Ten past four on Sunday morning, Eilidh nudged me and held her phone about two inches from my face. She was doing the feed. I was doing my usual impression of a man who definitely hadn’t heard the baby (is that just me?).
“Read that,” she said.
It was a safety alert about baby sleeping bags. The Office for Product Safety and Standards, the government lot who deal with dodgy products, put it out on 1 October, and by the Friday it was all over Netmums. The short version is don’t buy or use a baby sleeping bag for unsupervised sleep if it has a hood or if it hasn’t got armholes. Without armholes a baby can slip down inside the bag. A hood can move about and end up over their nose and mouth. Either way you’re looking at overheating or suffocation. They said there have been nearly 50 recalls or safety reports for dangerous baby sleeping bags in the UK since 2023. Grim reading at four in the morning.
I read it twice. Then I got up and put the big light on, which went down about as well as you’d expect.
The drawer
Finn’s four months now and his stuff has slowly taken over the bottom drawer of our chest of drawers. Muslins, a ridiculous number of vests in the wrong size, and the sleeping bags. I hadn’t given the sleeping bags a second thought since we bought the first one. You zip him in, he looks like a wee angry burrito, job done. They’re meant to be the safe option.
So at half four, with Finn back down and snoring in his cot next to our bed, I went through them one at a time. Like checking a fuse board on a callout, Eilidh said. She wasn’t wrong.
Three of them were fine. Proper armholes, no hood, snug round his shoulders.
The fourth was a present from one of Eilidh’s pals at the baby shower. Grey, fleecy, honestly gorgeous. It had a hood with two wee bear ears on it. Tags still on, because we’d been saving it for when it got baltic. Which in Dundee is about now.
My first reaction, I’ll be honest, was that it was a bit daft. Then you actually picture a hood on a baby who wriggles for eight hours straight and it’s not hard to see how it goes wrong. Finn wriggles like he’s being paid for it. He’s started trying to roll as well, which is why the Baby Box has been retired and now holds nappies.
The bear one isn’t going to the charity shop either, because then it’s just somebody else’s baby. It’s in a bag under the stairs while Eilidh works out how to tell her pal without it being weird. The alert says to go back to whoever sold a bag like this, and you might be due a refund. (I suggested just sending her the link. I’ve been told that is not how friendships work.)
The fifth bag was a hand me down from my cousin, the next size up, and we’d been planning to move Finn into it “soon”. Armholes, no hood. But when I held it up against him the neck hole was massive. He’d have been halfway down it by morning. Nobody told me they’re sized by weight, not age, but apparently most of them are, and the Lullaby Trust says it should be well fitted round the neck and shoulders so they can’t slip down inside. Back in the drawer till he’s grown into it.
Something else I’d never once done was look at the label. There’s a British safety standard for baby sleeping bags, BS EN 16781:2018, and the alert doesn’t apply to bags that meet it. Two of ours had it printed on the label. The bear one, as far as I could see, said nothing at all.
Too hot, too cold, every single night
Nobody told me how much of the first winter would be spent lying awake wondering if the baby is too cold. Or too hot. Usually both, about ten minutes apart.
Eilidh’s mum is very much of the wrap him up well school. The NHS, NHS inform up here in Scotland and the Lullaby Trust all say more or less the opposite. Overheating raises the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), so they want the room between 16 and 20°C, with a well fitted sleeping bag or light bedding, and they’re all clear a baby is better a wee bit cool than too warm.
We’ve got the bath and room thermometer that came in the Baby Box, and after all this I started actually reading it instead of just leaving it on the windowsill because it looked official. At bedtime our room was sitting at 20. By the four o’clock feed it was 16 and a bit. I spend half my week in other folk’s flats for the housing association and I still hadn’t clocked how much our own bedroom drops overnight.
The thing that actually calmed me down was the hands. Finn’s hands are always freezing at night, and I was convinced that meant he was cold. Turns out cold hands and feet are normal. You feel their chest or the back of their neck instead. If it’s hot or sweaty, take a layer off. If it feels cold, add a layer of clothes under the bag or use a warmer bag. I’ve done the back of the neck check so many times this week I think he reckons it’s a game.
A few other things I picked up from the Lullaby Trust that I genuinely didn’t know:
- Don’t put a blanket on top of a sleeping bag. If he needs more, it goes on underneath as clothes, or you swap to a higher tog bag.
- Two thin bags on top of each other aren’t the same as one thicker one. Air gets trapped between the layers and it ends up warmer than you’d think.
- No hats indoors. (Sorry, Eilidh’s mum.)
- Keep the cot away from radiators and heaters, and the NHS says never a hot water bottle or an electric blanket in with a baby.
And the cot stays in our room. The NHS says same room for every sleep for at least the first six months, so he’s in with us till Christmas at least, bear ears or no bear ears.
My phone is not helping
The same day as the sleeping bag alert, the Advertising Standards Authority warned parents to be careful with online ads for baby products that claim to help with colic, reflux, sleep or soothing, after finding some pushing stuff that could put babies at risk.
Aye. I believe that. My feed at 3am is basically weighted sleeping bags and a man in a cardigan promising me twelve hours straight. For the record, the Lullaby Trust doesn’t recommend weighted swaddles, blankets or sleeping bags for babies under one, because of overheating and the weight pressing on their chest.
So that’s us. Three sleeping bags in rotation, a thermometer I actually look at now, and a hood with bear ears sitting under the stairs waiting for the right moment. Finn, by the way, slept through the entire inspection, big light and all. His knees are much better too, thanks for asking.
If you’ve got a drawer like ours, it’s maybe worth five minutes before it gets properly cold. And if you’re not sure about something, the Lullaby Trust has a baby safety helpline on 0808 802 6869, and they’re far nicer about daft questions than the internet is.
It’s 18 in there just now. I checked. Twice.
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