With the heatwave well and truly in full swing and at least another few weeks of it to go, Mummy Tribe has asked Heidi from The Parent and Baby Coach to share her top tips on keeping your babies and toddlers happy.
1) Water, Water and More Water!
If your baby is breastfeeding, your milk will self regulate to give baby what they need to stay hydrated. You may find they want to go to the boob more often and that’s fine! If bottle feeding you want to offer water in-between feeds. Keeping a bottle in the fridge is a great way of being able to offer sips throughout the day and means the water is nice and cool too. If your toddlers won’t drink water, adding a little fresh fruit juice to their water is better than no water at all!
2) Offer Cold Treats
Many children go off their food just as we do when it’s hot, so don’t be surprised if their appetite changes. Perhaps offer cold sticks of cucumber, melon or mini ice lollies made with fresh plain yoghurt or fruit – healthy but fun and helps bring their body temperature down a little too! Remember that they will eat when hungry, so try not to force feed them all sorts of foods until they finally eat. Stick to your normal eating habits but offer cold alternatives alongside their meal or in-between meals to help up their intake of eatery based foods.
3) Remember the Essentials
If you are out and about, make sure to take PLENTY of water, sunhats, sunshades and suncream too. Avoid going out at the hottest time of the day (11am-3pm) and if you do try and stay in the shade. Be VERY careful about covering the buggy when your littlest is sleeping, even some of the recommended shade covers for prams can get very hot. You may be best placed to do naps at home just whilst the temperature is still so high.
4) Use a Fan
Fans are great at circulating air through their bedrooms and placing a frozen bottle of water in front of the fan can help the room feel more comfortable too. That or wet flannels work a treat too! Your little one may wake more often during the night than usual, so keep a beaker or bottle of water as an easy way to settle them when they wake. Expect more wake ups than usual in this heat – it’s totally normal and just think about how uncomfortable you as an adult can be in this heat!
5) Use appropriate bed clothes
Don’t forget that babies find it much harder to regulate their body temperature when hot, so you’d always rather them be on the cooler side. Most sleeping bags do a light weight or sheet version that you can use in this kind of weather, or you can just put your baby or toddler to bed in a nappy and thin vest. You can always cover them with a thin sheet later in the night if the overnight temperature drops.
Most importantly enjoy the weather, once it’s gone there is no doubt that we will all miss it, but stay sun-safe and remember that little people need help cooling themselves down so you may need to be more vigilant whilst this weather continues.
