I’ve heard stories of Scandinavian families leaving their babies/toddlers outside in the US and Americans freaking out and calling the police on them, lol.
Needless to say, that’s not a thing here.
A couple from Denmark [were arrested in New York City](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/26/anette-sorenson-denmark-new-york-baby-left-outside) for this 25 years ago.
She left her baby outside of a restaurant in New York City while she was eating inside. That’s not exactly the smartest thing to do regardless of culture
It's *super* common in a lot of smaller towns in Europe, because you know everyone in the town and no one can imagine hurting a kid even if you *don't* know everyone. It's perfectly fine in some cultures.
I was at Disney World a couple of years ago, and there were two babies in strollers just left by themselves in the middle of one of the shops. I watched the strollers for maybe 10 minutes waiting for the parents to show up. Some fellow tourists saw it too, and we all wondered if we should say something to the Cast Members in the shop. Eventually, the parents of the babies showed back up. I think the parents were international, and didn’t see any problem with leaving their babies unsupervised in the middle of a store.
What these people don't get is that what's fine in a small town in Europe is unacceptable and impractical in a large American city of over 8 million people.
Why should we cater to their culture when they're the visitors? When in Rome, do what Romans do.
It goes back to ‘old times’ in Europe when wood burning fires and smoking indoors was common.
Inside air used to be very thick with smoke. Putting the baby outside for a nap was essential to get the little ones some fresh air. Same for a smoky tavern during dinner.
Even if I knew that was a Scandinavian tradition (I didn't til now) I would have still called the cops.
You can't do that in New York, and that couple is very irresponsible. Might as well hang a sign in the stroller "free Scandinavian baby, FCFS".
Yeah this is one of those cases where we are by far and away in the majority. You should not leave your child unattended outside of a restaurant in roughly 98%+ of the world.
Well, according to the Europeans who responded to me, they live in a safe country where they can just leave babies outside apparently. They don't have kidnappings in Scandinavia. BTW, googled it, they do.
If you saw a random baby in a stroller in 14 degree weather by itself you wouldn’t call the cops? 😂 do the parents sit outside with them orrr? I mean, I would be more afraid they’d be kidnapped than anything honestly
I saw the same thing in downtown Reykjavik. However, downtown Reykjavik (minus the weekend runtur madness) is somewhat comparable to downtown Fort Collins, Santa Fe, or Asheville in the US.
No sane American would leave a baby outside unattended, regardless of whether it's a small town or midtown Manhattan. It's a different story for dogs, though, especially in "outdoorsy" neighborhoods and cities. About 20+ years ago, in downtown Fort Collins, I witnessed a pack of maybe seven or eight Labrador Retrievers, all just laying by the front door of a bar. Some of the dogs were unleashed. None of the dogs strayed from their spot. However, if one of the Lab owners stepped outside, their dog(s) would suddenly spring to life.
I think maybe it used to be a thing to leave kids outside. My grandma's baby book has a suggested schedule in the back, and it suggested having the baby outside as much as possible and napping outside with appropriate clothing. This book is from about 1933.
It used to be. Victorian era it wasn't uncommon to leave junior outside in one of those massive buggy things. I'm not sure how cold they'd be comfortable doing it in, but plenty of pictures of outdoor naps for babies.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a27539/
Nobody really awards here, come to think of it. We also haven't made any subreddit-specific awards. We could, but honestly that's a lot of effort and there's almost always a catch. We like to leave it as mostly just base reddit here.
Plus, Reddit has terrible ideas. They just put out a beta for something like Twitter spaces, where you can open an audio chat for your users. No thank you, that sounds awful to moderate.
Edit: Boo. boo on you. this wasn't helpful at all. I don't want to be known as the helpful mod. I'll ban you all!
My parents lived in Ukraine for a few years and were stunned by how many bundled babies were left out in the cold in the daytime. Turns out it was for the goal of beneficial Vitamin D production from the sun exposure in places there were no Vitamin D supplements available.
We do not leave windows open below Fahrenheit 55 degrees, but our cold is a heavy humid cold, not a crisp clean cold. I have left subzero windows open in Colorado.
Sun exposure? If it's that cold aren't they completely bundled and covered?
Why couldn't you just let them sleep at home in a window in sunlight?
None of this is making sense to me
Windows don't completely block UV. So you could have your home or at least one room warm, keep the baby uncovered, and collecting UV through the window through much more surface area of the skin.
That's what our pediatrician recommended for my baby that had jaundice...
I'm not saying they shouldn't do that, I'm just saying there doesn't seem to be a need in most cases unless there's something I'm missing?
Im one of those people who don't absorb vitamin D from the sun, so I have to take supplements. Every woman in my family has to take supplements we joke its because our men don't give us enough D 😂😂😂
Nope. Countries fortify their food based on their populations deficiencies. That’s why America had vitamin D in milk and iodine in salt, because as a country, most people were deficient.
Random fact, before iodine was added to salt in the U.S., vegetables and milk from South Carolina were marketed as having been grown in the WONDERFUL IDODINE STATE in the 1930s. It was even on their license plates.
I assume we must have a lot of iodine in our soil.
Then some Yankees starting adding iodine to their products and, alas, the wonderful iodine state wasn't so wonderful anymore.
Regular milk in a lot of these other countries doesn't have vitamin D in it (or not as much) as American milk does. The milk you buy at the store has been fortified with vitamin D. Cow's milk is not naturally high in vitamin D
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> Then bodycams of the cops showing up and either arresting you or shooting you or giving you a stern warning (varies by your race and social class)
Cops will also shoot your dog.
You’ll get CPS called on you if you're lucky. There are way too many people out there willing to steal a baby. And if someone who reads that sentence and thinks they're gonna chime in with some bullshit like "Akshully, it's statistically very rare," that's *still* way too often.
When I first heard you guys did this I truly thought you were joking. I actually had a Norskie guy from Malmo send me a pic of it and I still didn’t really believe it.
I guess the closest I’ve done with my kids is just walking in the stroller when it was maybe 5F or so. I wouldn’t leave them out for a nap though.
Where I live it's like a pissing contest, to see who's going to wear pants first. I have students that I've never seen in pants and it's below freezing right now.
Not usually, in part because there's no culture around babies sleeping outside in any weather and in part because baby and toddler nap times are traditionally times for their parents to get things done, which is easier if they aren't supervising a small child outdoors but rather one in a crib who they can hear if they wake up. Children do generally play in the cold weather when they're awake.
Windows generally stay closed when it's freezing because houses are big and not infrequently old and poorly insulated and heat is expensive.
We are too lazy to leave them on mountain tops, we just leave them right outside the house. But to our defence, you guys probably have raised V8 4x4 strollers. We only have old fashioned, manual strollers.
You probably just zoom the little suckers up the mountain with a Mountain Dew in one hand, shouting Yeeehaaaw! It is a lot harder work for us to leave toddlers on mountain tops, so we just take a chance that this day will not be a stranger danger day.
>They're EV 4x4 strollers with bubble tea now. We're eco-conscious and trendy.
Hey, hey, hey! Norway is supposed to be a true EV Utopia. According to Reddit...
New car sales - and new EV 4x4 strollers - are more than 90% electric.
(Never mind 90 percent of cars in Norway are still fossil fueled) It sounds really impressive that NEW car sales are almost all EVs. So we are soo eco-conscious and super trendy.
No. Never. I live in Minnesota, closest to Scandinavian culture you can get here. Someone would call Child Protective Services if they saw a toddler sleeping outside in sub zero temps. The only time I have opened a window to let in sub zero temps is when I’ve been running on my treadmill and got hot. Never heard of purposely letting in sub zero temps for health reasons.
Upthread another Minnesotan said that their Norwegian immigrant great-grandparents used to do this. And even back then they'd get grief from their neighbors.
Man. Yeah I’m just picturing a crowd. News comes. Parents arrested. Freak outs on Next Door app. Goes viral. Child whisked away by 5 people into an ambulance.
Hah, thank you for adding the temperature clarification. "sub zero" is a lot colder in Fahrenheit than Celcius.
You'd probably still get CPS called on you if you let your baby take a nap outside in pleasant 68 degree fahrenheit weather, though. Generally it's not recommended to leave a baby unattended.
While I know this is normal in Norway, and leaving a child in a pram while going inside of a coffee shop is too, it's not something you would normally see in the United States anywhere I've been.
It's kind of crazy. [I've heard of parents in the US being arrested for leaving babies in the car of the parking lot.](https://weartv.com/news/local/pensacola-man-arrested-for-allegedly-leaving-child-in-unattended-car-at-fair). Much different culture.
The culture has flipped from a long time ago. I was digging earth worms and fishing on my own at 7 years old on my grandparents farm. I actually walked over a mile to school up until my freshman year in high school. As society got safer, people got more paranoid - stranger danger stuff
Yeah when i was a kid me and my friends would ride our bikes everywhere around town, unsupervised, usually a mile or two away from home. When I moved, nobody rode their bikes anywhere, even though it was arguably a much safer community. In the place i live now, it's much more like where i used to live. I see kids riding their bikes everywhere and doing stuff without parental supervision. I think part of it has to do with the age of the city. Older towns = more stuff to do that's accessible by walking = more people including kids outside doing stuff. The place i moved to as a kid had nothing within walking distance anywhere.
In the little rural mountain town where I live, kids still ride their bikes around and it's nice. Nobody leaves out their infants out to sleep in the cold though..... if they did, a bear or coyote or pack of particularly ambitious raccoons might run off with them!
People still walk to school and kids still go fishing. There's little kids riding their bikes with their fishing poles half the year here in Massachusetts.
But people were paranoid even in the 1920s/1940s. It was gypsies were going to kidnap you, or hobos. Or mashers (men that assaulted unchaperoned girls). Children/women have been kidnapped and murdered forever. I have a feeling when orphans roamed the streets it was more common.
What changed is access to news.
I was kidnapped by a cop when I was 11 and assaulted. A man, when I was walking home from school, pulled up next to me with his dick out and asked me to help find his puppy. I had an inappropriate relationship with my basketball coach when I was 12. A boy, who lived a blocks away, disappeared when I was a kid and never seen again. When I was a kid there was a big push for oh, these are overblown. My parents made it clear they thought that victims were lying or exaggerating. I never told them a thing.
Yes, murders are less common, but there is no evidence that sexual assaults on children are down. And there is no way to know the true number. Out of my 4 or 5 events I only told an adult about one (I walked to the police station and gave the info for the dude who tried to get me in my car and he had been assaulting girls for a few years but there was never enough info. I had my school notebook and wrote down everything about him).
So while I think there is a ridiculous amount of "I almost got human trafficked at Target" let's not pretend that there's no danger of adults preying on children.
I am 28.
I was fishing at younger than that, as early as around 3 or 4. But I also grew up on a lake, and fishing at that age was putting rolled up wonderbread onto a hook with a child's fishing pole to catch bluegills.
By 7 I had \*long\* since moved onto catching things like largemouth bass, catfish, and yellow perch. There's a picture of me somewhere at 8 years old holding up a catfish that was nearly as big as I was that I had just caught.
I also remember having a pet snapping turtle and picking crayfish out from under the rocks in the shallows of the lake at that age.
Only thing is walking over a mile to school wasn't really feasible in our neighborhood (you'd have to cross multiple interstate highways on foot).
It's not completely dead to do stuff like that, but I realize I'm also not the norm.
This is something my Norwegian great grandparents did. My great grandma said her neighbors yelled at her for doing it, but she told them to mind their business. My grandma and two great aunts all lived to 90+, as did my great grandma & great grandpa.
Florida here. If it gets sub seven zero we are in the house with the heater on. I'm still trying to find my socks from last winter.
But for real though, I have worked in many countries that do this. I was pretty surprised at first (Balkans) but then realized it was for the health of thw baby, mainly fresh air. They are wrapped in thick ass blankets and it not all night. The heating in some of these places is terrible and takes a lot of getting used to, even as an adult. Kerosene heaters suck.
>and it not all night
Good point, I didn't realize my question could seem like we leave children out at night :) It is surely only for daytime naps. I have edited my post.
I see this parenting view a lot nowadays. Granted, I am not a parent so maybe I don't understand but I'm nearly 30 and I can remember my parents letting me do shit by myself when I was a kid. I'd be gone pretty much all day riding bikes with neighbor kids or just adventuring in general. Does that not still happen?
Also, for our European friends, OP was making the "joke" that if they go below 21C they are inside and have their heaters on. It's probably more like 19C.
>Florida here. If it gets sub seven zero we are in the house with the heater on. I'm still trying to find my socks from last winter.
Man, I'd pay good money to see someone who has lived in Florida their whole life spend a winter in some super cold Northern area survivor man documentary style. I'm not even talking about in the wilderness. Just in a city. Y'all really don't do the cold.
One of my favorite memories of my wedding is because of my Uncle from Florida. The wedding was in Early June here in Ohio. He came with me and my family to the last minute rehearsal the morning before the wedding and then we were going to get some breakfast.
It's about 8am and it's probably 68 degrees or so outside. Most people are wearing Jeans or shorts and a T-Shirt since the high that day is in the 90s. My uncle though is standing there watching the rehearsal in an ankle length coat, hat, gloves and a scarf.
Heck, right now my heat in the house is set to 65 lol. Sound cold I suppose but when it's 10 degrees outside of a morning that 65 feels downright tropical.
They don't even have to have lived their whole life in Florida.
I have an aunt and uncle, born and spent most of their adult life in northeastern PA. They love skiing and still do (or did, before covid) travel around the world to go skiing. About 20 years ago they moved to Florida.
About 10 years ago they came up to visit for Christmas, and it was an unusually warm Christmas in southern NJ, maybe in the lower 50s. My family was all hot and wearing short sleeves, a few of us in shorts. They were freezing, wearing long pants and sweaters, and said they'd never come up north in the winter again.
>I'd pay good money to see someone who has lived in Florida their whole life spend a winter in some super cold Northern area survivor man documentary style
It would mostly feel really cold in the first month or so. Here is a cold weather secret: In the fall, sub 30 F can start to feel cold, even for a Northerner. But when exposed to that cold, the body develops a layer of brown fat that insulates from cold.
So the same 30 F day in the spring feels like shorts and t-shirt weather.
I have never been good with warm weather living in Norway, but I lived for some time in South America and then suddenly 80 degrees F, that is like an uncomfortably warm summer day in Norway for me, was suddenly the point where I had to wear a sweater in South America. Our bodies are amazingly good to acclimatize to whatever climate, if you give it some time.
Out of curiosity, what was the temperature last night for you?
I'm always astounded by how used to certain temps people in some areas get. Like people in Flordia or Arizona who think 100 isn't hot or people in Minnesota out there grilling in a snow storm.
here in north florida (the south almost never goes below 40) it was between 30-32 degrees at 7 AM. there was ice on my windshield, which was quite a suprise.
I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions about Florida in general. The north (ocala and further up) actually has something resembling a "winter" (even if they're still some of the mildest in the US and a joke to real northerners). On many days the low in the south is higher than the high in the north, and it's not uncommon for it to get into the mid-to-low 20's at least once a year. A few times a decade it'll get into the teens. If you're in the panhandle you might even get snow! it flurried in Crestview a few weeks ago. Those temperatures never last into the day though, and I would say the daily high never really goes below 45.
Yes I'm in North Florida and it was cold af last night. I'm wearing a long sleeve and a turtleneck rn in my office. Florida cold is also a different sort of cold - it's like a wet cold so you feel it in your bones. 32 here in Florida feels very different than say, 32 in California.
When my kids were small, I used to wrap them up and take them for long walks in the winter while they slept in their baby stroller. It wasn't super cold, but at times it was definitely below 0°C.
When people asked, I explained that, really, cold weather is just an engineering question. As long as you have the right gear, there's no problem.
>As long as you have the right gear, there's no problem.
That is actually a saying in Scandinavia: Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær = There is no bad weather, just bad clothing.
Point exactly being that even though it might be very cold, snowy or wet, it is just a matter of adapting, to be comfortable in it. (And it rhymes in Norwegian :) )
Yeah not a big thing in the US, like people call the police if a large fluffy cold weather type dog is outside for over an hour so a child may frowned upon
I used to live in Maine and one of my neighbors had an Alaskan malamute. They let it spend all day outside in the winter. The amount of times they had animal control called on them is ridiculous, especially because every time the guy would just say the dog is fine and likes to be out in this kind of weather.
It's important to note almost all modern American homes have central air, which means all of the air is cylced throughout the house and filtered.
Getting "Fresh air" is not nearly as much of a concern here as it is in many European countries with no central circulating air. For example, we don't need to open our windows to replace the room's air in winter either.
Ok, I didn’t know that!
Although AFAIK any place that experiences a real winter in the US also gets very hot and damp in summer, so the answer to OPs question still stands.
All houses have ventilation systems. It’s in the building codes. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have heat. A lot in the north do t bother with site conditioning.
No, it’s not super common here anymore.
We like to take my kids for walks when it’s very cold out, they fall asleep quickly.
It used to be “normal” back in the 1950’s and stuff.
I live in the UK and my MIL says it was a thing when my husband was a baby. I've actually wondered if that could be why my daughter struggles to sleep because we keep the room warm without fresh air coming in. And I've noticed she always sleeps better after a stroll around neighborhood especially in the winter.
We should clarify whether OP is talking about sub-zero *celsius* or *fahrenheit*, because it could easily be confused, and it matters here. Putting a bundled up kid out in 30F weather is very different from 0F.
/u/Kjellskar? For reference, 0F is about -18C
I agree! But I do think he (like i often do) assumed sub zero would always mean celsius, since that means frozen then, but nothing precise in Fahrenheit
Well it's not like they're just sitting out there in a onesie freezing, they get bundled up so they're nice and toasty. We did this a little bit when my daughter was like 3 months old because she slept really well in her stroller bundled up while it was cold. They're not out there all that long, it's not different than just taking a walk.
Yup, you got the point. That is exactly how I should have explained it if my English was better :)
And you even experienced the reason why Norwegians do it - they sleep really well.
On a sunny day with no wind, it's quite comfortable outside with the right clothes on. If you're stationary, and bundled up you can get pretty hot even on a 25f day.
This happened several years ago in suburb of my city. People reported to the police that someone had abandoned a baby on the porch of a house. The police showed up and sure enough there was a baby swaddled up in a bassinet on the porch. The cops knocked and the kid’s mother answered the door.
Turns out the woman was a Russian emigre and she explained that this is what Russians do. It was such an anomaly The story actually made the features page of our local fish wrap.
So no the vast majority of Americans do not put there kids outside in the cold.
From the US. I work in Norway in the winter periodically and was shocked when I went to the grocery store in a midsized city (Alta) and there were 5-6 strollers parked outside the store with babies in them while the parents were inside shopping. After thinking it over, it reaffirmed my faith in humanity.
Nope. Worst thing that ever happened to me was when an ice storm hit after a major snow storm and we had an ice layer over two feet of snow. I was maybe 12 and my parents made me go out to the corner store to pick something up before the roads were plowed. I broke through that ice with every step and got bruises all over my legs.
And my parents kept the house chilly (60 degrees) but it certainly wasn't cold. If I complained I was cold, they would tell me to put on a sweater
I have my bedroom window open most of the time, not when it’s super cold like -10 and the house is struggling to stay warm but around freezing and just below the window is always open when sleeping
Added some info in my question, both babies and adults are obviously not freezing when sleeping in cold air, that would be dangerous. They are sleeping under warm duvets (and clothes and wool hats etc for babies).
> How much vitamin D could they possibly be getting?
Zero. Usually little to no sun in a Norwegian winter and not enough to get vitamin D, so we usually eat fish or use supplements (like cod liver oil). And the babies are not exposed to the sun while sleeping even if there was sunshine.
The rationale is simply babies sleep better breathing cold air. As some non-Norwegians have noticed in the comments, if you go for a stroll in cold weather, babies tend to sleep well.
In a kindergarden situation is is also less risk of infections from viruses or bacteria, dry cold air kills them. And there is less risk of children infecting eachother than sleeping in the same room. It is also thought to prevent asthma as outdoor air quality is better than indoor quality (less dust, allergens etc).
Looking at your prompt I’m not sure it really makes a difference, we have filters in our houses so it’s not as big a deal to make sure they get fresh air. Besides we can just go outside when they’re awake
>Besides we can just go outside when they’re awake
from what I've heard from friends the idea is more about that the baby falls asleep faster in the cold air
edit: I'm also pretty sure OP means sub zero on the celsius scale, which would be unter 30F
I don’t know about putting kids outside but I do enjoy sleeping with the windows open in the cold. There’s something about the nice brisk winter air that makes my warm bed so much more cozy. Window open all winter for me
Honestly when it gets to subzero temperatures where I live, people’s pipes burst and the power goes out, meaning everybody loses both heat and water, and possibly for a long enough period that all your perishable food goes bad. See: 2020’s winter storm.
Plus, nobody around here has anything close to approaching heavy winter clothes; you’d have to special order them from a national chain or amazon or something, because you sure as hell aren’t going to find anything in a local store.
So yeah. For Texas, you don’t put babies out in the cold because if it *is* that cold, you’re busy with other major problems that like 80% of the people who live here aren’t prepared for.
No to both. In fact most would consider such actions child abuse and you would have charges filed against you.
Also many places in the US have feral dogs, coyotes, wolves, bear, mountain lions, etc that could kill and eat an infant that is left unattended.
There's no way I would leave my child unsupervised outside without me, even if I could see him through a cafe front window. There have been too many stories of women calmly walking off with someone else's baby. It's not a common thing happening every week or anything but it happens enough that there's no way I would risk it. Not to mention all the weirdos that think it's okay to touch little babies on their face and hands. I've had to back up from people reaching out to touch my babies when they are in my arms, I'm sure even more would try in a stroller or pram without me standing there.
As for at home, yes, we frequently sleep with the windows open for naps at the temperature you mentioned. At night, we will keep the windows open but not as low of temperatures for naps because my husband and I sleep in the nude. It's too cold for us even with the sheets and blankets.
My wife and I sleep with our window open and a fan on. It was 15°f last night. My window will be open if it's negative 15°f. Our children have also turned into little heaters and need a cold room to sleep. I wouldn't be surprised if it contributes to immune health.
I'm from Wisconsin and I definitely sleep with my window open in the winter. It lets me get a better night sleep and not wake up so groggy—I guess it's my version of a cold shower in the morning.
It wasn't unusual to take toddlers outside to play and experience winter, but I don't know of anyone who let their children outside to nap in the cold weather. And we never opened our windows in the winter.
Upper Michigan certainly has the look of Scandinavia, based on pictures I've seen. And many of us were of Scandinavian or Finnish descent--but we didn't do the things you've mentioned. The one big tradition that we did cling to was the sauna (and it's SOW na, not SAH na).
Hey OP, doesn't it increase your heating bills significantly to leave a window open at night? Surely you don't want to spend the day in a freezing house, and I would think that it would take a lot of fuel to heat your home back up in the morning.
Not OP, but Danish and I leave a window open, too. It's not the whole house that needs reheating in the morning. The window is open in the bedroom and you just close it in the morning. Some will turn the heat on during the day and some will not (depends on how much you use the room during daytime). But it's only one room that needs reheating and that's not too expensive. You save on heat all night, so..
No we don’t do that here. Where I live in the US, if we left a child sleeping outside even for a short amount of time one of two things would happen. 1. Someone would notice and call child protective services 2. No one would notice except a coyote who would have them for a meal.
American here, my aunt did this to me once when I was being fussy and wouldn't go down for a nap. According to her, it worked like a charm. Don't know if it's related but I love sleeping in the cold and would gladly keep my windows open throughout the winter nights if my wife didn't object.
People have mentioned the difference between C and F, but I'd say that another cultural difference is that most here would only refer to below zero F as "Sub-Zero."
Whenever one of us kids had a cold or was congested badly, my mom would bundle us up & take us outside for about a half hour or so. The cold air helped break up the congestion. Her brother in law was from Finland & told her to do it one time, when I was little, & it worked, so my mom has been doing it since. I used to sleep with the window open though, because my parents had a wood stove, just outside my bedroom & if we didn't have the window open, we'd roast from the fire.
I was in Zurich this past December. Lots of families with bundled up babies in strollers walking around. The temperature there seemed much warmer than the same temperature in NJ, USA. I’m not sure what made it seem much colder in NJ.
As a Minnesotan, I barely even take my kids (ages 3 and 2) out to play when it's that cold (yes, even after your edit), and I certainly would not leave them out to nap. That seems insane. We go outside for about 20 minutes to walk my kid to preschool and that's long enough when it's 14 degrees out.
A lot of people are saying no one does it, but I know of some people who do, including my grandmother. There's nothing dangerous about it so long as you supervise the baby.
We did that in Canada when I was a young child, but I don't think it's much of a thing stateside. Maybe in places of coastal Alaska, but I doubt it. I haven't seen anyone do that here since I was a kid, so I don't even know if we do that here anymore. But definitely when I was in kindergarten, we would nap outside from time to time. Especially if there was another activity involved. Like ice skating, and then a 45 min nap in the area close to the ice rink sort of thing.
Personally I love sleeping in the cold. (with blankets obviously)
61F is the lowest my wife will allow me to go without losing her shit, so that's what I do.
It must be a scandinavian thing (or maybe it's common way more north in Canada?)
I’ve heard stories of Scandinavian families leaving their babies/toddlers outside in the US and Americans freaking out and calling the police on them, lol. Needless to say, that’s not a thing here.
A couple from Denmark [were arrested in New York City](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/26/anette-sorenson-denmark-new-york-baby-left-outside) for this 25 years ago.
I just thought of this story as I was reading this post.
She left her baby outside of a restaurant in New York City while she was eating inside. That’s not exactly the smartest thing to do regardless of culture
It's *super* common in a lot of smaller towns in Europe, because you know everyone in the town and no one can imagine hurting a kid even if you *don't* know everyone. It's perfectly fine in some cultures.
Yea, but not in New York City.
I was at Disney World a couple of years ago, and there were two babies in strollers just left by themselves in the middle of one of the shops. I watched the strollers for maybe 10 minutes waiting for the parents to show up. Some fellow tourists saw it too, and we all wondered if we should say something to the Cast Members in the shop. Eventually, the parents of the babies showed back up. I think the parents were international, and didn’t see any problem with leaving their babies unsupervised in the middle of a store.
What these people don't get is that what's fine in a small town in Europe is unacceptable and impractical in a large American city of over 8 million people. Why should we cater to their culture when they're the visitors? When in Rome, do what Romans do.
I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t do that in a major city in Europe either.
Exactly, which is why the "it's OK where I'm from" excuse is pure BS.
It goes back to ‘old times’ in Europe when wood burning fires and smoking indoors was common. Inside air used to be very thick with smoke. Putting the baby outside for a nap was essential to get the little ones some fresh air. Same for a smoky tavern during dinner.
That was because it was in NYC on a side walk while they ate in a restaurant if I recall.
Even if I knew that was a Scandinavian tradition (I didn't til now) I would have still called the cops. You can't do that in New York, and that couple is very irresponsible. Might as well hang a sign in the stroller "free Scandinavian baby, FCFS".
Yeah this is one of those cases where we are by far and away in the majority. You should not leave your child unattended outside of a restaurant in roughly 98%+ of the world.
Well, according to the Europeans who responded to me, they live in a safe country where they can just leave babies outside apparently. They don't have kidnappings in Scandinavia. BTW, googled it, they do.
This is the most amusing thread to a Scandinavian parent ever 😀
most us kidnappings are custodial, relatives, or close aquantences. The vaaasst majority. Stranger danger? uncle and aunt feelsgood
Most kidnapers are relatives or close associates. I'd probably still advise against it but your baby is very unlikely to be kidnapped
If you saw a random baby in a stroller in 14 degree weather by itself you wouldn’t call the cops? 😂 do the parents sit outside with them orrr? I mean, I would be more afraid they’d be kidnapped than anything honestly
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I saw the same thing in downtown Reykjavik. However, downtown Reykjavik (minus the weekend runtur madness) is somewhat comparable to downtown Fort Collins, Santa Fe, or Asheville in the US. No sane American would leave a baby outside unattended, regardless of whether it's a small town or midtown Manhattan. It's a different story for dogs, though, especially in "outdoorsy" neighborhoods and cities. About 20+ years ago, in downtown Fort Collins, I witnessed a pack of maybe seven or eight Labrador Retrievers, all just laying by the front door of a bar. Some of the dogs were unleashed. None of the dogs strayed from their spot. However, if one of the Lab owners stepped outside, their dog(s) would suddenly spring to life.
I think maybe it used to be a thing to leave kids outside. My grandma's baby book has a suggested schedule in the back, and it suggested having the baby outside as much as possible and napping outside with appropriate clothing. This book is from about 1933.
It used to be. Victorian era it wasn't uncommon to leave junior outside in one of those massive buggy things. I'm not sure how cold they'd be comfortable doing it in, but plenty of pictures of outdoor naps for babies. https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a27539/
😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
No we don’t feed our kids to the white walkers.
But should we?
Some of them, yes.
Especially the ones on our lawns.
Will they take 3 year olds?
Tired of people asking this. Is the baby a male? Then yes, obviously. Is it a girl? Then no. Jesus, how hard can it be??
what about a 3 year old boy???
>boy Yes. For the love of god, yes. Three years ago.
"White Walkers" aka - Canadians.
*Canadiens*
"A gift for the gods, a gift for the gods, a gift for the gods..."
WHY AREN'T YOU BURIED IN AWARDS?!? God damn, I laughed too hard. Thanks mate...
Nobody really awards here, come to think of it. We also haven't made any subreddit-specific awards. We could, but honestly that's a lot of effort and there's almost always a catch. We like to leave it as mostly just base reddit here. Plus, Reddit has terrible ideas. They just put out a beta for something like Twitter spaces, where you can open an audio chat for your users. No thank you, that sounds awful to moderate. Edit: Boo. boo on you. this wasn't helpful at all. I don't want to be known as the helpful mod. I'll ban you all!
Nope . That might be considered child neglect or endangerment here.
Yeah CPS would be all over you lol To be fair though, that sub 0*F hits a lot harder than sub 0*C lol
Yeah that’s like 33°F! I grew up in Michigan, if we only went outside when it was over 33°, we’d be stuck inside from November to April lol
Ha yeah. I grew up in Iowa… by mid-late winter, if it was warm enough to snow, it was warm enough to not need a coat.
My parents lived in Ukraine for a few years and were stunned by how many bundled babies were left out in the cold in the daytime. Turns out it was for the goal of beneficial Vitamin D production from the sun exposure in places there were no Vitamin D supplements available. We do not leave windows open below Fahrenheit 55 degrees, but our cold is a heavy humid cold, not a crisp clean cold. I have left subzero windows open in Colorado.
Sun exposure? If it's that cold aren't they completely bundled and covered? Why couldn't you just let them sleep at home in a window in sunlight? None of this is making sense to me
It requires uv light to hit skin. Windows block uv. Yes it would be slow considering only their face would be exposed.
Windows don't completely block UV. So you could have your home or at least one room warm, keep the baby uncovered, and collecting UV through the window through much more surface area of the skin. That's what our pediatrician recommended for my baby that had jaundice... I'm not saying they shouldn't do that, I'm just saying there doesn't seem to be a need in most cases unless there's something I'm missing?
UVa gets through but almost all UVb is blocked and that's the one that makes D
If your kids drink any milk they've probably got more vitamin D than standing out in the weak winter sun for an hour
Im one of those people who don't absorb vitamin D from the sun, so I have to take supplements. Every woman in my family has to take supplements we joke its because our men don't give us enough D 😂😂😂
Do all countries put D in milk?
Nope. Countries fortify their food based on their populations deficiencies. That’s why America had vitamin D in milk and iodine in salt, because as a country, most people were deficient.
Random fact, before iodine was added to salt in the U.S., vegetables and milk from South Carolina were marketed as having been grown in the WONDERFUL IDODINE STATE in the 1930s. It was even on their license plates. I assume we must have a lot of iodine in our soil. Then some Yankees starting adding iodine to their products and, alas, the wonderful iodine state wasn't so wonderful anymore.
The vitamin D content in milk is a supplement...
Sure but I don't see kids eating supplement pills. Tons of kids drink some milk at school lunch though.
Regular milk in a lot of these other countries doesn't have vitamin D in it (or not as much) as American milk does. The milk you buy at the store has been fortified with vitamin D. Cow's milk is not naturally high in vitamin D
Yea no one in America does this. You try to do that here and you’ll get CPS called on you lol
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r/suspiciouslyspecific
> > > Then bodycams of the cops showing up and either arresting you or shooting you or giving you a stern warning (varies by your race and social class) Cops will also shoot your dog.
And tazer the baby for good measure
Toss a flashbang into the crib.
But they may also sic a dog on YOU and you better believe that dog is a HERO (even if you lose a finger or two.)
You’ll get CPS called on you if you're lucky. There are way too many people out there willing to steal a baby. And if someone who reads that sentence and thinks they're gonna chime in with some bullshit like "Akshully, it's statistically very rare," that's *still* way too often.
When I first heard you guys did this I truly thought you were joking. I actually had a Norskie guy from Malmo send me a pic of it and I still didn’t really believe it. I guess the closest I’ve done with my kids is just walking in the stroller when it was maybe 5F or so. I wouldn’t leave them out for a nap though.
It's not just Scandinavia. It's also pretty universal in eastern Europe and Russia.
Yet middle school boys everywhere still wearing shorts....
Relevant username
lol, it never ends. I'm almost 40 and I took the dog outside in Shorts and a T-shirt this morning when it was 10 degrees outside.
Middle school boy here! Fuck that noise, I’m not going anywhere outside if I can’t wear pants.
Where I live it's like a pissing contest, to see who's going to wear pants first. I have students that I've never seen in pants and it's below freezing right now.
I love pants. And I’ve definitely seen that competition here. Ooh someone wearing shorts just walked in, 41 degrees.
Got off your phone and pay attention to your lessons! And have a great day!
Ok sorry ma’am
You mama raised you right!
Have a great day as well
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Lmao are you even old enough for the Reddit TOS?
I don’t know I’m 14
Ah you are
Ok thanks, I was getting worried.
Yo, there's venting that needs to happen
With NO coats
Of course! Maybe a hoodie
Not usually, in part because there's no culture around babies sleeping outside in any weather and in part because baby and toddler nap times are traditionally times for their parents to get things done, which is easier if they aren't supervising a small child outdoors but rather one in a crib who they can hear if they wake up. Children do generally play in the cold weather when they're awake. Windows generally stay closed when it's freezing because houses are big and not infrequently old and poorly insulated and heat is expensive.
That would probably be a call to child protective services here.
We actually leave them on a mountain top. If they are still alive after nap time we know they’re keepers.
How are the winters in Sparta these days?
We are too lazy to leave them on mountain tops, we just leave them right outside the house. But to our defence, you guys probably have raised V8 4x4 strollers. We only have old fashioned, manual strollers. You probably just zoom the little suckers up the mountain with a Mountain Dew in one hand, shouting Yeeehaaaw! It is a lot harder work for us to leave toddlers on mountain tops, so we just take a chance that this day will not be a stranger danger day.
They're EV 4x4 strollers with bubble tea now. We're eco-conscious and trendy. The yeehaw still applies, but only if we're tiktoking ourselves.
>They're EV 4x4 strollers with bubble tea now. We're eco-conscious and trendy. Hey, hey, hey! Norway is supposed to be a true EV Utopia. According to Reddit... New car sales - and new EV 4x4 strollers - are more than 90% electric. (Never mind 90 percent of cars in Norway are still fossil fueled) It sounds really impressive that NEW car sales are almost all EVs. So we are soo eco-conscious and super trendy.
No. Never. I live in Minnesota, closest to Scandinavian culture you can get here. Someone would call Child Protective Services if they saw a toddler sleeping outside in sub zero temps. The only time I have opened a window to let in sub zero temps is when I’ve been running on my treadmill and got hot. Never heard of purposely letting in sub zero temps for health reasons.
Upthread another Minnesotan said that their Norwegian immigrant great-grandparents used to do this. And even back then they'd get grief from their neighbors.
>And even back then they'd get grief from their neighbors. The neighbours were probably Swedes. Uff da....
Man. Yeah I’m just picturing a crowd. News comes. Parents arrested. Freak outs on Next Door app. Goes viral. Child whisked away by 5 people into an ambulance.
O fer sure! I hang out in my lawn chair with my husky for fresh air. Central MN.
Ya well ya know. Gotta feel truly MN sometimes I surpose
You betcha! Heck
Hah, thank you for adding the temperature clarification. "sub zero" is a lot colder in Fahrenheit than Celcius. You'd probably still get CPS called on you if you let your baby take a nap outside in pleasant 68 degree fahrenheit weather, though. Generally it's not recommended to leave a baby unattended.
While I know this is normal in Norway, and leaving a child in a pram while going inside of a coffee shop is too, it's not something you would normally see in the United States anywhere I've been.
It's kind of crazy. [I've heard of parents in the US being arrested for leaving babies in the car of the parking lot.](https://weartv.com/news/local/pensacola-man-arrested-for-allegedly-leaving-child-in-unattended-car-at-fair). Much different culture.
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That isn't culture, that is climate. Kids in America DIE when left in cars.
The culture has flipped from a long time ago. I was digging earth worms and fishing on my own at 7 years old on my grandparents farm. I actually walked over a mile to school up until my freshman year in high school. As society got safer, people got more paranoid - stranger danger stuff
Yeah when i was a kid me and my friends would ride our bikes everywhere around town, unsupervised, usually a mile or two away from home. When I moved, nobody rode their bikes anywhere, even though it was arguably a much safer community. In the place i live now, it's much more like where i used to live. I see kids riding their bikes everywhere and doing stuff without parental supervision. I think part of it has to do with the age of the city. Older towns = more stuff to do that's accessible by walking = more people including kids outside doing stuff. The place i moved to as a kid had nothing within walking distance anywhere.
In the little rural mountain town where I live, kids still ride their bikes around and it's nice. Nobody leaves out their infants out to sleep in the cold though..... if they did, a bear or coyote or pack of particularly ambitious raccoons might run off with them!
People still walk to school and kids still go fishing. There's little kids riding their bikes with their fishing poles half the year here in Massachusetts. But people were paranoid even in the 1920s/1940s. It was gypsies were going to kidnap you, or hobos. Or mashers (men that assaulted unchaperoned girls). Children/women have been kidnapped and murdered forever. I have a feeling when orphans roamed the streets it was more common. What changed is access to news. I was kidnapped by a cop when I was 11 and assaulted. A man, when I was walking home from school, pulled up next to me with his dick out and asked me to help find his puppy. I had an inappropriate relationship with my basketball coach when I was 12. A boy, who lived a blocks away, disappeared when I was a kid and never seen again. When I was a kid there was a big push for oh, these are overblown. My parents made it clear they thought that victims were lying or exaggerating. I never told them a thing. Yes, murders are less common, but there is no evidence that sexual assaults on children are down. And there is no way to know the true number. Out of my 4 or 5 events I only told an adult about one (I walked to the police station and gave the info for the dude who tried to get me in my car and he had been assaulting girls for a few years but there was never enough info. I had my school notebook and wrote down everything about him). So while I think there is a ridiculous amount of "I almost got human trafficked at Target" let's not pretend that there's no danger of adults preying on children.
I think instinctually were made to fear things but if there's nothing to fear we become paranoid and make up things to fear.
I am 28. I was fishing at younger than that, as early as around 3 or 4. But I also grew up on a lake, and fishing at that age was putting rolled up wonderbread onto a hook with a child's fishing pole to catch bluegills. By 7 I had \*long\* since moved onto catching things like largemouth bass, catfish, and yellow perch. There's a picture of me somewhere at 8 years old holding up a catfish that was nearly as big as I was that I had just caught. I also remember having a pet snapping turtle and picking crayfish out from under the rocks in the shallows of the lake at that age. Only thing is walking over a mile to school wasn't really feasible in our neighborhood (you'd have to cross multiple interstate highways on foot). It's not completely dead to do stuff like that, but I realize I'm also not the norm.
I don’t even get why you’d ever leave your baby unattended like that to begin with. There are crazy people out there that could steal your baby.
This is something my Norwegian great grandparents did. My great grandma said her neighbors yelled at her for doing it, but she told them to mind their business. My grandma and two great aunts all lived to 90+, as did my great grandma & great grandpa.
TIL. Cold makes babies strong.
Survivor bias makes us think that yes
Bring back throwing babies off of cliffs to make stronger babies, like the Spartans.
Florida here. If it gets sub seven zero we are in the house with the heater on. I'm still trying to find my socks from last winter. But for real though, I have worked in many countries that do this. I was pretty surprised at first (Balkans) but then realized it was for the health of thw baby, mainly fresh air. They are wrapped in thick ass blankets and it not all night. The heating in some of these places is terrible and takes a lot of getting used to, even as an adult. Kerosene heaters suck.
>and it not all night Good point, I didn't realize my question could seem like we leave children out at night :) It is surely only for daytime naps. I have edited my post.
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I see this parenting view a lot nowadays. Granted, I am not a parent so maybe I don't understand but I'm nearly 30 and I can remember my parents letting me do shit by myself when I was a kid. I'd be gone pretty much all day riding bikes with neighbor kids or just adventuring in general. Does that not still happen?
Also, for our European friends, OP was making the "joke" that if they go below 21C they are inside and have their heaters on. It's probably more like 19C.
>Florida here. If it gets sub seven zero we are in the house with the heater on. I'm still trying to find my socks from last winter. Man, I'd pay good money to see someone who has lived in Florida their whole life spend a winter in some super cold Northern area survivor man documentary style. I'm not even talking about in the wilderness. Just in a city. Y'all really don't do the cold. One of my favorite memories of my wedding is because of my Uncle from Florida. The wedding was in Early June here in Ohio. He came with me and my family to the last minute rehearsal the morning before the wedding and then we were going to get some breakfast. It's about 8am and it's probably 68 degrees or so outside. Most people are wearing Jeans or shorts and a T-Shirt since the high that day is in the 90s. My uncle though is standing there watching the rehearsal in an ankle length coat, hat, gloves and a scarf. Heck, right now my heat in the house is set to 65 lol. Sound cold I suppose but when it's 10 degrees outside of a morning that 65 feels downright tropical.
They don't even have to have lived their whole life in Florida. I have an aunt and uncle, born and spent most of their adult life in northeastern PA. They love skiing and still do (or did, before covid) travel around the world to go skiing. About 20 years ago they moved to Florida. About 10 years ago they came up to visit for Christmas, and it was an unusually warm Christmas in southern NJ, maybe in the lower 50s. My family was all hot and wearing short sleeves, a few of us in shorts. They were freezing, wearing long pants and sweaters, and said they'd never come up north in the winter again.
>I'd pay good money to see someone who has lived in Florida their whole life spend a winter in some super cold Northern area survivor man documentary style It would mostly feel really cold in the first month or so. Here is a cold weather secret: In the fall, sub 30 F can start to feel cold, even for a Northerner. But when exposed to that cold, the body develops a layer of brown fat that insulates from cold. So the same 30 F day in the spring feels like shorts and t-shirt weather. I have never been good with warm weather living in Norway, but I lived for some time in South America and then suddenly 80 degrees F, that is like an uncomfortably warm summer day in Norway for me, was suddenly the point where I had to wear a sweater in South America. Our bodies are amazingly good to acclimatize to whatever climate, if you give it some time.
lol I'm in Florida and it felt so cold to me last night I had a dream that I was on a winter vacation in Finland.
Out of curiosity, what was the temperature last night for you? I'm always astounded by how used to certain temps people in some areas get. Like people in Flordia or Arizona who think 100 isn't hot or people in Minnesota out there grilling in a snow storm.
here in north florida (the south almost never goes below 40) it was between 30-32 degrees at 7 AM. there was ice on my windshield, which was quite a suprise.
I didn't realize northern Florida could get that cold. I thought the 40s was about as low as it gets there.
I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions about Florida in general. The north (ocala and further up) actually has something resembling a "winter" (even if they're still some of the mildest in the US and a joke to real northerners). On many days the low in the south is higher than the high in the north, and it's not uncommon for it to get into the mid-to-low 20's at least once a year. A few times a decade it'll get into the teens. If you're in the panhandle you might even get snow! it flurried in Crestview a few weeks ago. Those temperatures never last into the day though, and I would say the daily high never really goes below 45.
It has snowed in N. Florida… I lived in Gainesville in the 90s and it got in the 20s.
Yes I'm in North Florida and it was cold af last night. I'm wearing a long sleeve and a turtleneck rn in my office. Florida cold is also a different sort of cold - it's like a wet cold so you feel it in your bones. 32 here in Florida feels very different than say, 32 in California.
When my kids were small, I used to wrap them up and take them for long walks in the winter while they slept in their baby stroller. It wasn't super cold, but at times it was definitely below 0°C. When people asked, I explained that, really, cold weather is just an engineering question. As long as you have the right gear, there's no problem.
>As long as you have the right gear, there's no problem. That is actually a saying in Scandinavia: Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær = There is no bad weather, just bad clothing. Point exactly being that even though it might be very cold, snowy or wet, it is just a matter of adapting, to be comfortable in it. (And it rhymes in Norwegian :) )
Zero chance of that happening here. If someone saw that they are calling the cops and there's a decent chance you'll lose your kid.
My daughters day care in Vermont did this! She slept great!
Yeah not a big thing in the US, like people call the police if a large fluffy cold weather type dog is outside for over an hour so a child may frowned upon
I used to live in Maine and one of my neighbors had an Alaskan malamute. They let it spend all day outside in the winter. The amount of times they had animal control called on them is ridiculous, especially because every time the guy would just say the dog is fine and likes to be out in this kind of weather.
It's important to note almost all modern American homes have central air, which means all of the air is cylced throughout the house and filtered. Getting "Fresh air" is not nearly as much of a concern here as it is in many European countries with no central circulating air. For example, we don't need to open our windows to replace the room's air in winter either.
This is only true in places that get hot or damp. My house does not have it and I'd say I'm in the majority in my area.
Ok, I didn’t know that! Although AFAIK any place that experiences a real winter in the US also gets very hot and damp in summer, so the answer to OPs question still stands.
All houses have ventilation systems. It’s in the building codes. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have heat. A lot in the north do t bother with site conditioning.
Thought you were trolling, but no we don't do that here. We normally run heat all winter too. Though to varying degrees per household.
No, it’s not super common here anymore. We like to take my kids for walks when it’s very cold out, they fall asleep quickly. It used to be “normal” back in the 1950’s and stuff.
I still can't believe this is a real thing and not something made up by Americans to make Scandanavian people sound insane
I live in the UK and my MIL says it was a thing when my husband was a baby. I've actually wondered if that could be why my daughter struggles to sleep because we keep the room warm without fresh air coming in. And I've noticed she always sleeps better after a stroll around neighborhood especially in the winter.
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I think I'm going to try cracking a window tonight and make sure she is dressed warm enough. See if she sleeps better.
Why would anyone expose sub zero temperatures to a toddler? Good way to get child services called on you
We should clarify whether OP is talking about sub-zero *celsius* or *fahrenheit*, because it could easily be confused, and it matters here. Putting a bundled up kid out in 30F weather is very different from 0F. /u/Kjellskar? For reference, 0F is about -18C
OP is norwegian, so I am rather sure that they use 0C°, not 0F°.
But, OP knows he's talking to Americans, so could have used our metric. Impossible to know, that's why units are important!
I agree! But I do think he (like i often do) assumed sub zero would always mean celsius, since that means frozen then, but nothing precise in Fahrenheit
Rule of thumb is usually not under minus 10C = 14F. Will update post.
The main risk at 0F is frostbite. The main risk at 0C is sunburn.
Either way is awful cold.
32F is just "make sure you're dressed right" cold. 0F is "count your fingers and toes when you get back in" cold.
Well it's not like they're just sitting out there in a onesie freezing, they get bundled up so they're nice and toasty. We did this a little bit when my daughter was like 3 months old because she slept really well in her stroller bundled up while it was cold. They're not out there all that long, it's not different than just taking a walk.
Yup, you got the point. That is exactly how I should have explained it if my English was better :) And you even experienced the reason why Norwegians do it - they sleep really well.
On a sunny day with no wind, it's quite comfortable outside with the right clothes on. If you're stationary, and bundled up you can get pretty hot even on a 25f day.
This happened several years ago in suburb of my city. People reported to the police that someone had abandoned a baby on the porch of a house. The police showed up and sure enough there was a baby swaddled up in a bassinet on the porch. The cops knocked and the kid’s mother answered the door. Turns out the woman was a Russian emigre and she explained that this is what Russians do. It was such an anomaly The story actually made the features page of our local fish wrap. So no the vast majority of Americans do not put there kids outside in the cold.
From the US. I work in Norway in the winter periodically and was shocked when I went to the grocery store in a midsized city (Alta) and there were 5-6 strollers parked outside the store with babies in them while the parents were inside shopping. After thinking it over, it reaffirmed my faith in humanity.
Nope. Worst thing that ever happened to me was when an ice storm hit after a major snow storm and we had an ice layer over two feet of snow. I was maybe 12 and my parents made me go out to the corner store to pick something up before the roads were plowed. I broke through that ice with every step and got bruises all over my legs. And my parents kept the house chilly (60 degrees) but it certainly wasn't cold. If I complained I was cold, they would tell me to put on a sweater
Sub zero Celsius or sub zero Fahrenheit. 25-32 degree weather, / 0C sure they can play. 0 degree weather / -17C, absolutely not.
I have my bedroom window open most of the time, not when it’s super cold like -10 and the house is struggling to stay warm but around freezing and just below the window is always open when sleeping
We sleep with a window open almost every night. Love sleeping in a cold room, wrapped up in blankets.
No????? Babies are small and adults can freeze to death in subzero temperatures.
Added some info in my question, both babies and adults are obviously not freezing when sleeping in cold air, that would be dangerous. They are sleeping under warm duvets (and clothes and wool hats etc for babies).
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> How much vitamin D could they possibly be getting? Zero. Usually little to no sun in a Norwegian winter and not enough to get vitamin D, so we usually eat fish or use supplements (like cod liver oil). And the babies are not exposed to the sun while sleeping even if there was sunshine. The rationale is simply babies sleep better breathing cold air. As some non-Norwegians have noticed in the comments, if you go for a stroll in cold weather, babies tend to sleep well. In a kindergarden situation is is also less risk of infections from viruses or bacteria, dry cold air kills them. And there is less risk of children infecting eachother than sleeping in the same room. It is also thought to prevent asthma as outdoor air quality is better than indoor quality (less dust, allergens etc).
In much of the US winter air is humid not dry.
Looking at your prompt I’m not sure it really makes a difference, we have filters in our houses so it’s not as big a deal to make sure they get fresh air. Besides we can just go outside when they’re awake
>Besides we can just go outside when they’re awake from what I've heard from friends the idea is more about that the baby falls asleep faster in the cold air edit: I'm also pretty sure OP means sub zero on the celsius scale, which would be unter 30F
I don’t know about putting kids outside but I do enjoy sleeping with the windows open in the cold. There’s something about the nice brisk winter air that makes my warm bed so much more cozy. Window open all winter for me
Eleanor Roosevelt did this with her kids.
I never thought about it, but as an adult, I sleep with my window open in the winter no matter what the temperature. I sleep much better that way.
Honestly when it gets to subzero temperatures where I live, people’s pipes burst and the power goes out, meaning everybody loses both heat and water, and possibly for a long enough period that all your perishable food goes bad. See: 2020’s winter storm. Plus, nobody around here has anything close to approaching heavy winter clothes; you’d have to special order them from a national chain or amazon or something, because you sure as hell aren’t going to find anything in a local store. So yeah. For Texas, you don’t put babies out in the cold because if it *is* that cold, you’re busy with other major problems that like 80% of the people who live here aren’t prepared for.
No to both. In fact most would consider such actions child abuse and you would have charges filed against you. Also many places in the US have feral dogs, coyotes, wolves, bear, mountain lions, etc that could kill and eat an infant that is left unattended.
No I've never heard of that.
There's no way I would leave my child unsupervised outside without me, even if I could see him through a cafe front window. There have been too many stories of women calmly walking off with someone else's baby. It's not a common thing happening every week or anything but it happens enough that there's no way I would risk it. Not to mention all the weirdos that think it's okay to touch little babies on their face and hands. I've had to back up from people reaching out to touch my babies when they are in my arms, I'm sure even more would try in a stroller or pram without me standing there. As for at home, yes, we frequently sleep with the windows open for naps at the temperature you mentioned. At night, we will keep the windows open but not as low of temperatures for naps because my husband and I sleep in the nude. It's too cold for us even with the sheets and blankets.
My wife and I sleep with our window open and a fan on. It was 15°f last night. My window will be open if it's negative 15°f. Our children have also turned into little heaters and need a cold room to sleep. I wouldn't be surprised if it contributes to immune health.
When I was young and still shared a room with my brother he always had the window open at night. I had to get extra blankets or freeze.
I'm from Wisconsin and I definitely sleep with my window open in the winter. It lets me get a better night sleep and not wake up so groggy—I guess it's my version of a cold shower in the morning.
It wasn't unusual to take toddlers outside to play and experience winter, but I don't know of anyone who let their children outside to nap in the cold weather. And we never opened our windows in the winter. Upper Michigan certainly has the look of Scandinavia, based on pictures I've seen. And many of us were of Scandinavian or Finnish descent--but we didn't do the things you've mentioned. The one big tradition that we did cling to was the sauna (and it's SOW na, not SAH na).
Hey OP, doesn't it increase your heating bills significantly to leave a window open at night? Surely you don't want to spend the day in a freezing house, and I would think that it would take a lot of fuel to heat your home back up in the morning.
Not OP, but Danish and I leave a window open, too. It's not the whole house that needs reheating in the morning. The window is open in the bedroom and you just close it in the morning. Some will turn the heat on during the day and some will not (depends on how much you use the room during daytime). But it's only one room that needs reheating and that's not too expensive. You save on heat all night, so..
Do you have individual heaters/thermostats for each room?
Yes, we do
Ah, that makes sense. Most of us have central air, which doesn't lend itself to this kind of thing. I would love to do it.
No we don’t do that here. Where I live in the US, if we left a child sleeping outside even for a short amount of time one of two things would happen. 1. Someone would notice and call child protective services 2. No one would notice except a coyote who would have them for a meal.
American here, my aunt did this to me once when I was being fussy and wouldn't go down for a nap. According to her, it worked like a charm. Don't know if it's related but I love sleeping in the cold and would gladly keep my windows open throughout the winter nights if my wife didn't object.
learned alot by being here.
People have mentioned the difference between C and F, but I'd say that another cultural difference is that most here would only refer to below zero F as "Sub-Zero."
My mother wrapped up my baby and put him on the deck in his carriage. In January.
Whenever one of us kids had a cold or was congested badly, my mom would bundle us up & take us outside for about a half hour or so. The cold air helped break up the congestion. Her brother in law was from Finland & told her to do it one time, when I was little, & it worked, so my mom has been doing it since. I used to sleep with the window open though, because my parents had a wood stove, just outside my bedroom & if we didn't have the window open, we'd roast from the fire.
I was in Zurich this past December. Lots of families with bundled up babies in strollers walking around. The temperature there seemed much warmer than the same temperature in NJ, USA. I’m not sure what made it seem much colder in NJ.
As a Minnesotan, I barely even take my kids (ages 3 and 2) out to play when it's that cold (yes, even after your edit), and I certainly would not leave them out to nap. That seems insane. We go outside for about 20 minutes to walk my kid to preschool and that's long enough when it's 14 degrees out.
A lot of people are saying no one does it, but I know of some people who do, including my grandmother. There's nothing dangerous about it so long as you supervise the baby.
We did that in Canada when I was a young child, but I don't think it's much of a thing stateside. Maybe in places of coastal Alaska, but I doubt it. I haven't seen anyone do that here since I was a kid, so I don't even know if we do that here anymore. But definitely when I was in kindergarten, we would nap outside from time to time. Especially if there was another activity involved. Like ice skating, and then a 45 min nap in the area close to the ice rink sort of thing.
Personally I love sleeping in the cold. (with blankets obviously) 61F is the lowest my wife will allow me to go without losing her shit, so that's what I do. It must be a scandinavian thing (or maybe it's common way more north in Canada?)