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Even in cold temperatures, you can still keep wearing your baby. Especially babywearing in winter is often very pleasant, as the cool and moist air is balm for the respiratory tract. Also, you don't sweat as much when wearing your baby as you do on hot summer days.

In addition, you can enjoy the last rays of sunshine and even the golden autumn or sparkling winter. As a mother of several children, you go with the older toboggans or to the lantern parade in winter and always have your youngest very close to you.

However, there are a few things you should keep in mind so that wearing in winter without hypothermia or overheating will be a nice thing for everyone.

Therefore, I want to give you a few tips in this post. I hope my contribution helps you and I wish you a wonderful winter wearing time!

Advertising: This post was created in cooperation with littlegreenie, who provided me with a beautiful wool fleece jumpsuit from “Kitz Heimat” for my daughter. Despite the cooperation, I evaluate independently and critically and will not recommend anything of which I am not convinced. littlegreenie is a family business founded in 2018 that offers sustainably produced and certified organic products, such as baby clothing made of organic wool and cotton or toys from sustainable ecological production. Feel free to take a look around the online shop. I am happy to support such family businesses with a clear conscience.

In the article you will find affiliate links to products that I like to support and partly use myself. If you buy a product through this link, I get a small commission, without any additional costs for you. With this you support me and keep my blog alive. 🙂

What do I have to pay attention to in general?

Unlike summer, we need an extra jacket on cold days. If we simply put the baby in the carrier or sling on warm days, we now have to take care of additional layers of clothing.

This raises the question of whether the child is worn on or under the jacket or what other options there are. The type and number of garments depends on this.

Especially with the jacket question, it is important to make sure that the airways are always clear, that the child does not sweat too much or freeze and that the wearer is properly dressed.

The question of whether and how I can still carry on my back must also be clarified. To all these points I want to give you some answers in the following.

Under or on the jacket?

As a guideline, as long as your baby is not yet able to walk, it is best kept under your jacket or a babywearing cover in front of the stomach. Of course, every child is individual and as a mother or father you should include your own needs and those of the child as well as his stage of development. This applies to many advice and recommendations.

In any case, this recommendation applies to small babies and children who freeze easily.

In this way, you warm the baby most effectively and help him maintain his body temperature. Especially babies can not regulate their own body temperature so well and therefore need the body heat of an adult.

In addition to special babywearing jackets (see section below “Warmly packed: jacket systems and babywearing covers”), there are also great jacket extensions for the wearer. Everything is possible here in terms of price and there is something for every budget.

People who have a lot of “heat” can also use a babywearing cover (see below ….). Then the wearer can choose a thin jacket or omit the jacket completely, the child is still warm and cozy under the cover.

Older children, especially children who can already walk, often like it better on the jacket. The advantage is that the child is already dressed for outside temperatures and can also be quickly removed from the sling without freezing.

You can find out what you can wear to your carrier on or under the jacket in the section “What do I wear to my child?”.

Front or back carrying?

As already indicated in the previous chapter, the baby is best warmed when worn in front.

Small babies also often feel most comfortable when front carrying and are safest and warmest there. There they can cuddle up to the wearers and mom or dad always have a good view of the child.

The heat development on the back is lower under the jacket than in front and therefore ideal for sweating children. Or even if you want to wear your toddler over the jacket anyway, because he likes to walk in between.

If your child is already quite heavy for you, it is also worth considering whether you would rather carry on your back. Toddlers often find it more interesting there, as they have a better all-round view.

If this topic interests you, check out my blog post “The 9 Most Common Wearing Mistakes”.

Which binding method?

Do you use a sling? Then you can create a little more heat through the chosen binding method. Multi-layer binding, such as the following or pre-tied wearing with an elastic sling cuddle your baby like in another layer of clothing:

• Front wrap cross carry
• Double cross carry
• Double hammock

A sling but also a carrier are like an extra layer of clothing. Of course, this applies in particular to multi-layer binding methods. This should then also be taken into account when choosing the child's clothing.

In addition, by choosing the material of the sling or carrier, you can influence the temperature of your baby. Natural materials, such as wool, contribute to the natural regulation of the temperature balance.

What do I wear to my child?

It now depends on where you carry your child.

If you wear under the jacket, you dress your child the way he is dressed at home in the apartment. We tend to dress the child too warm rather than too cold.

However, all parts of the body that look out of the jacket must be specially protected. This is the head, neck and, if necessary, the legs and feet. Here you put on your child a cap appropriate to the weather, if necessary also a scarf and thick and warm socks and e.g. also gauntlets.

If your child can't walk yet, it's better to do without shoes and put on warm booties or overboots. Such are also available with lambskin or wool.

There should be less material between you, as it has an unnecessary insulating effect. To warm your baby, the isolation should not be between you, but around you.

Warm winter suits, down jackets, ski suits or similar are unsuitable for wearing under or on top of the jacket. These suits heat or insulate through air chambers.

However, these are strongly compressed when worn and thus no longer heat as effectively. In addition, it can happen that the cloth or baby carrier slips or does not fit optimally due to the often smooth material. Binding can be made unnecessarily difficult.

You should also avoid overheating due to thick clothing under a warm jacket, as this can be unpleasant or even dangerous for the child.

Please remember to take off your child's warm socks, gloves, hat and scarf if you go into a warm, heated interior.

With a carrier on the jacket you can choose clothes made of fleece or boiled kintted wool. As already mentioned above, slippery winter jackets or thick jackets with air cushioning or down are unsuitable. These make it difficult to bind and can insulate less due to the pressure when worn. Overall jumpsuits made of boiled wool knit or fleece do not have this problem.

If you want water-repellent clothing, you can also fall back on softshell mud suits. These are less slippery than the conventional mud suits and can be better packed into the baby carrier.

In any case, regularly check the temperature of your child in the neck or between the shoulder blades. It should not be too cold or too warm.

And please always make sure that your child's airways remain clear and that no scarf or similar covers the mouth and nose.

Jumpsuits made of wool fleece or milled wool for the baby

For the baby, so-called milled / boiled wool or wool fleece overallsare actually particularly suitable.

Wool is a natural fabric and therefore very popular with parents. The overall jumpsuits are also often produced in organic quality and sustainably and animal-friendly.

Another reason is that, as described in the previous paragraph, these do not require additional artificial air chambers for insulation, like other winter suits, and are therefore well suited for wearing.

Wool has great properties that make it a particularly suitable material for winter clothing:

• Wool is highly dirt-repellent
• Wool is water-repellent to a certain extent due to a natural lanolin content
• Wool can be additionally impregnated by greasing with lanolin cures
• Wool can absorb moisture without feeling damp
• Wool is cuddly soft

What is the difference between milled / boiled knitted wool and fleece?

Milled wool is, as the namesuggests, “milled” (German: “gewalkt”). This milling / boiling process leads to an increase in the density of the wool and the inclusion of many small air chambers. These have a good insulating effect.

Also due to the density, milled wool is slightly heavier than wool fleece. Milled wool overalls are available e.B. from Disana. These are of high quality and made in organic quality.

Wool fleece is brushed wool. Since the wool is not as compacted, it is slightly less warming than milled wool. Nevertheless, both types are well suited as winter clothing depending on what your carrier wears underneath. A large selection can be found at little greenie.

The cuddlier wool fleece is often bought for babies and toddlers who can not yet walk. For the running, it is then often switched to the thicker boiled wool.

What do I wear?

In principle, you dress normally, just as you would go out without a child, regardless of whether you are wearing your child under or over the jacket.

Garments made of natural materials, such as wool or mixtures of wool and silk,are also worthwhile for you. These materials also help you to regulate your temperature optimally. You should not sweat excessively, we also tend to dress too warmly.

You not only warm the baby, the baby also warms you.

Since a scarf could cover your child's airways, you can use a turtleneck sweater here. Alternatives are babywearing scarves,which are placed over you as well as your baby, so you are both cuddly packed and neither has a naked neck.

I recommend that you pay particular attention to sturdy shoes. Non-slip winter shoes or boots with a good profile prevent you from felling down with your baby on wintry paths.

How do I know if my child is freezing/sweating?

The easiest way to check if your child is sweating or freezing is to feel the temperature on his neck, or even better, between the shoulder blades.

In the neck, it may be that the temperature is cooler in winter, when the wind cools the neck due to a missing scarf. Therefore, the upper back in this case is more reliable.

Don't let your own temperature fool you.

You move and carry your baby additionally. It may therefore well be that you sweat yourself, but your child does not.

If you are very unsure, try different things and feel your way around first. Initially, only take short walks and check the “result”. Each child sweats and freezes differently, so experience always shows what your baby actually needs.

Warmly packed: jacket systems and babwearing covers

Finally, I would like to introduce you to various carrying systems that help you to cuddle your baby under the jacket.

Babywearing jacket

Babywearing jackets are jackets that allow children to be carried under the jacket in front or on the back. Often these jackets are designed to be used both as a normal jacket, during pregnancy and during the wearing period.

With a removable insert for babies, you can often carry not only in front, but also on your back. To do this, there are zippers in the front and back for easy closing of the jacket or for inserting the jacket extension.

Which way of carrying is possible with a carrying jacket depends entirely on the particular model.

In terms of price, these jackets are usually in the three-digit range. But there are also slightly cheaper providers, such as BonPrix (a German online store) or Amazon to find.

Jacket extension

One of the cheaper systems is the jacket extension. You can use this system with your existing jacket. Only a jacket insert is used by means of adapters or clips.

These inserts can also be used during pregnancy. The inserts and the adapters are usually many times cheaper than a babywearing jacket. However, with such an insert you cannot easily wear your baby on the back.

Well-known manufacturers of such jacket inserts are:

• “Kumja” (German: “Komm unter meine Jacke” / “Come under my jacket”) Jacket extension by MamaMotion
  • Consists of a jacket insert and any number of zipper adapters.
  • An adapter is required for each zipper type of your own jackets
  • The adapters are selected online via a configurator, which works very well from my own experience
  • Advantage: If you have the appropriate adapters, you can switch between the jackets in no time.
• cocoo·me® clip-in
  • Also a jacket insert
  • Does not require an adapter, as the jacket insert is clipped to the jacket.
  • Advantage: Fits almost any jacket.

Babywearing cover

An alternative, e.g. for people with a lot of heat or, if you do not want to buy an extra jacket, is the babywearing cover. A cover is independent of a jacket and is only put on over the child. So the wearer can wear a thinner jacket or omit the jacket. Your baby is still warm in the babywearing cover.

You can also wear your baby over the jacket with the babywearing cover. This is also very convenient for toddlers who can already walk.

Another advantage of the cover is that you can carry your baby both in the front and on the back, as the cover is only tied around the baby. So you can save yourself an extra jacket for back carrying.

Babywearing covers are available in very different designs, thick, thin, made of wool, softshell, cotton and also as pure rain covers. You can also easily store it in your backpack and pull it out when needed.

Unisex covers can be worn by any gender, which is often not possible with carrying jackets and jacket extensions.

There are now many manufacturers of support covers. Well-known manufacturers are MaM and Mamalila or babywearing manufacturers such as Hoppediz, Manduca, Didymos, Buzzidil or ErgoBaby.

Conclusion

As you can see, you can also carry your baby in autumn and winter without worriesif you pay attention to a few things. I myself liked to carry my son, a November child, in winter from the very beginning.

He once lay in the stroller, during this hour I was constantly busy feeling his temperature. Wearing, on the other hand, always gave me security and the reassuring feeling of having him very close to me. I knew at all times that he didn't freeze. It's the same with my daughter, my current baby to wear 🙂

Quite incidentally, the little ones get to know the different seasons from the same perspective of their parents. They can experience snow, sun and sometimes rain up close and are still protected.

I hope I was able to take away your fear of wearing your baby in cold temperatures and encourage you to carry in autumn and winter and not only in sunshine. Because there is no bad weather, only bad clothes 😉

If you liked the post, then leave me a subscription or give me a winter cake.

If you liked this post, then just read on, for example here: 15 amazing facts about breast milk or here: 10 good reasons to carry your baby.

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