Baby sleeping bag basics

Getting your little one to sleep is a hard enough task in itself without having to worry about whether they are too hot, too cold, getting themselves tangled in their blankets or sticking their arms and legs out of the cot.

Thankfully there’s a brilliant solution to all this (not the getting the baby to sleep easily part unfortunately) and it comes in the form of the baby sleeping bag.

Aside from being the cutest looking thing ever, it’s one of the baby products you can safely buy knowing that you’ll use it over and over and it won’t sit gathering dust in the nursery cupboard for months (shopping trolley cover and baby shoes I’m looking at you!)

Our first baby was born in Summer and was a swaddle lover – so it was only when he hit the 4 month mark, the weather was cooling down and he had learned to roll that we needed to find another solution (rolling babies can’t be safely wrapped). Being ever so slightly (a lot) neurotic I had pored over every safe sleeping site on the internet and was convinced that NOTHING was safe to put into his cot with him. The SIDS and Kids website is an absolute wealth of information on safe sleeping conditions and recommends never letting baby’s face getting covered during sleep (babies predominantly control their temperature through their face)*  I was absolutely not comfortable having blankets, top sheets or a doona in there with him yet none of the sleepsuits I could find seemed to give him the warmth and comfort that he was used to. That was when I stumbled across the Plum Collections website which seemed to answer all my concerns – the first bag we bought was a penguin, polar theme and we’ve been sleeping bag converts ever since.

 

Our second little man was a Winter baby who co-slept for the first 4 months and then went into his own cot in the middle of (Cairns) Summer wearing just a nappy and singlet to sleep in, so it wasn’t until now, in deepest darkest Tropical July that I realised we were in desperate need of one. Thankfully Plum Collections again came to the rescue (this time kindly gifting us the bags for this review) and luckily they had the same beautiful design we chose for baby number one for super cute comparison photos!

Basically when choosing a sleeping bag there are just 3 things to consider:

1. Size. Generally sleeping bags will come in 3 sizes, 0-6months, 6-18months and 18-36months.
2. TOG . This is a unit used to measure warmth and there are different options available from 0.5 (for warmer months/climates) to 3+ (for colder months/climates).
3. The most important – which design to choose! Just when you thought your baby couldn’t get any cuter – stick them in a sleeping bag and get the camera out. There are far, far too many cute bags to choose from and you’ll spend ages deciding.

I won’t go into too much detail on size and TOG as all the details and measurements/temperature guide are well documented on the website here.

But I will show you more photos of the super cute designs 🙂

If you need any more convincing that baby sleep bags are a work of genius some of the designs also have a handy velcro tab at the back for use in travel seats, they’ve got 2 way zippers for easy access, are made with organic cotton, have poppers under the arms and chin for a perfect fit and are of course tested to Australian, New Zealand and British Standards.

Now if they could only come and help in getting the baby to sleep it would be the perfect package!

*referenced from the SIDS and Kids WA website here.

Thanks to Plum we’ve got a brand new ‘Polar Bear’ sleeping bag in Tog 1, size 6-18months to give away! All you have to do is head on over and like our Northern Aussie Mum Facebook page and like and comment on the Plum Sleeping Bag post. Good luck!