heaters and Kids

[kirstenriley]

Hi Everyone,

Just after some opinions on having heating in kids rooms. We are in a rented property and have no ducted heating, we have put a gas heater in the main living room but it doesnt really get down to the bedrooms. DS is well rugged at night but still....,with D? #2 on the way i was thinking of putting some kind of heating in their rooms but feel a bit dodgy as we are at the other end of the house(thank god...lol)....what do you think or what has everyone else done?

[FourAngelKisses]

Hi, I'm not sure how cold it gets where you are, but where I am it gets down to -10 at night. We are in a slightly elevated house, so all the cold air comes in through the floorboards. We have a gas heater that heats the living room, dining room and kitchen, but we have the rest of the house blocked off to make the heater more effective and cheaper to run.
Honestly, I have about 6-7 blankets/doonas on my kids beds. They go to bed wearing winter jammies, skivvies and a t-shirt. They also take a hot water bottle to bed and I have electric blankets on the older kids beds, which DS1 turns on when he gets up to pee.

I don't like the idea of heating in bedrooms, I think it is kinda dangerous, so I would rather rug them up warm and send them to bed with hot water bottles.

[drewid]

We have a heater in our sons room - it is placed on top of a high chest of drawers where he can't reach it, or the cord or powerpoint. We turn it on for half an hour to an hour before bedtime to get the chill out of the air in his room. We also have a timer switch on the wall if it (very rarely) gets cold enough that we feel we need to have it on during the night/early morning. We would usually set it so that it comes on in the early hours of the morning for half an hour or so just to get the temperature up a bit. But it doesn't really get "that" cold here. I do worry about the heater being on, but we have made it as safe as possible.

Having said that, I tend to just rug him up according to the weather though. As he doesn't like using a blanket, he often goes to bed wearing an all-in-one bodysuit covered by a lined fleecy pyjama suit and a dressing gown.

[~Emmylou~]

I'm not too keen on having a heater in her room either, mainly because she gets up and wanders around the room half-asleep in the dark so I think it's a bit dangerous. I know she'd walk into it and burn herself or worse.

I usually put her to bed in a singlet, skivvy, jammies and socks, and if really cold she has a fleecy sleepsuit to go over the top of everything. We're in brisbane though so it doesn't get like that often.

But if you want to use a heater I think the oil column heaters are the safest, and they're cheap to run and work really well.

[FourAngelKisses]

I didn't think of the oil heaters. I know my highschool had one in each classroom....but they never warmed the rooms up any. They would probably be more effective in a bedroom though if the door was closed.

[annb]

i was gonna say why dont you use oil filled heaters that is what we have...on the odd chance the child might touch them they dont really burn they are just hot....we have one that only has about 4 columns and its fine for DS room keeps it nice and warm and with a timer we have it going on and off during the night just to keep the chill off

[Taylors_mum]

I also have a oil heater in DD's room.

Hers has a thermostat (s/p?) so you set it to the temp you want and once it gets to that temp the heater turns off and once it drops below the temp it comes back on.

We also have a timer on it so you can set it to come on during the colder parts of the night.

Its only a 5 column and it costs us something like $30.

We get down to around -3 at night and it well and truely keeps her room warm!

[pookiesossige]

Yep, another oil-colum heater user here. Bought mine at Big W for $45, has a thermostat ect. A girl I know had to get the CFA to come and put out a fire at her house a couple of weeks ago because her two year old girl put a pillow over the bar heater they had running IN HER ROOM WITH THE DOORS CLOSED. She screamed to let them know the room was on fire. And this girl's DP went wild at her for doing this. They punished her severely. She was naturally curious, naturally impulsive and they were stupid and irresponsible for putting something like this in her room. As you can tell, I'm pi$$ed off about this! Excuse me while I blow off some steam!
I don't recommend fan heaters either, even if they have a thermostat. They dry the air too much which can be damaging for littlies' nasal passages and throats.

[annsam]

We got a delonghi bambino heater. It oil filled, rounded sides, small and ideal for small rooms. It does get hot (its a heater LOL) but they wont burn themselves touching it quickly iykwim - like any oil filled heater. Oh and its thermostate controlled.

[~Emmylou~]

Yep, another oil-colum heater user here. Bought mine at Big W for $45, has a thermostat ect. A girl I know had to get the CFA to come and put out a fire at her house a couple of weeks ago because her two year old girl put a pillow over the bar heater they had running IN HER ROOM WITH THE DOORS CLOSED. She screamed to let them know the room was on fire. And this girl's DP went wild at her for doing this. They punished her severely. She was naturally curious, naturally impulsive and they were stupid and irresponsible for putting something like this in her room. As you can tell, I'm pi$$ed off about this! Excuse me while I blow off some steam!
.


OMG what idiots!!!:eek: What are they thinking!! :rolleyes:

[Illusional]

Oil heater here too.... but i dont put it in my kids bedroom.. I put it in the hallway outside their room and shut all other doors except for theirs. It heats the area up enough to take the chill out of the room and is pretty inexpensive to run (20c per hour- which is cheap for heating)

I definately wouldnt use any other form of heater in their rooms.

Electric blankets are good too - turn them off when they get into bed and let their body heat take over.

Hot water bottles - I used them in the kids bed - wrapped in a blanket - before they got in to warm it up.

The cold night air doesnt make them cold unless they are in the norty habit of throwing their blankets off lol.

[Crazy Monkey]

We use an oil heater in DS's room...
Its comes on at about 2am and is set low, just so it takes the chill out of the air... Not sure what we'll do when he's in a bed and can walk around the room but at the moment, its pretty safe and he can't touch it...

[Tam-I-Am]

We also use an oil column heater in DD's room. It's thermostat controlled, and keeps the room at a constant 18 - 20 degrees. Perfecto!:)

[Ange&Seth]

We have a 5-fin oil column heater in DS's room and it is turned on 24/7. Basically our house only has one 3 bar gas heater which heats the loungeroom nicely but doesn't get to the rest of the house. We have a heated water bed so we're fine but DS's hands were like ice and slightly blue when winter first hit so we got the heater. It has a temperature control though so it switches off when the air reaches a certain temperature. His door is always closed so that the heater isn't over worked trying to heat the entire end of the house. Most mornings when I go in to get him up I think I'd rather sleep in his room cos it's so much warmer!!

When he starts to walk around though we'll have to think of something else cos I don't want him to get up and walk into it in his sleep.