It’s too hot to sleep!!!

This is a novel, be prepared.

My little girl finally went to sleep in her cot last night at 10:30pm. It was so hot here! The weather report lied when they said it was 20 deg in Wellington, it was so much hotter than that and it just seemed to get hotter as the evening progressed.

Michaela was really tired having had a packed day. DH took her on a couple of long walks (without the pram so she walked most of the way) she had a huge nap after lunch but had to be woken up when DH went to work/dropped her off to me but she was still in a fab mood.

She was yawning on the way home at 4pm so we just had a really quick and easy picnic dinner (she ate heaps so wasn’t hungry) then I put warm soapy water in the paddling pool outside and she bathed there (too hot in the bathroom) then she had her bottle. She normally goes down at 7pm every night but at 6:30pm I asked if she wanted to go to bed and she sprung off the couch and ran towards her bedroom. She went down no worries then 45mins later woke up and started screaming.

She’s usually pretty good at night time but on the occasions she does stand in her cot screaming it usually means “I’m too tired to sleep” so I left her to it for a little while and hung the washing out. When I did go into her she was all hot and bother so I gave her a bottle of water. This didn’t help (especially when she chucked it across the room) and the more upset she became the hotter she got.

At 7:45pm I put her in her pram and took her for a walk around the block this calmed her down but she was still really hot so we went back home and I gave her an iceblock (homemade so mostly water) put ice in her water bottle and used a flannel soaked in cold water to dampen her hair (it dried within 15 mins).

Her bedroom was still really hot (despite having curtains closed and windows open for most of the day) but she was in a great mood, I was so tempted to play with her but thought that wouldn’t be very fair on my sister who’s taking her out this morning so at 8:30pm I decided to take her for a drive in my air conditioned car. She finally fell asleep at 9:15pm but so as not to wake her again I continued driving until 10pm when my DH finishes work and we picked him up and brought him home.

She went to bed at 10:30pm when we got home and it was cool enough to sleep in her room. I was exhausted and the house was still in a state with dishes in the sink etc.

Our house is a sun trap but when there’s a nice breeze it cools down with the windows open (I live in Wgtn so that’s nearly always) but occasionally we get hot still nights like last night and there’s nothing we can do. I considered getting a fan for her room but the ceiling fan in the lounge just seems to circulate the heat rather than cool down the room. My other options are to:

a) Buy a freestanding aircon for her room
b) Tidy up the back room so that on hot nights she can sleep in there (it’s a small room with very little wardrobe space and will be very cold in winter so I don’t want to move her there permanently)
c) Both of the above.

Yep it was really hot here in Palmy too yesterday and last night. Josh ended up having the fan on in his room to sleep and Andrew went to bed and just slept onto of the blankets.

It think we are in for another hot one again here today.

Yay for the Southerly - bring it on!!

Sound's like we are all in the same boat with this one we are pretty hot here too. Getting a slight breeze off the see, but not alot. My boy's room is the hottest in the house so what I do is close the curtain's early and keep the window open to keep the sun out it seem's to work well not very practical if you are out tho. Dorry not much help just wanting to say man bring on winter course I will complain then too knoing me.

We just left a little fan on in Daniels room all day yesterday, our indoor thermometer said 28 degrees in the rest of the house but his room was at 20, he slept fine with it on all night. It wasn't pointing at him but kept air circulating and his room was by far the nicest room in the house to be in.

Our Grobag Egg tells us Alyssa's room has been around 30 degrees on the hottest nights and a fan does absolutely nothing to take the heat down.

After a bit of thought, we ended up buying a portable air conditioning unit to cool Alyssa's room down before bedtime and it works a treat!! Got the cheapest one we could find (cause of course they cost a packet), and ended up with one from mitre 10 which is about $700. It's pretty noisy and not really something you leave running all night...

Only thing I should mention in case you didn't know, is that you have to set it up so the duct which expels the hot air, can go out the window.. Is brilliant though and we have been having better sleeps since Alyssa is more comfortable at night.