
The babies who nap in sub-zero temperatures - drucken
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21537988
======
tokenadult
This is very funny for someone who lives in Minnesota. My wife grew up in
Taiwan, and didn't see snow for the first time until she was twenty-one years
old. When we moved to Minnesota a year after we were married over in Taiwan,
she then got BIG TIME acquainted with snow, as we moved in February (about
twenty-eight years ago today, now that I think of it).

Our four children all pile outside in Minnesota winter weather with very
minimal clothing on--indoor wear even when there is snow on the ground, and
light jackets even when the temperature is well below freezing. My wife spent
years being horrified at seeing her half-Taiwanese children going out lightly
dressed in temperatures that were unimaginable to her when she was growing up,
while I just smiled and said, "Our children are just reflecting their
Norwegian ancestry." Today we've all learned to deal with the cold.

My wife and I had a very enjoyable walk to the public library (one mile out,
one mile back) yesterday, and I reflected that she has proved her adaptability
by living so much of her life in weather that she never experienced at all in
childhood. Personally, my second stay in Taiwan (1998-2001) seems to have
permanently reset my body's thermostat, so much so that I NEVER feel hot
anywhere in the United States, but now feel cold from time to time during
winter in Minnesota. I'm probably more adapted to Taipei's semitropical
climate now. But whatever the weather trade-offs, it's a delight to be
outdoors, and I encourage our children and myself to get out of the house
every day, in all seasons, wherever we live. When we do that, we have the
children WITH us, because we want them to experience the different sights and
sounds as we are on the move. I have not tried what the interesting submitted
article specifically mentions, leaving a baby carriage (pram) outdoors while
the baby is immobile. That sounds a bit radical to me, but apparently it works
in its cultural context.

~~~
matwood
What's the humidity like in Minnesota? When I lived in CO (very dry) it had to
get very cold before it felt cold as opposed to living the south where humid
50Fs feels really cold.

~~~
michael_h
I would assume that humidity in the 'land of 10000 lakes' is fairly high.

EDIT: ~76% for February:
<http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/avgrh.html>

~~~
obviouslygreen
Yes, the humidity here is usually high. It makes the summers feel warmer than
they otherwise would and the winters colder (though the wind definitely plays
a part in the latter as well).

~~~
dasil003
The summers can get miserable, but the winters are pretty dry actually because
when temperatures drop so low it takes the excess moisture out of the air. It
doesn't feel anything like a Seattle or London piercing cold at similar
temperatures. Of course that's a bit like Phoenix residents saying "yeah, it's
115°, but it's a _dry_ heat"

------
calinet6
"There is no bad weather, only bad clothing."

Love that. Growing up with Patagonia clothes (family works there) we had
constant proof. Skiing in sub-zero temperatures was always fine for us, just
put on more layers. Meanwhile everyone around us was freezing their hands off.
The other secret is that gloves are always cold because the fingers are
separated; wear mittens instead.

~~~
pkulak
Exactly. I commute to work by bike, and though it doesn't get too cold here,
it does rain a lot, so a large fraction of my rides are in the low 40s/high
30s and rain. Most people do everything they can to avoid going out it the
rain, but if you wear the proper gear it's great.

~~~
davidw
I grew up in Oregon, and did a lot of riding in weather like that. With proper
gear, you stay dry and warm about an hour, and then you start getting wet and
cold anyway, because with enough rain, it seeps through pretty much anything.
5 degrees C and rain is way worse than snow and -5C for staying outdoors for
long periods of time.

~~~
rcthompson
There's a saying among sailors: "Waterproof means that once the water gets in,
it can't get out again."

~~~
jlgreco
This is the thought I have about chilly/damp weather.

If the extent of your time outside is going from one building to another then
(at least until the temperature actually drops far enough to become
dangerous), less clothing is better.

If it's in the mid-30s and slightly drizzling outside, but it's only a 20
minute walk to work, then a t-shirt and jeans are the way to go. The instant
you step into a building you'll be warm and dry as a bone while everyone else
will be damp and chilled for some time. My jacket only goes on if I perceive a
hypothermia risk, and gloves only get used if I think frostbite might become a
risk.

------
jonke
Swede here, 4 kids, all of them have been sleeping outside down to -15 C (at
least).

1) The kids are dressed more like a astronaut, wool clothing, a isolated
dungaree, stuffed inside a kind of extra isolated bag. One problem is that the
kids turn to overheat if you don't undress them when going indoors.

2) Sweden is very rural, there is probably bad to sleep outside in
Stockholm/Gothenburg compared to sleep outside the rest of the country.

3) Sleeping next to a street is probably a bad idea regardless temperature
(the picture was taken in Copenhagen which is not in Sweden, and I didn't see
any snow in the picture so no winter there)

4) Swedes are obsessed with safty but we tend not to calculate threat from
other people as a safty matter. Around every kindergarten there are fencing
keeping the kids inside but not to keep bad people out. That some evil person
should take a child has the same threat level as if an alien should come by.
There have been some cases of mentally-ill patients stabbing kids but that
hasn't really changed anything.

5) There was someone in a thread calling out for Vitamin D. That's true enough
but every single infant/kid in Sweden gets free Vitamin D anyway.

6) I think its a very cultural thing, my kids have slept longer outside,
stuffed in that sleeping bag if its cold, than they ever do when napping
inside. Swedes like to think of ourselves as very outdoor, into the wild,
sports, activity and health so you as a parent are supposed to be outside a
lot, if you have more kids some of them are going to be tired and take that
nap, wherever you are.

------
OldSchool
Note that their sub-zero is Centigrade. Without wind, -5C or 23F is generally
considered a nice winter day in most snowy places.

From experience, I'd like to add that the myth of "once it's below -X it
doesn't really matter" is just not true. -50F feels WAYYYY colder than -25F
for example.

~~~
_delirium
That's one thing that's nice about coastal Nordic cities: much warmer than you
might think, certainly compared to places like Eastern Europe or inland
Canada. Even in February, the average daytime temperature still gets up to 31
F in Stockholm, 36 F in Copenhagen, and 29 F in Helsinki.

~~~
jmspring
That being said, I've been in Stockholm and Tallinn with temperatures between
-15 and -30C in Feb. Coming from the west coast, that was an interesting
endeavor.

Measured temp is one thing, wind chill is another.

~~~
_delirium
For Stockholm and Copenhagen below -15 C would be very rare (but looks like
Talinn is rather colder). The record low in Copenhagen is -18 C, and in
Stockholm -16 C, at least as measured wherever their official weather stations
are (probably near the coast). In Copenhagen, -3 to +3 are more typical; older
Danish apartments' relatively poor insulation is barely capable of dealing
with -10 C!

But it is indeed often quite windy.

~~~
tarre
The record low in Stockholm is -26, not -16 C. At least according to
wikipedia.

~~~
ptaipale
Was about to say the same, Stockholm surely sometimes gets colder than -16°C.
Without looking any stats, probably -16°F (which is -27°C). For Helsinki,
which not much further to the north, but closer to continental Russia, the
record lows are -34°C / -30°F.

And I slept outside in temperatures colder than this, my children did, and
their children eventually will. It's a matter of proper clothing.

------
venomsnake
I was raised for the first three years of my life in a mountainous region. I
have been put to sleep outside on the balcony every day. My mother told me
that once my grandmother visited she was panicked to find out I was MIA, to
which Mother calmly replied "the snow has made a drift out of the stroller
again". What is left from all that is the habit to sleep every night on wide
open window (winters usually I am single ... may have some correlation) and
the inability to catch cold or flu for more than a day. Getting out of the
warm bed on -17 C in the room is unique and highly recommended experience.

So it is perfectly normal in lots of places in the world.

~~~
lostlogin
Is there a correlation between getting cold and catching a cold? I didn't
think there was?

~~~
DavidAdams
The notion that getting cold causes illness is basically discredited, and in
fact the reason that people get sick more during cold seasons is because they
tend to stay indoors in closer contact with other people. That supports the
nordic practice of having babies spend more time outside in fresh air even
when it's cold.

~~~
petercooper
While the cold doesn't cause illness, it seems to have the potential to reduce
immune response which can then result in more illness than if one hadn't
gotten cold. From Wikipedia's page on the common cold: _While colds are caused
by viruses and not cold temperatures, there is some controversy over the role
of body cooling as a risk factor for the common cold; the majority of the
evidence suggests that it may result in greater susceptibility to infection._

It may have been coincidental but I fell ill with colds a day or two after
both times I got caught out in the cold with inadequate clothing this winter
so I had to look this up.

------
naftaliharris
What I found most interesting about this article is that parents felt so
strongly about having their kids nap outside, despite the fact that the
scientific evidence presented in the article that this is actually better than
napping indoors is mixed at best.

The article cites a survey of parents who say their kids nap better outdoors,
(with a broken link), but surveys are far less convincing than experiments. In
this case, parents should not use this survey as a reason to have their kids
nap outside, because the survey is just a reflection of their own opinions.
Following it would be like eating their own dog food.

As for more scientific evidence, according to the article "Paediatrician
Margareta Blennow says reports from the Swedish Environmental protection
agency show conflicting results."

So from the article, it doesn't appear that there is substantial scientific
evidence that sleeping outdoors is any better for the children. Why do parents
continue to do so anyway? I think it's just a cultural thing. I think many
cultures have basically random opinions along the lines of "Doing X is better
for your health". As long as X isn't actually very bad for you, people will
continue to do X despite the lack of evidence that it's actually good for you.

~~~
ycombobreaker
I used to go on camping trips regularly. I always found that I woke up
_exceptionally_ well-rested in a tent. I attribute that to a combination of
the fresh air, the possibility of a gentle breeze, and the difference of
outdoor sounds vs. a 60Hz hum in the house. And it's not about sleep length,
either; I would always wake up earlier in a tent than in my bed.

I think the phenomenon is worthy of more in-depth scientific experimentation,
but I wouldn't ignore my own experience; even with no control group and a
sample size of one.

------
rayiner
My baby loves the cold (must be because she was born in Chicago in winter...)
The thing that frightens me about the article isn't the leaving the baby
outside in the cold, but the leaving the baby out where it could be stolen...

~~~
taylorlb
My relatives keep mentioning the possibility of my son being stolen, which
seems absurd to me. I was very curious what the real odds of your child being
stolen by a stranger in the US are.

EDIT: The post motivated me to do some quick Googling... one article I found
said there are roughly 40 children abducted by strangers or slight
acquaintances in the US annually which would make your child "700 times more
likely to get into Harvard than to be the victim of such an abduction".

~~~
avar
Here are some statistics about it:
[http://www.ncmec.org/en_US/documents/InfantAbductionStats.pd...](http://www.ncmec.org/en_US/documents/InfantAbductionStats.pdf)

The kid is probably more likely to be struck by lightning while you're walking
around in the park on an overcast day than being abducted by strangers.

But parents of newborns are rarely sensible about their risk assessment, and
obsess over amazingly unlikely scenarios while forgetting about the plausible
and common ones.

~~~
rayiner
Risk analysis isn't just about probability. It's about the cost of prevention
relative to the probability of a bad outcome multiplied by the cost of a bad
outcome. Parents worry about children because the cost of losing a child is
ruinously high to a parent. Meanwhile, little preventative measures like not
leaving them outside are cheaper than putting them in little baby Faraday
cages on cloudy days. Hence why parents worry about child abduction and not
lightning strikes.

~~~
wisty
Yes, but they aren't so careful about things like drowning or road safety. I'm
not certain about the actual risks (digging through the data is kind of
depressing), but in general people tend to over or under estimate risks based
on a few factors: malice, familiarity, how dramatic it seems. A crazed gunman
is scary. Not looking in your mirror when backing out of the driveway isn't.

------
plehoux
Funny to read this since me and my girlfriend do the same with our baby in
Quebec city, Canada.

Its all about good cloths and making sure the hands, feet and head stay warm.

You would be amaze by the quality of cloths and stroller our baby has to face
the ever changing Quebec temperature, she got a cold baby sleeping bags, a
bear fur cover, and many different cloths, ...

~~~
mmastrac
We used to take our kid out in the cold when he a had a cough (Alberta). The
cold air definitely helps with breathing.

BTW, quick English tip: you should use "clothes" instead of "cloths" for
'vêtements'.

------
zwieback
Seems hard to imagine it's beneficial for the kids other than in situations
where there are fewer germs outside but as cultural idiosyncracies go it makes
a lot more sense to me than the fear of sleeping with a running fan in Korea.

In Germany there's an obsession with stale air in rooms, during the day you
"auslueft" the room but when you're in the room you close the windows and
doors to prevent uncomfortable or even unhealthy drafts.

Irrational health beliefs are very stubborn, like many Germans my mom and her
sisters believe that sitting on a cold surface can lead to bladder infections,
here in the US nobody seems to know about this.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _or even unhealthy drafts._

I'm pretty sure there is no such thing. (unfortunately, most people I know not
only believe in it, but are also afraid of such drafts; the result is that,
for example, I find it uncomfortable to work in any office because of stale
air most of them accumulate throughout the day).

------
shanev
I can't believe there's not a single mention of Vitamin D in this article.
People with normal levels of Vitamin D are healthier than people who are
deficient. There's really no mystery there. I'm sure it's even more important
for developing babies. The health effects of getting some sun > negative
effects of being cold for a while. Or cold thermogenesis could actually have
beneficial effects [1].

[1]: [http://www.jackkruse.com/cold-thermogenesis-6-the-ancient-
pa...](http://www.jackkruse.com/cold-thermogenesis-6-the-ancient-pathway/)

------
dougk16
Leaving kids to nap outside a coffee shop in winter...I'd love to see the
horror on people's faces in the US. Makes perfect sense to me, and I do this
outside my house from time to time (secluded backyard of course), but I'm
pretty sure child protective services would be hauling me off before I
finished my latte.

~~~
willholloway
My brother in law is from Denmark and he told me about this practice many
years ago as a way of relating to me just how neurotic and afraid parents are
in America.

I asked him why he moved here, and he said "America is where you get rich". I
often meditate on whether he made a Faustian bargain or not.

I spend a lot of time trying to understand the country I was born in. What's
the right approach to this place? Is this a community or a marketplace? Newt
Gingrich says marketplace, and that seems to be the opinion of the owners in
this country.

Is this place so far gone that a reasonable man will try to extract as many
resources and expatriate his money and his family to Norther Europe?

Hunter S. Thompson called America a Kingdom of Fear and then shot himself. Al
Giordano tried to help through activism but concluded this country is
psychopathic and moved to S. America.

N. Europe beats the US on almost every quality of life metric. The towns,
cities and trains in Europe I see on travel shows just look prettier than the
sprawling pattern of chain restaurants and gas stations I see here. Sprawl
bothers me on a very base and fundamental level.

I overpay for crappy broadband and healthcare and my neighbors are
irrationally afraid and half our tax dollars fund a bloated war machine. For
the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world, things
kind of suck here.

I've moved to some of the best cities this country has to offer and I found
them lacking. In Austin and Boulder my girlfriend would be repeatedly harassed
by schizophrenics let loose on the streets.

I spent an hour conversing with a mentally unstable tattooed skin head in
Austin armed with a claw hammer for protection from other homeless. If he is
to be believed, and he seemed sincere, the police bound and gagged him to a
chair and beat him for an hour while denying him his anti psychotics.

The homeless in Austin know not to ask for much. In Boulder a street kid with
dreads will sneer if you give him any less than a $5. The wretched of Austin
just ask for quarters. They feel lucky that they aren't scheduled for lethal
injection on felony murder charges.

I was in Austin when the state executed a homeless kid that not even the
prosecutor thought killed anyone. Four homeless kids take LSD. One snaps and
kills two others. Texas executes the one kid that didn't hurt anyone on felony
muder charges. The actual murderer was given a life sentence because he took a
plea.

The only silver lining I can take from all this is that because things suck
and the US is a huge unified market, it is a great country to innovate and
solve people's problems with technology.

I used to spend a lot of thought time getting political or philosophical about
my complaints above, I have come to realize if we are to be saved, our
salvation will only come through technological innovation.

~~~
fusiongyro
The cure for what ails you is travel.

~~~
willholloway
My father travelled around the world in the early 80's and concluded that
there is no place like the US and came home.

One of my questions is have things changed? Has the rest of the world improved
and the US declined in the last thirty years?

You are right, I will have to go and find out for myself.

~~~
hobbe80
Actually, I believe is to be the case. As late as the early to mid-90s, I'd
say there was no place like the US of A (even though the Nordic countries were
very nice also then, they were behind on certain aspects). Today US has
noticeably declined (compared to some world benchmark, at least) while some
countries have clearly progressed - the Nordic countries very much so. Visit
the new Old World, with open and honest eyes (not every single thing is
perfect, or even better than US, I'm talking broad strokes), engage the people
and hear their opinions (they will have many, because the US is still dear to
a lot of people from Europe who would very much like to see US step up its
game as a true world leader in all areas - everyone wants a role model, and
it's sad to see the hero waste his life away).

------
SaveTheRbtz
As for born in Siberia my first thought was "Isn't it normal for every child
to have a nap in -35C or so?" It was rather normal for our schools back there
to be closed once or twice per winter because of extreme cold, but kids where
just playing hockey on the school grounds instead =)

------
benaiah
I can personally attest to the fact that sleeping outside is not as ridiculous
as it might seem at first. As a skinny, 80-90lb Boy Scout in Alaska, I camped
outside overnight many times every winter, in temperatures that got down to
-30F. It was cold, sure, but a little preparation and it's fine.

The most annoying part about sleeping outside isn't the fact that _you_ are
cold, it's that everything around you is - we had to keep our water bottles in
our sleeping bags at night so we could make oatmeal in the morning.

------
gdilla
Didn't know about the napping. at the pre-school we have in Ottawa, children
go outside to play everyday unless it's colder than -15C.

~~~
randlet
I'm in Ottawa too and our daughter will often nap in her stroller at
temperatures of -10C or more while we're out for a walk. I probably wouldn't
specifically stick her outside for a nap but in general the cold (or indeed
sleeping in the cold) is no big deal for kids as long as they're dressed well.

------
worace
This reminds me of a funny behavior I noticed when I visited Iceland - parents
would simply leave their kids outside in a pram when they went into a cafe or
a restaurant. Struck me as something you would never see in the States but I
guess other places just have higher levels of trust.

Here's a blog with a little info on the practice:
[http://reykjavikdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2008/10/could-not-
be...](http://reykjavikdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2008/10/could-not-be-more-
icelandic.html)

------
mandariini
Normal stuff in Finland, I have been sleeping outside when I was baby, so was
my wife and our children sleep.

~~~
brunnsbe
Same her, and enjoyed it in the Finnish army as well (except for the survival
camp without any blankets). Sleeping outside just makes you a lot more rested.

------
marvin
I was baptized during a pretty bad cold snap in Trysil in Eastern Norway. The
outside temperature was -40C/-40F, and the caretakers were able to heat the
church up to 5 degrees Celcius inside. I've been told that I slept in the
stroller outside, even though my parents did check on me quite often. Was also
supposedly wearing an incredible amount of clothes.

------
ph0rque
The same sentiment exists in Russia.

~~~
bearmf
Napping on balconies is indeed popular. But few people would leave a stroller
with a baby on the street in a Russian city.

~~~
ph0rque
True... I was referring to the concept of babies sleeping in the cold.

------
confluence
Sounds like pretty sloppy, old wives, random cultural reasoning to me (for
example in other countries people think being cold gives one a cold).

 _> Paediatrician Margareta Blennow says reports from the Swedish
Environmental protection agency show conflicting results.

"In some studies they found pre-schoolers who spent many hours outside
generally - not just for naps - took fewer days off than those who spent most
of their time indoors," she says.

"In other studies there wasn't a difference."_

If it isn't backed by some serious data - one probably shouldn't risk one's
new born child on something so tenuously supported and specifically in an area
which is subject to large random statistical effects and various psychological
biases.

~~~
AnthonBerg
I propose that the purported risk is tenuously supported as well ... :)

------
japhyr
I live in southeast Alaska, where winter temperatures are a steady 30-34F.
It's really hard to stay warm, because you're always getting wet. It's easier
to stay warm when it's 20-25F, and you know you'll stay dry.

We took my two-year-old to the beach last week when it was 38F. All he wanted
to do was play in the water, and he did so for half an hour without ever
getting cold. He had waterproof boots and rainsuit on, but his hands were in
the water for half an hour and he only asked us to hold his hands in ours a
couple times. It's fun to watch him grow up here, totally acclimated to this
environment.

------
ChuckMcM
I find this fascinating. And a bit surprised they don't get some sort of frost
bite but if it works, hey it works.

I'll admit though when I read it I was wondering if this was parents with
cranky children trying to trigger some sort of latent hibernation reflex :-).

------
orn
Reminds me of the Danish couple that got arrested in NY years back -
[http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/14/nyregion/toddler-left-
outs...](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/14/nyregion/toddler-left-outside-
restaurant-is-returned-to-her-mother.html)

------
crazygringo
OK, serious question: what about dry throats, vocal cords, etc., and the
damage caused from that?

For dealing with the NYC winter, buying a humidifier changed my life. I have
friends who have a "winter cough" that never goes away, because they live in a
drafty apartment. When I grew up in far upstate NY, there were certain winter
days below 10°F where, just being outside for 10 minutes, you could hear the
effect in your scratchier voice the rest of the day.

It boggles my mind how this can be healthy from a respiratory point of view.
Is there any science on this?

~~~
scotty79
You get dry throat if you take cold air from outside and heat it up. This air
is not dry a outside temperatures. In fact is as humid as it can be. But if
you take this air and heat it up then there's much more room in the air for
additional water. And water from your throat gladly evaporates to fill this
room leaving you throat dry. If you spend your time in temperatures clse to
outside temperatures your throat doesn't get dry.

------
ckarmann
My wife used to put our little one on the balcony when he was a few months old
at around zero celsius temperature. I admit I was a bit scared by the idea.
Not only that it was cold (but I could understand that good clothes help) but
also that in case he was in distress or needing something, nobody was outside
to hear. Eventually, I spent the nap times sitting next to him, reading a book
until he wake up and nothing wrong ever happened. He always was a healthy kid
and still is.

------
lee
I don't know if there is any relation to this idea, but some diseases that
babies catch are alleviated by cold air.

For some infants with croup, cool air alleviates the symptoms.

------
whaevr
Wow this is really interesting. I read the title and honestly didn't know what
to expect from the article when I clicked on it. My mind was wandering towards
some kinda sci-fi setup or something.

Hooray cultural ignorance! The more you know.

------
vivekv
I see the exact opposite where I come from. My kid wants to go out and play
when the temperature is close to 40c (which is normal BTW).

I think kids just adapt to the weather and we just get old!

------
sonabinu
yep, a little fresh air never hurts anyone - true in Minnesota !!!

------
JimWestergren
Well, I am from Sweden with 2 children but I have never and would never leave
one of my child sleeping unattended in a prom on the sidewalk. I reacted on
the photo of the cafe.

------
mrgoldenbrown
Reminder to us wacky Americans and our archaic units - this article is talking
about sub zero in Celsius, which is not _quite_ as bad as sub zero in
Fahrenheit.

------
mcartyem
Pediatricians in Russia recommend taking babies outside for at least thirty
minutes every day too, partly because the freezing temperature kills germs.

~~~
scotty79
Not viruses. Just bacteria. And bacterial infections are rare and usually
easily treatable with antibiotics.

------
xmodem
TLDR: More fresh air is good for kids; the fact that it's cold outside is
irrelevant if they have enough clothes. Well what do you know?

------
largesse
What I think is particularly interesting is that anyone doing this in North
America would probably be tried and convicted of child endangerment purely due
to unfamiliarity and outrage at the practice.

It wouldn't matter whether someone presented evidence that it was a norm
elsewhere. We are just wired that way.

------
voidbox
Next: Kids are outside in -15C wearing only jackets!

~~~
balabaster
My kids routinely go outside in sub-zero temperatures with just sweaters on. I
can't keep clothes on them for love nor money... every time I turn around
they're missing socks and shoes. When I try and put a coat on them they're
like "but we wanna be freezing"... I swear, kids are born without pain or cold
receptors. Insane really.

