Date: 2022-07-21 09:07 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Good luck to you and your family!

How do you plan to deal with all the modern Official Rules for child safety? They make parenting harder than it used to be and there's the threat of being reported if you break them.

We carefully researched temperatures and tog ratings so that our winter baby stayed safe with our house at 60F. But also we pretty much stopped turning it down to 55 at night--with a newborn who was up at all hours, adjusting for that temp change was too difficult. So our oil bill went up.

Occasionally we'd get some official person (such as the lactation consultant; BTW I never produced much milk so yeah there was that too) complaining about how bundled the baby was and we'd have to be all "We have an old drafty house, this outfit is appropriate for home." (But the "no warm bedclothes if you're sleep-deprived and the baby's with you" Sleep Safety Rule plus our house temp did mean the lactation consultant's "skin to skin might help you lactate!" never got followed.)

Now it's summer and it's Officially even Riskier to let the house stay hot (after all, "Cold babies cry, hot babies die!") and/or open the windows on Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups air days.

(And TBH we do notice those days, officially labeled or not. We started noticing them in the teens, when I was on the borderline of being diagnosed with asthma. Then we had (probably) covid and now we both have shortness of breath outside on those days. We even notice increased difficulty breathing on "Fair/Sensitive Groups May Experience Damage Over The Long Term/You Can Bring The Baby Outside But Take Precautions" days. And there are more and more such days.)

So we put a portable AC that has a thermostat in the baby's room. When the house gets above 85 or so we turn it on set to 78 to 80. Baby sleeps much better when it's on (vs. when it's say 83 and we just have a fan blowing. BTW in hot countries fan use is associated with a decreased risk of SIDS/SUID). But of course AC is very expensive to run.

Meanwhile the Official Recommendations on safe sleep are something like "keep baby's sleep area at 78 or below at all times"...

What temp do you keep your home? Are you planning to follow Safe Sleep 7 or put the baby in an Officially Safe Sleep Space(tm) or what?

-Ochre Shabby Sea Serpent
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Jen

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