Vloggers JK and Charlie [1], parents of two, made a mistake with their first child, Noah, that they realize now is something a lot of parents do in the summertime: throw a light blanket over their baby's stroller to protect them from the sun's rays [2]. However, just as the temperature rises on the inside of a parked car on a hot day [3], the temperature inside your child's stroller heats up, too; especially if it's covered with a blanket, which limits air flow.
"The idea of your baby getting too hot in the pram or perhaps getting burnt, or getting UVA and UVB rays is really scary, so what parents do is grab something like this . . . and throw this over the pram," Charlie says as she holds up a muslin cloth blanket in a video on the Channel Mum YouTube channel. "So we thought we should do a controlled test . . . to see if it really makes your baby's pram hotter [4]."
JK then explains that they did two seven-minute experiments on a sunny day — the temperature outside was 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit — one with the stroller sitting in the sun as is, the other with a blanket draped over the stroller. In the first test, with a thermometer sitting under the shade of the stroller along with a baby doll, the temperature reached 29.9 degrees Celsius after seven minutes, just about the actual temperature of the day. In the second test, the thermometer was kept in the same place, a blanket was draped over the stroller, and seven minutes later the temperature had reached 35.1 degrees Celsius, or 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
"I think it really, really highlights why we should just never put these over a pram."
"If we had left that going for another 10 minutes, 15 minutes, god knows how hot that would have gotten in there," Charlie says. "I think it really, really highlights why we should just never put these over a pram."
So if you're going for a walk with your baby in the Summer — which you should try to avoid during the hottest hours of the day, between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. — be sure to use sunscreen [6] (if they're 6 months and older) to protect them from harmful rays, use an umbrella attachment on your stroller to keep them in the shade as much as possible, and check their temperature regularly. If your child appears sweaty, feels hot to the touch, and is overly exposed to the sun, it's time to bring them inside.