Frightening experience with space heater

We've had a space heater in the room with the babies since they came home from the hospital, since they were born in winter. I live in Southern CA but it gets into the 40s at night and our house is not well insulated. This morning my husband went into their room and the heater was turned off, and when he picked it up to move it it sparked, and he noticed a hole had burned through the rug sometime during the night!! There's a big black spot there...my mind just can't stop thinking of how close we could have been to a house fire 3 feet from their cribs. OMG I can't even think about it, it's so upsetting. ETA: the spark/burn occured because the cord had split down near where it attached to the heater itself...it had shut off a couple times when we stepped on the cord, and we didn't think to check the connection. Won't make that mistake again, needless to say.

SO there is no heater in their room and I'm reluctant to put one in there ever again. Our house heater heats big rooms that we never use, and is based on a thermometer that's in a big cool room so I think it will run all night and cost a fortune. They sleep in fleece PJs, I'm wondering if throwing sleep sacks over them will be enough, actually it will probably be too hot in the evening Ugh. I don't think blankets would work. What do you do??

Thank you!!!

 

:shok: That is so scary Jen!!! :hug: My girls sleep in footed pajamas, and we don't typically run the heater at night, and it seems to keep them plenty warm. If you are worried about them being cold, I am sure it wouldn't hurt to put a sleep sack on them. My girls actually sleep better when it is on the cool (not cold) side.

 

Thanks Kyrstyn! I would actually feel much better about them being on the cool side than having a heater run--my husband is the one who's paranoid about them being too cold. I don't think it would disturb their sleep. We sleep in the footed ones too. I guess we will check and see how their little hands feel in the morning. Do your girls keep blankets on now that they are in big girl beds? We are in cribs.

 

The blankets are hit or miss here, sometimes they keep them on and other times they are off in a matter of seconds. On really cold nights, you can consider layering them with maybe socks or onsies under their jammies. Or maybe you can run the heater for a bit when you put them down, and turn it off before you go to bed to warm their room up, but then you can still sleep peacefully without worrying about another potential accident.

 

Ours sleep in footed fleece jammies with undershirts/onesies on.
When they were little (and you could do this) I would put socks on them as well- either over or under the footed pajamas.
My kids are in toddler beds and they sleep with blankets very well! Your kiddos are just a week or so older than mine.

I cover them up when they go to bed, and I check once more before I go to bed.
Can your kids tell you if they are hot/cold? Mine can- You would probably also know if you had a real problem with temperature too if they started doing a lot of night waking etc.

What do you sleep in? How many blankets do you use? We dress our kids similar to what we are wearing/sleeping with for bed.

 

Wow, that is scary. What kind of heater was it? I think I would have a heating professional come in and look at the options for improving the heat. What kind of floors do you have? Is there a basement below their room? Maybe you can add some heat with it's own thermostat just in their room. I think it would be worth it.

Good luck to you and thank you for sharing your experience. It is one more strike against space heaters. I guess any electric appliance can be dangerous.

 

Babies need extra heat, but young children have excellent circulation. Yours are probably old enough to sleep in footies over a onesie and socks, and a blanket. They may kick the blanket off, but if you recover them at your bedtime it will probably be okay. Most of that kicking off comes during the falling asleep part of the night, unless they get too hot in the wee hours. Humans actually sleep more deeply when it is a little bit cool than when it is too warm.

 

:hug: that's scary!! My usually sleep in warm, fleect footy jammies at night. I do put a blanket over them before bedtime but the blankets are usually kicked off as well. I agree with maybe just trying to layer some clothing underneath the footies pjs.

 

How scary!! :hug:

We put onesies, footie jams, and a small fleece blanket over them at night. They usually kick it off after I leave the room, while they are falling asleep (like Ruby said), but then I recover them around 10:30 when I go to bed and the blankets are usually still on when they get up in the morning.

We keep our house cool during the winter, around 62 at night, we are in the midwest and have some pretty cold winters so I am sure that the house (2-story) isn't even at 62 all of the time - and they stay plenty warm. I have put socks on under their jams or a long-sleeved onesie, if it is extra cold that night.

 

so scary! I've worried about that too. we haven't put a heater in there, and don't think I will now.

our house isn't the best insulated either, the other week my dd was fussing so much, I finally went and turned the heat on b/c I couldn't think of anything else she would be fussing for.

I do cotton PJs and a sleep sack. if it gets really cold, then I add socks, and sometimes a fleece footed PJ under the sleep sack and also try to wrap them in a blanket inside the sleep sack... ours move around so much that a blanket on top doesn't work well anyway.

 

That is scary! We've never kept our house too warm at night and the twins sleep with a fan on at all times. They don't sleep with socks or footed jammies because they don't like them. They do sleep with blankets but use them as pillows rather than blankets. But I've always read to reduce the reish of SIDS (I know we are past this worry age) you should have them sleep with a fan on and keep the room on the cooler side. I'm not sure that I would ever consider a space heater in the first place. I'm glad everything worked out OK. But that is too much of a hazard IMO.

 

Hi, I'm glad everything is okay!
Ours sleep in fleece footed pj's. If it gets cooler then I put another layer under or over them. I just started using blankets. I'm using the fleece blankets they got as a baby. I also have a knitted open weave blanket I use for naps if it's a little warmer. My daughter likes when I tuck the blanket under her. I check them when I go to bed and put the blanket back on if needed. We also run the heat right before we go to bed. Our heat is very all or nothing (too hot at night, even with a low setting).

 

:hug: I can't imagine ... so scary! I'm sooo glad that everyone is okay! We have a heater that looks like an old radiator (although it's new) that we've used on really cold nights. My DH assures me that it doesn't pose a fire threat but after reading your post I'm not so sure I will leave it on while they in the room ... maybe just to heat the room up and them shut it off and unplug while they are actually sleeping. That's a thought for you too! And then just leave the door closed to keep in some of the heat while they are in there. We have our boys in footed fleece jammies and then they do get a blanket. They usually do not have the blanket on them by morning but can cuddle with it for extra warmth over the night. GL and don't be too hard on yourself! Hugs!

 

Our house is pretty drafty too - we try to keep the heat at night at 68. Last winter I closed various heat vents in rooms that dont get used as much in hopes of forcing more of the heat into the boys room. Not sure if that is an option for you or not. Ours are in fleece footed pj's too and fleece sleep sacks. If it is really cold then a onsie underneath. We dont use blankets yet.

 

Our house has poor insulation and DH bought this kit that helps weather-proof your windows. It's basically this big plastic sheet that you put over the windows & it helps keep the drafty air from coming in. So we do that & footie pajamas with sleep sacks.

 

I'm sorry you had such a scare! When my LOs were born we had a small heater in their room, which we kept for many months through the winter. It never seemed to get as warm as the rest of the house so I would turn it on at the lowest setting possible and also had a small fan running for white noise and ventilation. I was SUPER paranoid with all the SIDS scare everyone talked about and the stress of having 2 little bitty babies added to my lack of sleep at night wondering if they were safe. Once night I was really paranoid because it felt to me like the room was a little too warm, but thought it was just me. Well, when I woke up in the morning to check on them, their room was roasting hot like a sauna! It was so hot I thought they had suffocated. I was so upset that I decided to just get rid of it and put them in the warmest footed pj's I could find. At times I also did sleep sacks. I would suggest adding heavy drapes or covering the windows like someone mentioned to keep out the draft and maybe just have a heater running while they are eating dinner and getting ready for bed so the room is nice and warm when they go to sleep, then turn it off and unplug it when you bring them in. I lost many hours of sleep worrying about the heater, so I would not use it again while they sleep. We have enough to worry about!

 

We are the same as you.

Sleeping bags, and polar fleece p.J.s for the cooler days.

I will put boiling water into hot water bottles and then put them in their beds to warm them up just before we put them to bed. It gets warm quickly so be careful and of course remove the hot water bottles before they get into them. I had two of them. I'd start with two in the one bed and then move them over to the other bed.

Also I purchased a large polar fleece blanket and put one over each bed as a fitted sheet. For less cooler days I had flannel fitted sheet.

socks

Heather

 

How scary!!

My LO's wear onesies with fleece footed pj's, and fleece sleep sacks. They stay warm, but not too warm. They sleep great. I wouldn't put blankets in their cribs.

 

I live in central California where it does dip into the 20's at night in the winter and I've been trying out different things to keep them comfortable since they do not sleep well AT ALL if it's too cold. We keep the heater on at night for the upstairs because like I said... they don't sleep well which means I won't either!! We will soon have a huge income shortage and so that may have to end if the bills are too high. They were sleeping in long pants and long sleeve pj's and sleep sack until just a couple of weeks ago...but now that it's gotten colder we've moved on to footed fleece pj's and sleep sacks. One DD moves around A LOT so a blanket isn't a good option just yet for us... We are also in footed pj's because although the upstairs is somewhat warm... the downstairs is COLD most of the day.... takes soooo dang long to warm it up with the heater we have so the girls are much more comfy in their cozy pj's... so they often wear them until after they eat lunch

Another friend of mine has a Lasko space heater that has it's own thermostat that she uses in her sons room during winter. It IS AWESOME! She got it at Costco. Hopefully, they'll not have any issues like you guys did... that is SO SCARY! I am glad that everyone is okay!!

Funny that you said your hubby is the one always worried about them being too cold... mine is the same way!! And he keeps insisting that we get them a night light too! If I don't get them one soon, I'm sure he'll put one under the tree for them!

 

My parents always did that to our house in the winter as I was growing up and it made a HUGE difference! Good idea!

 

Sorry to say, that sounds exactly like our space heater. Lasko wit thermostat, upright narrow heater. My husband thinks it was a defect in the cord because it apparently shorted out.

 

We moved to 9000 ft in the mountains when the boys were 20 months. No heat, no insulation in the house. It would dip into the 40s at night. We just put them in warm, footed jammies. On really cold nights, we would run the space heater in their room with the door closed for an hour before bedtime. Combined with plastic over the windows, that should keep the room comfortable.

We never ran the space heater throughout the night because of the danger of fire.

 

DOH!!! I'm going to let her know about what happened to you guys ASAP! Silly thing about their situation... they have a newer home with great insulation... DH is just too cheap to run the heater at night. Shhhh... don't tell him i said that.

 

one of my DD's room is too cold at night. I live in Northern Cal and we have done everything to fix the problem. Last winter we insulated the entire house and even under the house directly below her room. But still nothing really changed (we call it the ghost room) She sleeps with her footed PJ's plus a sleepsack but when the winter came she started waking up at night during the coldest hours.So we use an oil heater. We set it at a very low setting (between 1 & 2). It's cool to the touch but it really works!

They are very safe. Here is a link to an example or you can google "oil heater". GL!

http://www.google.com/products?q=oil+heater&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=mxAcS63tDISSsgPK0dSHBw&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CEIQrQQwAA

 

Wow, that is scary!!!
I dont know if this was mentioned already, but can you adjust the vents to throw more heat into their room? Sometimes there are adjustment things near the furnace, or maybe shut off/block some of the vents in the larger rooms to force it into their room? I live in PA, and when it's 40 outside, we're usually pretty excited!! We live in an old, uninsulated house. We have put plastic over the windows that were old, and put more insulation in the attic. We also keep our house at around 68/69, and my kids sleep with footed long sleeved sleepers, with a cuddly blanket - most of the time they kick it off. Only when it gets around or below freezing do I put on a fleece sleeper on them. Maybe use fleece pjs with a cotton sack so it's not real hot? Or maybe a light cotton pj, with a fleece sack? I'd stay away from the heaters. That is too scary for me, especially if they start escaping their cribs.