for a newborn. We keep ours at 69 now that they're older.

67

You can always use undershirt, jammies and sleep sack.

well first let me say i do live in SOUTH FLORIDA so it is always hot. but i keep our A/C at 78 during the day and 77 at nite. and we are all comfortable...including my 3 yo son.
:-)D.

p.s. if i kept it on 68 like most people said, my FPL bill would be over $400/month ! :-0

It's best to keep the temp in baby's room around 68 degrees for SIDS prevention. We have our thermostat set at 66 degrees and use an area heater in our son's room to warm his room the extra 2 degrees. We bought one that allows you to set the temp and has a timer. It also has a cool touch feature and shuts off completely if it is bumped even just a little. Now that our son is a toddler these safety features are priceless. Our heater also has a fan that alternates with the heat to circulate the air - another proven reducer of SIDS. I think it's a Bionare tower heater.

Living in MI it gets cold, but it's expensive to pay for gas heating bills! When we are not home and when we sleep, our heat is turned down to 56. It's a timed therostat, so it starts warming back up to 68 before we get up. (Our daytime temp.)
My now 4 yo daughter wore the sleeper blanket until she was 2. She has had her own heated blanket since she was 3 (as do we- electric is less expensive than gas) and knows how to turn it up if she's cold. We always turn it back down to low or 2, depending how cold it's supposed to be that night when we tuck her in before we go to sleep. It has an automatic shut off after 6 or 8 hours.
Our bodies sleep deeper if we're not tossing & turning because we're hot, I think.

Huh, I'm learning all kinds of things from people's responses. I had no idea there were actually reasons for keeping the house certain temperatures! I grew up in a house where my parents turned the heat way down at night, so if I leave the heat on, I always wake up with a sore throat from the dry air. We keep it at 68 during the day (which I think is a little cold, I have to dress warm) and turn it down to 64 at night. I swaddled my kiddo until 10 months actually, so he stayed nice and warm, and he still sleeps in warm jammies (sweats) and a sleep sack now at 19 months. He sleeps with 2 blankets too, but doesn't always keep them on.

Winter and shivering cold has come to greet us....
For all you new mama's or mama's to be, here is some IMPORTANT information: "Overheating in a baby is known to be one cause of SIDS, and it will cause great discomfort and fussiness in a baby who is awake".
Since winter and shivering cold has come to greet us, PLEASE take caution with lil' ones!

How to Keep a Baby from Overheating
By thembeka, eHow Member

Read more: How to Keep a Baby from Overheating | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_keep-baby-overheatin...
http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_keep-baby-overheatin...

It depends on the weather. Our apartment is part of an old farm house and doesn't have central heating. We have a stove heater in the living room that heats the living room and kitchen and a wall heater in my kids room that heats both bedrooms. Our bathroom is freezing so I put a space heater in there to warm it up before baths. At night if I turn off the stove heater our living room/kitchen will be 50 degrees in the morning. So I leave the heater on at night and set it to 62. And then turn it to 66-68 in the day. I prefer to be cooler and my husband likes to be hot to the point of sweating. At night in the winter I turn my kids bedroom heater on to about 70 and it fluctuates throughout the night. If I wake up sweating, I turn down the heater a notch. I have a thermometer in there room and I like to keep it between 68-72 when they are in there sleeping. During other times I keep it off. When we leave during the day I turn it off and it can get to be 62 degrees in there.

During the summer we have a heat problem. It can get to be in the 80's or 90's depending on the temp outside. Much to hot for us. I had my husband install a swamp cooler in the living/room and I try to keep it about 72-74. My kid's bedroom gets about the same temp. Which is very hot. I had my husband install a room A/C and it helps a ton! I would cool off the room just before naps and bedtime to about 74. Any more than that I felt like we were using too much electricity. I am up several times a night going potty and with the baby so I consistently check the temp and adjust it. My bedroom roasts and I can't sleep in the heat so I use a fan that blows on me.

I read the other responses and I am shocked how cold people keep their houses. Maybe I should keep it cooler and my kids won't be as sick. Hummm.

My pediatrician told me 70 degrees. My husband and I have the same arguement. He wants it freezing, I want it warm. We put a heater in the baby room, but he doesn't like to turn it on.

I think the exact temperature really depends on your house. Our house is fairly small and very well insulated so it stays quite warm. Even during the day (in the middle of a Montana winter) we never turn it up past 65. At night it's usually around 55-60....even in the baby's room. Any warmer than that and she sweats like crazy! I think the reason behind the cooler temperature at night is that infants (and even bigger kids and adults) can get congested/stuffed up sleeping when it's too warm. A cooler room makes it easier for baby to breathe at night. I definitely notice a difference when my daughter has been sleeping and too hot....she wakes up with a stuffy nose. Hope this helps!

Sounds like you got a lot of answers in all different ranges.
For us, we set ours at 64. We upped it during the couple weeks we had of 20 below from 62. My son is 1 and we cover him in blankets. We check both him and my daughter wehn we got to bed and recover them. They both sleep fine. We have it set to go up automatically at 6:30, so the house is warm when we wake up. I have heard to keep it cooler. Kids sleep better when it is cooler, just like you!
If you are worried about your baby getting cold, put one of those sleep sacs on her, if you don't use blankets.

We keep ours at 68 degrees at night. We all sleep better. Any warmer and I and including our 3 year old daughter has nightmares because we get too warm.

Have you ever noticed that when you hold your child and they fall asleep their temperature goes up. They are like a little heater. We set our home at 65 at night but it may get colder as we also rely on a wood stove and sometimes (especially in spring and fall) just turn off the furnace. The kids do great. We all sleep better when it is a little cooler. They won't get sick. Don't worry about it.

We keep the house cooler at night. If your husband thinks it's too cold for the baby, buy a small electric heater and put it in her room.

Overheating the infant increases the risk of SIDS. So it would be better to have it a bit cooler over night than too warm.

Ours is at 68. You have to put yours where comfortable. Too warm is worse than too cold for babies. You don't want them to overheat. If the baby wakes up with cold hands or feet or nose, it might be a good idea to add a sleep sack or PJ layers. Otherwise, I think she is fine.

I like to keep our house a bit warmer at night than we used to now that our little toddler is asleep in the other room. We set the thermostat at 69 or 70. I liked having it cooler at night too, but my 16 month old is asleep in his room and he doesn't know how to stay under his blankets at night yet. he seems to curl up on top of them but we worry he isnt warm enough if we have hte house too cold. We always dress him in long pants, a long sleeve shirt, and socks just in case as well.

My husband and I actually turn it off overnight. I am one of those types who's always cold, and part cat-sitting-on-the-heater, and I do just fine. I just pile a couple extra blankets on my side every night (and I actually end up too hot!). For our infant daughter, we just put a onesie underneath her sleeper (if she's cold). Then we put a flannel blanket and a handmade, heavy, knit blanket on top of that.

During the day, I'll hike it up to 70 when we wake up, and then when it reaches 70, I turn it down to 66 and if it's a particularly cold day and I need to warm up, I put on a sweatshirt and super-fuzzy slipper-socks (while in the house). I just make sure to check my daughter's hands and feet and if she's cold, I put slippers on her, or socks that are very hard to get off (she's only 20 months).

On the coldest nights, our house only got down to 57 overnight without the heat on.

i have two five year old who do not like covers. they kick the covers in their sleep. we live in NY area, so it's cold. I am cold, day and night.
I have the upstairs thermostat in the hallway, I set it to 70F. The hallway temperature stays at 68F while our bedrooms (mine and my kids gets to 70F). I also have a ceramic heater in my kids' room set at 70F, so if for some reason their room temperature drops, the ceramic heater starts heating.
Body temperature drops when we're sleeping. Our pediatrician had said because of inactivity, during sleep, body temperature drops to 97F. He had also said to us to keep the kids room comfortable especially if they don't like the covers.
It is very expensive, and I hate having to use the heater but my kids are comfortable.
My husband always argues with me. He has friends who keep their thermostats at 55F at night.
So freaking cold. Would never do it.

We're the opposite at this house! My husband would like the thermostat to be almost OFF at night to save money! I can't handle that at all; my brain doesn't function when my skin has turned blue. (In fact, I'm turning blue just reading about the 62-degree thermostats that some other readers have told you about!)

It has finally landed at 68 degrees at night. When the winter nights are frigid the house feels even colder, but we have warm sleepwear and layers of lightweight blankets. When my children were little - they're grown now - they wore warm pjs in winter, even ones with feet (which I see are coming back into fashion for kids), and when flannel sheets came into the stores I used them on their beds. That kept them from really chilling, but they weren't too warm, either.

In the daytime in winter, our thermo is at 72, which I turn down to 70 if it's one of those warmer winter days. I should add that we live in an older house which isn't the most energy-efficient. A little coolness at night is not bad for children (or grownups) if they're dressed for it, but it's sweet for your husband to be worried about your baby! Let him shop for the flannel crib sheets and footed sleepers and he might feel more comfortable.

My son in 9 months old and at 9 o'clock our thermostat goes to 65. The Boy sleeps in a blanket sleeper (thick footie jammies) or a sack and seems to sleep just fine.

In the summer, our nights cool off quite a bit - I've gotten up and the house is 62 or 63. But winter, I never let it get cooler than 65. But, I only warm the house up to 70 in the winter. So 65 is no big deal.

Doctors say that you sleep better and deeper and are more well rested if you sleep in a cooler temperature. I believe (and I could be wrong) that they recommend 65 - 68 degrees.

And that, my dear, is my 2 cents!

We keep our thermostat at 58-59 degrees at night.

Studies have shown that some babies that have died of SIDS have an elevated temperature. Most pediatricians recommend leaving the thermostat at 68. The idea is that if babies get too warm they can't rouse themselves from sleep if they are having a hard time breathing. We leave ours at 68 at night, and our baby is pretty happy with that. We do have a bedroom that's extra cold, and our two older kids both have heated mattress pads to keep them warm. We don't do the heated mattress pad until they're at least 2.

We have a 2 1/2 year old and a 6 month old and we set the thermostat at 68 each night and 66 during the day. With the way the weather is changing we have had to adjust it to anywhere of at night up to 70 and day up to 68. It may seem warm but our house doesn't circulate very well. Hope this helps.

It depends on how cold it is outside as to where I set the thermostat. I am in VA and at the moment the overnight temp is around 32F , so I have my thermostat at 72F , if it was alot colder , like below freezing I would have it about 74-75F. A guide for baby is , if you are comfortable then baby is ok. A sleeping baby will almost always have coldish hands , however this does not mean they are cold , as long as their feet are covered their body temp should remain stable , a sleep bag is good for babies as they cannot push them off in the night.

I think your husband is worrying a little too much.

We kept ours at 60 when the girls were babies. Warm pj's and a sleepsack and they were cozy. Now that they are bigger, my husband has inched it down to 58 at night, but they can have blankets now, of course. My SIL kept hers at 64 with her babies.

Like you, I can not sleep when hot.

In the winter, I keep my house at night set to 68 degrees.

In the summer, I can sometimes go as low as 65 degrees at night.

I think that the reason your doctor gave to not keeping it too warm is that young kids and toddlers still have trouble regulating their temperatures. It is easier to keep them covered to stay warm then it is to cool them off.

My husband and I are always cold, so ours is usually set around 72!

What kind of clothes does your son sleep in at night? If he's sleeping in something warm, like a footed sleeper with sleeves, then he should be plenty warm. If he's just sleeping in a diaper, then yeah he's gonna be cold! So as long as you dress him in PJs to keep him warm, you shouldn't have to melt! I try to make sure my daughter is wearing something with sleeves and pants because I know she is going to move around and lose her covers.

I would think that having it too hot would be as bad if not worse than having it too cold for your son.

While you should keep the house a bit warmer for a newborn, by the time they are a month old they can regulate their temperature and should be dressed about the same as you are. So you should set the temperature at whatever feels comfortable to you. We keep ours around 71 if it is a cold day, 70 if it is sunny.

We have a programmable thermostat. I set it to 73 while the kids are getting baths and such. Then it switches to 71 at 11pm. I worried about the kids being too cold, but everytime I would check on them before I go to bed, they seem to be fine (I touch their noses to see if they are cold). I also went to Boscovs.com and bought them some really nice fleece sheets for their beds (only $20 any size!). You can also try those zip up jammies with the feet that way you know your child is warm. Kids tend to sleep better with it being colder. I've noticed it myself.

I leave my thermostat on 69 degrees all the time. Until Jan. I would turn it down to 63 at night but now it is so cold all the time. I use a humidifier in my youngest son's room the keep the air moist and we have a humidifier attached to the furnace.

We drop ours to 60 degrees at night (68 during the day). we dress our 2- and 4-year-old in "double pjs" - - long sleeve pjs under a footed sleeper. that way, if they kick their blankets off, they are still warm. i set the thermostat to start going up about an hour before we wake up so the house is warm by the time we eat breakfast.

Our solution was to start using a sleep sack for the baby. I got all weird about not wanting her to sleep in fleece because I didn't want her to overheat, so I made a couple of cotton ones and my mom bought a really nice, really warm one online (not cheap, but plush!). We LOVED it and never worried about her getting cold at night. We didn't start using it until around 12 months, but we lived in TX at the time... She wore them until she was well past 2 1/2 and now one is her sleep blankie. I can't sleep when it's hot either - good luck!

Why did your pediatrician say keep the temp cooler at night? The answer is quite simple. For most of us, we are not terribly active in sleep. Our bodies are still generating heat and we trap our 98.6 temp under a blanket or sheet. We hold that body heat in. Studies have show that cooler (Not cold) temps make for better sleep (though what that is, exactly, is subjective.) As previously noted, what is cold or warm to you depends on a lot more than just a number on a thermostat. Is your house drafty (even a little)? That makes a difference. So does the insulation/thermal resistance factor.

Our bodies have an amazing ability to adjust to varying temperatures --- if we let them. It's a survivial mechanism that goes back to our caveman days. How else do you suppose folks in New York, Alaska, Northwest Territory, Vancouver, and Greenland could survive the winters? Or folks in SoCal, Mexico, Rhodesia, or Saudi Arabia could deal with the summer heat? Even our grandparents, who survived without air-conditioning would semi-comfortably sit on the fro9nt porch sipping lemonade in the summer while their bodies learned to deal with the heat. The human body is a wonderful and magical 'machine'. We are built for self-preservation, if not, we would have been an extinct species eons ago!

That being said, I live in the midwest where we have terribly hot summers and bitterly cold winters. Summer temps in my house are held at around 72 and I love the days when I can open all my windows and let the breezes blow through. Winter finds my median house temperature set at between 66 snf 68. At night, the thermostat goes down to 56. I'm under the covers so what do I need to be heating the whole house for?!?
Now I do have a programmable thermostat, as well and during the day, when everybody is at work and out of the house, the thermostat is programmed for 56 (winter) or 76 (summer) most of the day as well. About an hour before the first arrivals return home, the thermostat adjusts to 66(winter)/72(summer) so the house temp is more comfortable. Now, obviously, you do not want the house temperature to be sitting at 56 all night when you are going to be up and down with an infant half the night. But keeping the house temperature at around 68 all night should provide comfortable sleeping conditions for everyone and also offer warm enoug ambient temperature for when someone has to get up to check on/feed/change baby.

I was told by a heating cooling guy that it doesn't pay to turn your thermostat WAY down at night because it takes MORE energy for it to "catch up" during the day then. His advice to me was to not set it more than a 4 degree difference at any time... so if you set your thermostat at 70 during the day turn it down to 66 at night, no lower. Just what I've been told and tend to follow... our house is set at 69-70 during the day and then only to 68 at night but our room is about 64-66 because it's above the garage and its an old house....

we keep ours at 68 in the summer and 70 in teh winter. I always read btw 68 -70 is ideal. It alway feel much colder to me but if you ever feel yu child they are always warmer. The concern is overheating them while they sleep.

We keep ours cool - 65 ish normally. The reason the doctor may have said that it's better to keep a house cool is that bacteria breeds when it has a "warm" place. Reason why it's so healthy and good for children to get outside during their school day even if it's cold outside. If they sit in a warm school building or in an extra warm house they can get sick from germs. Old wives tale was to bundle them up when they go out and then crank the heat when they came in. Of course we want to keep our kiddos warm while outside and use common sense if it's under 32 degrees. Good luck! :)

I'm the same way, and we went through the same thing. I like it cooler at night, around 65 or so. I can't sleep with it too much warmer. We keep it around 68-70 during the day. I noticed my 1 and 2-year-old sleep better at the cooler temp. They have those footed pjs and that keeps them plenty warm. They both usually throw off any blanket we put on them.

my house is 62 around the clock and we have no ac in the summer. my son is almost 2 years old and he is perfectly fine. We dressed him in a sleep sack until 9 months and double fleece jammies after that. My parents got us an eden pure heater just a little while back and i keep it in my sons room and keep his room temp around 65-68. in the summer his room can get to about 85 on a bad day so we keep the fan going

my babies always seemed more comfortable with things cooler than my husband and i prefer. so i set the thermostat for what is comfortable for me, around 69 or 70. the baby gets a medium or light blanket because she wakes up crying more if i put the heavy one on, and my husband and i have a thick blanket. i just make sure the baby's blanket is big enough that it doesn't come off easily when she rolls around. and i use our noses as a guide-- if mine or the baby's noses are cold, i turn up the warmth.

I read that babies like cooler temperatures at night, and studies show that SIDS deaths are more likely with higher temperatures. We keep ours set at 68 at night.

I have a one year old and have always kept the temperature at 68. I just put her in a light pajama (not fleece) then a fleece sleeper.

We keep our house at 64 or 65 during the night, depending on what the girls are sleeping in. We did keep it a little warmer when they were babies, 65 or 66. They would sleep in fleece sleepers and sleepsacks which kept them warm at night. From what I understand, making sure your baby is not too warm is a SIDS prevention. Kind of like putting them to sleep on their backs.

Hope this helps. I think we all sleep alot better with the house cooler.

Warmer climate breeds more germs and increases allergies such as dust and dust mites. To reduce these in anyone a house should be properly ventilated and humidified and it is recommended that a house be kept below 70 degrees. Dust mites thrive in higher temperatures so by increasing the temperature you are also increasing the amount of dust mite feces that you breath in especially in the winter when homes are closed up to keep out the cold. It is better to put on a sweater and keep the temp below 70 than it is to increase it and increase allergy, asthma and other germs like colds and flu. Most things like to breed at higher temps. I think your daughter is plenty old enough to sleep in a 68 degree house. Mine all did and they did just fine, in fact most of them kicked off the covers. Just think of the energy savings as well...

When it's colder out we set the thermostat at 66 degrees, put baby in a cozy pajama sleer with the feet as he kicks his blankets off at night and he has a heater in his room. We keep a thermometer in there to ensure that it never gets over 70 degrees in there as I think that is the temperature to stay near to avoid SIDS.

Babies are such little heaters themselves...They probably don't need the thermostat as high as we adults do. My kids didn't even use blankets until pre-school age and that's despite the fact that we keep it down around 64 at night and 68 during the day.

I think you're going to see a lot of variations here, just because everyone's different. I will tell you that the doctor told us that anything between 60-70 degrees is perfect for your baby. Anything over is too hot and anything lower is too cold.

We have radiant heating and in the bedrooms, we have our thermostat set to 64 at night. We are all very comfortable and our daughter, now 2 years old, sleeps 12 straight hours each night. In fact, I think we all sleep a little better when it's colder in the house. Otherwise, we get too hot with all of the bedding and we all seem to wake up stuffy.

I would suggest playing around with it in 2-degree increments for a few nights and see what works the best for everyone.