How To Dress A Newborn Safely For Bed
Clear, safe advice on how to dress a newborn for bed, and the zip-up babygrows to help you change them stress-free in the middle of the night!
As if we didn’t have enough to think about when we’re looking after a newborn, there’s also the angst-ridden subject of what your baby should wear for bed. As we’re in the UK, this is made even trickier by our ever-changing and always changeable seasons.
Thankfully, we are experts in dressing babies for bed here at ZIPPYUP, so we’ve pulled together a quick guide season by season to take you through it January to December.
How to dress a newborn for bed:
First thing’s first, the rule of thumb when dressing a newborn for bed is to layer up depending on the room’s temperature. Keep an eye on your thermometer here so you have a good idea of what happens to the room temperature throughout the night.
Simple guides like this one from the BabyCenter will give you a great starting point and debunk a lot of the confusion around night-time dressing.
How to dress a newborn in Winter in the UK
We don’t know about you, but the winter nights are often the hardest. Setting the heating for a big burst of warmth could leave your bedroom too hot. But once it goes off and the mercury plummets, your little one could feel the cold.
Here’s a little tip to help though. Add a layer to whatever you’re comfortable wearing in bed and your baby should be cosy. Extra layers can also make night-time nappy changes even more laborious, so go for layers that are easy to remove and put on again safely. That’s where zip-up baby grows rather than poppers can make all the difference.
What to dress a newborn in Summer:
We don’t often need to whip off all the layers in the UK, but it has been known to happen. It seems like the heatwaves are becoming more expected these days, and this can throw us out of our comfort zone, quite literally when July or August leaves us scrabbling for advice on what to dress our baby in.
Experts tell us that temperatures above 27 degrees call for just a nappy in bed. If you’re dealing with more average temperatures, still dress your baby lightly. A short-sleeved babygrow with a light sleeping bag or swaddle should be enough.
How to dress a newborn in Spring:
The optimum temperature for your baby’s sleep is between 16-20 degrees, and spring and autumn are the times of the year when we have the best chance of keeping the bedroom consistently around that temperature. So hooray for that! But what about dressing a newborn for this sweet spot?
Footless babygrows are a good option, especially in breathable cotton. If there’s a chill in the air, you can add a layer, such as a short-sleeved babygrow to keep them snug enough. I know, more layers mean more fiddling during changes in the night! But double up on the zip-up fastenings and you’ll still be able to breeze through nappy changes even with multiple layers.