Baby room temperature during summer in HKG

B

Biouche

New member
Hi,
Summertime is starting and outside temperatures are getting higher and higher. My 3 months old daughter is sleeping in a room where temperature reaches now 28 degrees if I do not put the aircond on. As it is far too hot, I have switched on the aircond since today but I always worry that she might get a cold, or might not be dressed enough or that the room might still be too hot . It is now 26 degrees with the a/c on low cool position. If I turn on a cooler position, I feel cold in the room, but on another hand, 26 degrees is still too hot I think. During the day I dress her lightely for sleep (only with a little body underwear with short sleeves) and warmer at night, with a cotton long sleeves and feet pyjamas. I still don't know if this is OK or not and I keep going into her room to see if it is too hot or too cold and to touch my little baby to check that she is not sweating or shivering.
I fear also the extreme temperature changes for babies when you go for example outside at the beach at the end of the day and come back home where it is cold. I am always afraid that she catches a cold.
Please share with me your experience. How do you handle hot weather in hong kong, air cond use and how to dress baby for naps and during the night.
Are you more for your baby on the light clothes/low aircond side or warm clothes, sleeping bag/high aircond side?

Thanks a lot!
 
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I have the exact same question as you!!!
ANd i feel the same about the feel of the temperature. In the winter with the heater,when it was 26 it felt warm. But now 24 feels cool and my air con is at #7 which is almost the coldest.
I put my 3 month old in feet pyjamas and gro bag at night too. She seems comfy, but i still dont know what is right either!!!
 
Hi, I have just started turning on the A/C for my 6 month old. I have her in a 1 tog grobag and only her nappy and a singlet and have then A/C on 29 degrees. I know this sounds hot, but it's very cool, her tummy and the back of her neck are always warm, never hot and her feet are warm when I get her up (though hands and feet should not be used as an indication of hot or cold temps). She sleeps (like a baby!) really well on this setting and when I enter her room in the morning or after a nap, it's pleasantly cool. I think, pretty much what you put your A/C on and how you dress is a sensible guideline for your baby. Hope this helps....
 
hi there,

the books all suggest that babies should be sleeping in temperatures of about 18-22 degrees celcius to minimise SIDs but they don't really tell you how you should dress your baby to sleep in this temp. All babies do differ, some are hot babies like my son (14 months) who gets warm very easily : for his day naps I have him in a short sleeve t-shirt, thin long pants and medium weight cotton blanket sleeping in a 22 degrees celcius airconditioned room (anything warmer and he's perspiring) and at night, he's in a long sleeve, long leg cotton bodysuit and a 1.0 tog grobag sleeping in a 21.8 degrees celcius room.....

hope this helps!
 
I think the advice of 18-22 C is not really appropriate for hot countries. Where it is hot outside, the babies get used to hotter temperatures. I am sure my child would be shivering if dressed in the same bedding and temperature as her cousin in England. Likewise, her cousin would sweat profusely at 26 C which my child finds quite comfortable with light bedding!

I also think that 26 C with aircon on low will feel cool due to the air movement, whereas 26 C without aircon or fan will feel much warmer and stuffy by comparison. So you can't use strict temperature alone as a guide. Common sense can help a lot!

I also think we are lucky here in some ways because it is easy to maintain a constant air temperature at nighttime, whereas in less humid countries the outdoor temperature drop between 8pm and 6am can be dramatic. I found that quite a problem on visits to the UK in the winter. At least here, if you check they are not shivering or sweating, they are likely to remain OK for the rest of the night.
 
Yikes, I have my baby in a 1.0 tog dressed in a long sleeve long pant with the room temp at 20 and she kept waking up. I finally tried putting the a/c on at 16-17 Celsius and she sleeps beautifully! I just put a lightweight jacket for extra arm coverage. Her hands, however, are always cold. Is this too cold???
 
Last night, my 5 month old girl kept waking - I think the reason is that she was cold. I have her in a 0.5 tog grobag and only a nappy. At first I put on a fan as it seemed warm in the room, but she slept much sounder after I turned it off.
 
iv put my baby to bed without her 1 tog now as she felt really hot. so i'v got her in light clothing, a very light, almost sheer, sheet over her lower body, and the air con on a very very low setting. she seems much happier. i have a nap with her in the morning in our room where i have the aircon on cooler then her room and she seems to be very comfortable.
 
So last night i turned the air con on the coldest setting which ended up being 21 according to the thermometer. I was freezing and understandably so. I freeze when the office is that cold too. My baby was in a longsleeved sleeper and a jacadi growbag (i still dont know which 'point' the jacadi one is.... does anyone know?). Anyway, she seemed comfortable. I'll need to put thicker pyjamas on myself.

THis temperature thing still boggles me though and is frustrating!!! When i grew up in Connecticut we didnt even have an airconditioner. We used a fan during the hot summers. Like JennyB was saying, it's different here in HK versus other places in the world and we are acclimated to different weather.
 
Nanzbier, I'm sure babies in colder countries sleep happily at that temperature also, so she's probably fine. (I think you are supposed to check body temp elsewhere on the body than hands - maybe chest or back of the neck?) If your child sleeps happily then you won't want to change anything, but just think what she is getting used to. Your elec bills will be high forever and she might find it harder to cope with the heat outside, if she spends so much of her time at cold temperatures.
 
My little girl was born last April. So she was still very young during last summer. Her room gets very hot so I would put the aircon on to cool down the room before she went to bed. Then turn it off and put on the fan. She would sleep in her short sleeve body with no legs/feet, most of the time she wouldn't have a blanket on either. The room would seem really hot but cooler where she was laying because of the fan. The reason I didn't use the aircon is because I didn't want her to get used to it and therefore always be uncomfortable in hot humid weather. She is now a year old and we have another summer, so I shall see if it works for her again.
 
Aaah! this is all really scarey - We move to HK from the UK in June and my baby is an English baby with his 1.0 tog sleeping bag in 18-22C room - He wears a short sleeved bodysuit and sleepsuit with feet.
How can I get him used to the HOng Kong weather, both indoor and outdoor??
 
i am now having my daughter wear 0.5 tog with long body suit (without feet). Room temp 19-20. She seems much better.
 
I have my 5 month old in a 0.5 tog bag with only a nappy on and no aircon on. The therometer says it's between 24 and 27 degrees in her room, which I realise is quite hot, but her body seems only warm and she doesn't sweat wearing this little. Am I taking a risk here? The grobag thermometer says it's ok... just.

Our aircon doesn't have a temperature gauge on it so we can't regulate the cool air properly and it blows really hard onto her cot.

We're moving back to the UK at the end of this month... do you think I can get by like this or should I resort to aircon?
 
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