Bedtime on hot summer nights

Shut the heat out during the day

Start in the morning, before the room warms up. Close the curtains or pull the blind down on whichever side of the house gets the sun, and keep them closed through the afternoon. It feels odd to block out a bright day, but a room that has been shaded since ten in the morning is a different room at bedtime, and many parents notice the difference within a night or two.

Open windows on opposite sides of the bedroom once the air outside is cooler than the air inside. Usually that means early morning and again after sunset. Stand in the doorway and compare with your hand or your face. If it is still hotter outside at seven in the evening, leave the windows shut and the curtains drawn a while longer.

A fan helps air move around, and it often makes a warm room feel more bearable. Keep fans out of reach of small children, keep cords short and pinned or tucked behind furniture, and do not aim one directly at a baby's face. A fan placed in the doorway, moving air between the hall and the bedroom, is a gentler option. Keep the door open if that is safe in your home.

Small things add up. Cook outside or use the microwave rather than the oven, keep the hall light off, and leave the bedroom door open to the landing if you can. If the room still holds heat, hang a damp towel near the open window and let the moving air pass it. It may take the edge off.

Dress for the night, not for the day

Strip the bed back. A thick duvet, a heavy quilt, a pile of blankets: all of it can go into the closet for a few weeks, along with any waterproof mattress cover that makes the bed feel clammy. A single cotton sheet is enough for most children, and a child who kicks it off in the night is fine.

Pajamas should be light and loose, cotton or something similar that breathes. On a very hot night, a diaper and a thin vest is plenty for a baby, and light shorts and a cotton T-shirt work for an older child. If your child tends to feel the cold at four in the morning, leave a light layer folded at the end of the bed rather than putting it on them at bedtime.

For babies under a year, the usual rules hold in hot weather too: nothing loose in the crib, no pillow, no duvet, and a light sleepsuit rather than a pile of blankets. Many parents go with roughly one more layer than they would wear themselves, and judge by the back of the neck or the chest rather than by hands and feet.

Keep the pajamas familiar. A child who wears the same soft shorts every hot night often settles faster than one handed something new and scratchy. Wash and repeat.

A lukewarm bath, with you there the whole time

A bath can be the nicest part of a hot evening, for the parent as much as the child. Run it lukewarm rather than cold. Cold water can leave a small child shivery and cross, and a shivery child is harder to settle. Test the water with your wrist or elbow, keep it shallow, and use a bath mat so nobody slips.

Stay with your child for the whole bath, at arm's length. Take the towel and pajamas into the bathroom before you run the water so there is no reason to step out, and let the phone ring. A young child should never be left alone in water, even for a moment, even in an inch, and that matters more when everyone is tired and hot. If you have more than one child, bath them one at a time or wait for another adult.

Pat your child dry rather than rubbing, put the light pajamas straight on, and go into the cooler bedroom while their skin is still slightly damp. Some families skip the bath altogether on the hottest nights and use a cool flannel on arms, legs and the back of the neck instead, then a quick wash. That is fine. Nobody is keeping score.

If your child gets out and starts running about, bring them back and finish the job, or you will be starting the wind down over again at nine o'clock.

Water within reach, safely

Fill a cup or bottle of water before bedtime and leave it where your child can reach it from the bed. A spill-proof cup works well for toddlers, and a spare cup on the floor saves a trip downstairs at midnight.

Skip whole ice cubes for young children. They are a choking risk, and a child who is half asleep is not the one to be crunching on them. Chill the water in the fridge instead, or use a lidded cup with ice inside for an older child who can manage it. For a baby, offer a drink before bed rather than leaving a cup in the crib.

If your child wakes thirsty, offer water and keep it boring. No juice, no milk at two in the morning, no sitting up for a chat. Hand over the cup, wait, take it back, and settle them down again. Wipe up any spills on a hard floor so nobody slips in the dark.

A cool flannel on the back of the neck or the wrists can make a restless child more comfortable, and it gives you something to do with your hands while you sit with them. Keep it damp, not dripping, and take it away once they are lying down again. The aim is comfort, not a project.

Keep the wind down, lose the heat

The routine can stay exactly as it is, even when the evening is hot: bath, teeth, story, lights out, in the same order. Familiarity does a lot of the work. Dim the lights, keep your voice low, and open a window in the room where you read if it helps.

If the bedroom is still stifling at the usual time, pushing bedtime back by fifteen or thirty minutes can be kinder than fighting a fractious child into a hot bed. Use the extra time for something quiet and cool: a puzzle on the floor, drawing, a slow walk around the yard.

A calm bedtime story helps on any night, and on a hot one a short story is often exactly right. StoryChoose has free bedtime stories, and it can write personalised ones if your child wants to star in the tale. Choose something about the sea, or a character who is also too hot to sleep, and read it slowly.

Keep screens out of the last half hour, and keep the lights low. Finish with the same few words you always say. Then leave the room, and give it a few minutes before you go back in.

When they will not settle

Some hot nights are simply restless, and that is not a failure of your routine. Expect a few wakings, a child who has kicked off the sheet, a request for water at eleven. Go in quietly. Keep the big light off, use a flashlight or the glow from the hall, and keep your voice flat and low.

Offer water, straighten the sheet, put a cool flannel on the back of the neck, and sit down. Do not turn it into a party. Short answers, no new stories, no negotiations about the duvet.

If you need to be close to your child, sit on a chair beside the bed, or lie on the floor next to it. A sofa or armchair is not a safe place to settle with a baby, because it is easy for an exhausted adult to fall asleep there, and that is how accidents happen. If you bring a child into your bed, follow whatever safe setup you use on any other night, and put a baby back in their own crib once they are settled.

You may need to go in five times. That is a hot night. Keep the room as cool as you can, keep the bedding light, and do not start stripping the bed at three in the morning, which usually just wakes everyone properly.

The day after, and when to ask for help

Nobody sleeps well in heat, and the morning after is not the moment to overhaul anything. Make the day slower. Keep the hottest hours quiet and indoors with the curtains shut, and let your child nap in the coolest room in the house if they still nap. An early night is often more useful than a later one.

Expect a few grumpy hours and lower your bar accordingly. Serve cold foods, keep drinks going, and put your own feet up when you can.

Do not add extra bedding because a child felt cool at five in the morning. If a sheet is not enough on a hot night, a light layer of pajamas is usually the better answer. Warm nights come in runs, so keep the routine the same and make small adjustments rather than reinventing bedtime every evening.

If your child seems unwell rather than just hot and tired, or if sleep stays difficult for more than a week or two, it is worth talking to their doctor. A cool drink and a bit of patience get most families through.

What to do about ice cubes and fans

Two questions come up more than any others on a hot night, so they are worth spelling out. Neither answer is complicated, and both are mostly about small precautions rather than anything dramatic.

On ice: whole cubes are a choking risk for young children, so leave them out of cups you hand to a toddler. Chilled water from the fridge does the same job. If your child is old enough to manage a lidded cup with ice inside, that works, and it saves you refilling it quite so often.

On fans: they are useful for moving air, and the care is in the details. Keep them out of reach, pin the cord back, and do not point one at a baby's face. A fan in the doorway, moving air between rooms, often feels better than a direct blast anyway.