Okay, for those of you that don’t know I live in a pretty frosty area.
My daughter’s room seems to be the coldest in the house and I would like answers on the safest way to give her some more heat.
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[li]Electric blanket?[/li][li]Space Heater[/li][li]Any other thoughts?[/li][/ul]
I am especially concerned because of her rheumy knee, I know that heat can help. She is, however also only two and a half so I don’t want anything that can burn her or be dangerous.
Electric blanket-name brand would be my choice. Youngsters and space heaters are a dangerous combination, IMO.
What about a hot water bottle or something like that. I’ve even seen ones that are wrapped in a teddy bear, just for kids.
I own a space heater that looks like a radiator and is oil filled. You can see pictures of what I’m talking about here.
It toasts up nicely but the surface doesn’t get dangerously hot. Touching it reminds me of laying your hand on a heat vent or something – hot enough to be seriously uncomfortable and make you want to move your hand but you’d really have to work at it to do damage. Back when my son was younger and we lived in an apartment that wasn’t always warm, it was in his room and he never had a mishap with it. I use it now in a room that’s a converted garage and it heats us the room well.
With a small child, I’d think a wall-mounted panel heater would be better than something that can fall over. Like this, for instance (PDF). You’d need to make sure you get one which doesn’t get too hot, so if you have room for a heater with a big surface that’s better.
Yes, a wall-mounted electric heater would be safer than a space heater. An electric blanket would be quite safe as well. Hot water bottles are nice when you go to bed, but don’t hold heat the whole night through, especially since you’ll want it to be cooler for your daughter than it would be for an adult.
You may have already investigated this, but how are the windows in her room? Would they need extra caulking or weatherstripping, or some of those plastic shrink-wrap sheets to help hold heat in? Unfortunately sometimes rooms are just cold because of the design of the house, not much to do about it, but that makes it extra important to keep in the heat that is available.
Heavy, lined curtains that fit closely against the wall.
(if possible) Another layer of insulation in the roofspace above the room.
Raise the bed further off the floor (or get a bunk/cabin bed).
Wow, you folks are making me think twice…I just have a space heater in my daughter’s (she’s two) room for the night, because the little stinker won’t keep blankets on, and it gets chilly at night no matter where you are in my house.
Thanks for all the answers, most of it really is just the house - older house, she has two outside walls. We have lousy windows so I plastic them, but her room is still cold.
I will investigate wall mounted ones or maybe a blanket. I just want to make sure she is toasty.
I had an electric matress pad growing up. It was better than a blanket because I could never kick it off, and it didn’t wear out so fast because I couldn’t accidentally expose any wiring.
Other than that, I really started sleeping well only when I got a down comforter instead of my old polyester-fill one.
Another suggestion would be to clean the radiator (air duct?), make sure it’s unobstructed, and fully opened. You may also try closing some other radiators in the house a bit, so that room gets more heat, but doing this too much will cause inefficiencies.
If it is forced hot air you can buy a vent augmenter, which basically is a fan which draws more air from the vent.
Sometimes forced hot air heat have ajustable ‘flaps’ in different places in the duct work, make sure they are wide open to her room.
If you have hot water, you may have a air bubble in her radiator. You can tell if her radiator is colder then the other rooms. If that it the case you will need to bleed the lines.
Seconding the heated mattress pad idea.
I’d always heard that electric blankets are notorious for starting fires. Is this a thing of the past?
Maybe you could try a space heater mounted on a high wall shelf in her room, where only you could reach it.
If you could afford it, try to look for an actual feather down quilt. My uncle brought one back from Poland for my grandmother, and it’s super warm.
Also another thought, your daughter might ‘run’ hot and actually be comfortable at a lower temp then you think appropiate. This could explain why she kicks the blanket off. I suggest feeling her extremities to see if they are really cool, or actually warm. This whole thread may be a non-issue.
I’ve become a big fan of flannel sheets in recent years. In my experience since they are the closest layer to the sleeper they do more to help keep one warm then comforters or blankets.
In other words I find the combo of flannel sheets and not so thick blanket or comforter to feel snugger than regular sheets and thick blanket or comforter.
This is a good point; it isn’t actually a good thing to be too warm while you’re sleeping.
You could use an electric blanket to warm the bed before she goes to sleep, and then turn it off when you tuck her in.
I’m considering getting one for my side of the bed to keep it toasty while Heater Boy can stay cool.
We live just north of Sydney and, while it doesn’t get super cold here (lows in the low 40’s at night during the winter), central air isn’t common so our house is quite cold. We have two space heaters in our living room/kitchen area and that’s it.
Our son is about the same age as your daughter. We keep him warm at night mostly by dressing him really warmly. He wears fleece footy pajamas from L.L.Bean as well as socks and a turtleneck or t-shirt underneath. He has flannel sheets, a fleece mattress pad, and we put a warm blanket underneath him. He also has a down blanket, which he doesn’t usually need.
Well, my daughter’s feet are certainly cold in the morning if I don’t turn the heater on, and she’s curledi nt a little ball that suggests that she’s cold, but no matter how many times I tell her to put the blankies on, she always kicks them off at some point during the night.
Thanks to the folks who suggested the convection heaters…I didn’t realize there were electric space heaters that didn’t get “hot”
As for the matress pad, if the room is cold and you won’t keep the blanket on, will the heated matress pad keep you warm enough?