Heaters and Babies

Shenzhennifer said:
thanka2 - boundaries are great and they should be in effect for little ones. But with an apartment so small, with not that many places to explore, I try to let him go around as much as possible. The only time when I get `mean` strict is when he`s touching cords and the stand up fans (when we used them). Other than that, I don`t want to always be saying NO NO NO. It`s not nice for him and it`s tiring for me. That`s why I like the keep things safe as much as I can.

Aside from it not being safe to have heaters tucked away somewhere, they`re less efficient than when out in the open.
But we`ll see what kind of heater we can get and then we`ll just have to deal with it.

My poor baby could hardly sleep half the night last night - I`m sure he was too cold, and was waking up every 10 minutes. Fun night for both of us. I`m wondering if anyone is using some kind of heater in their baby`s room. Is it that bad to use? It`s REALLY COLD!
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Hmmm...I guess every kiddo is different but I didn't find that I had to say "no" that often because the few times that I did I was firm enough that he decided not to do it again. I just kept an eye on my son and if he got near I would move him away and say "No! Hot!" As I said, my son is one of the most persistent and curious kids I've seen and has been since he was able to crawl and get around and it really hasn't been an issue at all as far as the heater goes. Also, the newer oil heaters don't get that hot on the outside actually (you can lay cloth over them and it's completely safe)--they heat up slowly and then kind of maintain a constant heat that is quite nice--as long as the child isn't making pressured contact with the machine, even a slight touch isn't going to hurt him/her. I recommend the Italian brand Gemini--that's the one my parents-in-law have it it really radiates enough heat that you can "tuck" it safely to the side of the room and within 20 minutes have a large (300-500-square foot) space filled with warmth. I think they are called radiant process heaters. That brand of heater is also safer than the one we use at home and also have never had any problems with my son getting even close to being hurt by it (and my parents-in-law aren't as "watchful" when it comes to that sort of thing as I am either).

I wasn't talking about it being "tucked away"--we don't have the space really to do any "tucking" ourselves and I do agree it's nicer to have them out in the open. But, I did find that if visually my son didn't see it he didn't go searching for it either. So we purposely created visual "blocking" so that the heater wasn't the focus of attention. It worked well for us and we've been using a heater for at least a few months every year since our son was a newborn.

Yes, we are using a heater in our son's room. It sits over by the door and we don't even have to turn it on high to make the room quite warm and cozy. When the weather gets really cold (which in my experience is more like February) we have to co-sleep. Then none of us really get any quality sleep but since we only have one heater we all use it. We bring our son into bed with us and keep the heater in our room and at least we're all toasty--even if our sleep is disturbed. Oh, and our son is still sleeping in a crib so that also makes it safer--yes, he can crawl out but rarely does and never crawls out in the middle of the night--only at naptimes once in awhile.
 
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nicolejoy said:
I think that the age of the child determines whether just saying "no" would work or not. I'm thinking that we'll probably be able to just use the heater (ceramic, that's not very hot on the outside - BUT it is pretty easy to topple over - I'm sure my daughter could push it over), because my daughter is now 13 months and is starting to understand "No, don't touch" and actually listen. Last winter she was only 1-4 months and wasn't mobile enough for the heater to be a hazard. But probably I would guess that just saying "No, don't touch" wouldn't be AS effective for younger mobile kids - around 8-10 months, because they're probably still learning what that means. I know my daughter at that age didn't really get it...
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Yes, every little one is different but I can say that even if my son didn't understand the words "no" at 13 months and even at 8 months, he understood the "tone" of "no" and it stopped him in his tracks. :missingto
 
Yes, we have something similar to what thanka2 posted above. It's effective. There are many options as you can see from the website I attached earlier. If you baby is in the crib, then leaving the heater on the floor should be fine. If the baby can crawl to the heater, then perhaps you can put in higher where baby can't reach?
 
So I ended up with a Whirlpool digital radiant heater. My husband also bought a small cheapie one from SZ (which works great). Originally I bought a Kelvinator tower ceramic heater but I returned it after a day, still shivering, and bought the radiant heater. We`re very happy with it, and when it gets cold again, we`ll be nice and toasty. My baby has already burned himself on it, but he`s slowly learning not to touch it. He`s a good boy and usually listens to me:)

Thanks for everyone`s responses.
 
What's a digital radiant heater? Sounds really high tech. I only have an old-fashioned oil-filled one. I put it in my baby's room on a really low temperature setting so that it just takes the edge off the cold rather than make the room warm as he is prone to eczema and it would really dry his skin out. Has anyone heard of a 2-in-1 heater + humidifier? I would love to get one of those if they made them!

I also have one of those blower-type heaters, very efficient as it heats up the space quick - good for nappy changes - but they are super-drying and so I don't like using it longer than it takes to quickly warm the area.
 
bumbeeno - we bought one of those 2 in 1 heater + humidifiers last winter and it was a disaster, for us at least. We ended up getting big water bubbles on our ceiling which dripped water directly onto our poor baby's head at night. We had to get the entire ceiling re-plastered as a result and the guy who came to do it said that in HK one should never use a humidifier (or at least one as strong as the one we bought!) because the air is so naturally humid already (even with a heater i guess!) that using a humidifier would cause what happened to us to happen (pockets of humidity to form on the walls and ceilings, ruining the paint!!). So i guess it depends on 1) how humid it is where you live, 2) how strong the humidifier is and 3) how large your child's nursery is (ours is about 120 sq feet, maybe smaller).

We now use the Innotec Ceramic Heater (we bought it from Best for under a thousand) which is great because it's not scalding to the touch and the fact that you can set the temperature means that I am not up every hour in the middle of the night to check on how hot/cold his room has become.
 
Bumbeeno - the digital part is just in lieu of the normal dials. So you can choose the temperature and press a button for low-med-high mode. There`s a couple other features but the old model manual was included by mistake (made in china...). Other than that, it`s the exact same as the others.
 
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