Advantages of Hats

When it comes to controlling your baby's body temperature, there are some definite benefits to having a hat on hand.

Heat Loss

When it comes to maintaining heat there are 2 variables that you need to consider, namely insulation and surface area. For more information on this you can read our section on Heat Loss. Let's take a glance at how each of these applies to our current situation.

The larger the surface area is, the more heat will be lost through that surface. This has only the most limited use here since there is really nothing that can be done about the total surface area of a child.

When we combine it with insulation then we get some benefits out of surface area, since we would be talking about exposed surface area. The less heat loss, the less exposed surface area, the more heat you want to radiate the more skin you want uninsulated.

But even this is of only minor value since after a certain point the majority of the skin is covered. If you are adding a second layer, it will have reduced benefit due to the presence of the first layer.

Diminishing Results

To explain that, lets say you have a group of blankets that each reduces heat loss by 50%, and your total heat loss is 100 Joules

• Using one blanket will drop heat loss from 100 Joules to 50 Joules, for an increase of retention of 50 Joules.
• You add a second blanket, and it drops from 50 Joules to 25 Joules for an increase of retention of 25 Joules (50% * 50% = 25% heat loss).
• The third blanket would only save you 12.5 Joules (50% * 50% * 50% = 12.5%).

Your percent benefit is the same every time, but your gain in heat loss is reduced with every new blanket: 50 Joules with the first, 25 with the second, 12.5 with the third, 6.25 with the fourth, and so on.

Your biggest benefits come from the places with the lowest amount of insulation. But your baby will pretty much always have a shirt and pants (or something else providing equivalent coverage) on, and if you are going outside they will likely have on shoes and socks.

When you add gloves to this, your baby is covered from the neck down. Furthermore, you should be careful when covering a babies face. The only remaining uninsulated areas are the top, sides, and back of the head.

Baby Hats

When it comes to getting large results with limited effort, a hat and gloves are the best way to go. These locations are easy to cover and uncover, are not unusual to leave uncovered, and because it would be the first layer of insulation would provide the greatest benefit.

Don't get me wrong, a coat, a blanket, snow pants... These are all important to have, but they are all rather inconvenient to take off. You can achieve just as much, or maybe even more results by adding or removing a hat or gloves while requiring much less effort.