The Summer in Britain is a tricky one when it comes to children, particularly at night. They're either too hot and become sweaty, or the temperature plummets at night (like it has done in the past week) and then they are left cold and shivering in the middle of the night.
When The Boy was a baby, I spent a long time seeking out the lightest tog duvet I could find for him, and combined with either a bodysuit or a t-shirt that would be all he'd have on at night. As he's grown older, his bedding has changed to a duvet and therefore so have the types of pyjamas he wears; he wears a short pyjama set from around May until the beginning of September, when he switches back to long sleeves and long legged nightwear.
These are my top tips for easy Summer bedtimes:
- Give them a warm bath before bedtime to wash away the grime and sweat from the day. Everyone sleeps better when they've showered or bathed before bed, and children are no different.In the cooler months The Boy has a bath every other night, but during the sticky and sweaty Summer he has a shower on the nights he doesn't have a bath, to make sure he feels fresh to go to bed with.
- Use cotton sheets and bedding; this will help little ones to keep cool at night and not overheat. Change the bedding weekly.
- Keep a window open in the evening leading up to bed time, with the curtains or blind half-drawn; it will help to cool down the room before bed. We also have a small top window open during the night to help keep the temperature down. The Boy's room fluctuates at around 20-22ºC, if it goes above that then we place a fan in the doorway on low to circulate the air around.
- Use lightweight cotton pyjamas which will help their skin to breathe more naturally and regulate their temperature. We tend to stick to short pyjamas between June-August, but on cooler nights he wears a pair of cotton snuggle pyjamas which are soft and help keep him warm but not too hot. His favourite at the moment are a pair of House of Fraser soft cotton Gruffalo's Child pyjamas with embroidered embellishments.
- Consider using some relaxing lavender oil around their bedding to help them settle and sleep easily.
- Black-out blinds are essential for us during the Summer months! There is no way that we could get The Boy to sleep when the sun sets at 10pm or keep him from waking at 4am with the crack of dawn, without a heavy duty black-out blind and black-out linings on his curtains. The black-out linings are also thermal so they keep the cool in and heat out.
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We were sent these pyjamas for the purpose of this post.
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