As Ideal Home’s Sleep Editor – and a self-certified very-hot-sleeper even in the depths of winter – you better believe that over the past four years, I’ve tested out every cooling bedding product and cooling hack under the sun (no pun intended) in a bid to sleep cooler during a heatwave.
This cooling hack is also completely free, as long as you have a fridge – and it’s a trick that comes recommended by multiple sleep experts.
Yep, when I want to cool down my sleep set-up *fast*, I pop my sheets and/or my pillowcase into a resealable plastic bag, and put them into the fridge (or even the freezer) to chill them before I climb into bed.
(Image credit: Future PLC/ Ryan Wicks)
Whenever I’m beside myself tossing and turning on a hot and humid night, I find this hack works wonders to lower my temperature and help me relax into sleep.
‘If you want to sleep better during the hot nights, put your sheets and pillowcases in a plastic bag and stick them in the freezer for a few hours before bed,’ agrees Sammy Margo, sleep expert at Dreams. ‘This can create a cool and refreshing sleeping surface.’
‘Heatwaves can seriously disrupt our sleep,’ explains Sammy, ‘as our bodies need a stable internal temperature of around 37°C for optimal melatonin release – that’s the hormone that helps us drift off.’
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‘When external temperatures soar, achieving quality rest becomes much harder. A simple trick like this can help us to stay cool and promote restful sleep even on the warmest nights.’
‘The ideal bedroom temperature is around 16-18°C’, adds sleep expert and founder of The Sleep Site, Dave Gibson. ‘That’s why on hot and humid summer nights, we find it hard to fall asleep, as our core temperature can’t drop.’
‘Putting your pillow cases or sheets in a plastic bag and putting them in the freezer for a couple of hours before bedtime can help lower your core temperature and allow you to drift off,’ confirms Dave.
(Image credit: Future/James French)
This can be a particularly important tip for anyone who finds it harder to regulate their body temperature during hot weather, such as those with health conditions, the elderly, or young children.
‘The elderly and young babies, whose bodies have difficulty regulating temperature, are especially vulnerable to the negative effects of overheating during sleep,’ warns Dave.
As well as the hack of putting bedding into the fridge before bed, Dave also suggests that dampening our bedding can be a useful way of creating a cooler sleeping environment. Although Dave warns, ‘if you have any respiratory issues, avoid this tip.’
For those who don’t have breathing issues, ‘you can use a damp blanket to dampen your duvet cover before bed,’ says Dave. ‘You don’t want it wet, so wring it out as much as possible. You could also put a wet sheet or duvet cover on the spin cycle in your washing machine, which will help to make it damp but not wet.’
‘You could do the same with your bottom sheets, too, but make sure to put a piece of waterproof material or a waterproof mattress protector between the sheet and your bed to prevent the moisture from soaking into your mattress and damaging it.’
‘A good hack is to put cold, wet muslins on the bars of the cot whilst your little one is not in there to cool air in the room as the water evaporates,’ says Jenna. ‘A cold compress can also be used for older children.’
And this is a cooling trick adults can employ too. ‘Dampen a sheet with cold water and hang it in front of your open window,’ says Sammy at Dreams. ‘The breeze will blow through the sheet and cool down your room.’
As I write this, I’m currently sitting in my very hot home office with a cold, damp muslin cloth draped around my shoulders – and I can confirm it’s doing the trick to make the 30°C temperatures a lot more bearable and keep my core temperature lower.
Personally, I’m going to be employing every one of these heatwave hacks to try and sleep cooler tonight. As well as dragging every item of cooling bedding I own out of my laundry cupboard to put on my bed. If you want to do the same, I’ve listed my top three below.
Silentnight
Restore Cooling Gel Body Pad
Another cooling product you can put into the fridge, the gel in this sleeping pad gets *icy* cold after 30 minutes in the fridge. It doesn’t keep that chill all night, but it can be very useful for lowering your body temperature to help you drift off to sleep.
H&M
Muslin Duvet Cover Set – Single
If you’re looking to dampen your bedding, I think the light and airy weave of cotton muslin bedding works best. That open weave allows for good airflow, and air circulation allows us to regulate our body temperature better.
Tommee Tippee
Portable Blackout Blind
Blocking as much sun as possible from entering the house is a key way to keep rooms cooler in the summer. I use this Tommee Tippee portable blackout blind in my south-east-facing bedroom window. It has suction cups that stick to the glass, so I can also easily move it around the house as the sun shifts.
As a friend recently said to me, ‘summer is great, until you have kids’… Personally, I feel she was forgetting about the fact that, as a parent, you’re perfectly entitled to blow up a paddling pool on a hot day and lounge in it to your heart’s content without any judgment. But I see her point.
Become a parent, and those long, hot summer days suddenly mean overheated children waking up at 4 am when the dawn light first enters their bedrooms, and then trying to convince your child it really *is* bedtime despite the fact it’s still bright daylight at 8pm.
This portable blackout blind is one of the only blackout blinds I’ve tested that truly blocks out majority of the light, requires no tools to install, leaves no marks or residue when you take it down, and you can easily fold it up and move it to any room, or take it on holiday with you.
It’s a game-changer if you want to create a darker bedroom in the summer, and it can help you to keep a bedroom cooler – which is exactly what we all want with another heatwave touching down.
As someone who doesn’t have children and still swears by suctioning this blind to my bedroom window from May to September, I also recommend it to everyone I know who *doesn’t* have kids, too.
(Image credit: Davide Lovatti)
Admittedly, it’s a shame there’s only one design, and that features a not-entirely-grown-up moon, star, and owl print (more plain colourways please, Tommee Tippee!). But, as someone with an east-facing bedroom that gets the full sun as soon as it rises in the summer, this has been the only blackout blind I’ve found that properly blocks out light in my bedroom.
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I’ve tried normal roller blackout blinds and light still seeps around the edges, the same with blackout curtains. In fact, I currently have *two* blinds up in my bedroom window. Dunelm’s Blackout Roller Blind and then a fabric Roman blind that snuggly fits the window recess in front. But, as you can see, light still creeps in.
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(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
The Tommee Tippee blind is different because it uses suction cups to stick directly to the glass window. That means it fits snugly against the window, and very little light gets around the edges. I use it under my roller blind, as a first line of defence against the light, and it’s made a huge difference to the darkness levels from the instant I put it up.
I was also surprised by just how much cooler it makes my hot dormer bedroom. If you want to keep a room as cool as possible, keeping blinds and curtains closed during the day is the best approach, but being able to truly block out that light and heat has made a big difference in keeping the top floor of my house cooler in the summer.
Below is the same window with the Tommee Tippee blind stuck to the glass window behind.
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(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
This portable blind comes in two sizes. I opted for the larger version, which turned out to be WAY too big for my window, but you can adjust the size of the blind thanks to velcro strips that allow you to concertina the blind and make it smaller.
That means I can move it around the house to different-sized windows, and it makes it ideal if you want a blackout solution you can take on holiday to help your kids (or you) sleep better at night.
It folds down very small, and there’s also a handy storage bag included, which is great for travelling. Plus, its robust PVC design doesn’t mind being scrunched up or bunged in the car – and speaking of cars, it’s also useful for attaching to the inside of a car window to block out the sun so your kids don’t get too hot in the backseat. (As long as it doesn’t block your vision, of course).
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(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
Unlike something like Dunelm’s £5 temporary blackout blind – which is ingenious and *super* affordable – but can leave behind a residue that isn’t ideal if you’re AirBNBing it, the suction cups on the Tommee Tippee blind are super easy to de-suction in the morning, and leave no residue a quick wipe down of the window can’t remove.
It also makes this blind a great solution for those of us who rent, or novice DIYers who don’t have the drilling skills to install something like an encased blackout blind.
And it seems I’m not alone in thinking this blind is a discovery *well* worth its affordable price tag. The number of five-star reviews this blind has amassed speak for themselves.
‘A must-have for the summer!’, says one 5-star reviewer on Amazon. ‘As much as we enjoy waking up to sunshine, we found that our son was waking up very early, due to the sunlight coming through the blinds. Thanks to these, our sleep has massively improved, and they are super easy to stick to the windows and then remove in the morning! Great purchase!’
(Image credit: Siobhan Doran Studio)
‘I’ve now ordered 2 of these due to how well they work and how easy they are to use around the house,’ shares another 5-star reviewer. ‘Have recommended these to so many people as such good quality for money.’
And I’m not the only one who is embracing this blind without children. ‘Excellent if you need a dark room for sleep,’ says a third 5-star reviewer. ‘I don’t have a baby or a small child, but I do have sleep issues, so I need a dark room. This suction cup blackout blind is brilliant.’
If your kids wake up drenched in sweat on summer nights, you’ll know how hard it is to keep them cool and sleeping.
As a mum of three, I know that getting kids to sleep in a heatwave is no mean feat. It’s not just roastingly hot in their bedrooms (unless you have one of the best fans on the market or are lucky enough to have an air conditioning unit), but it’s also so bright at bedtime. Those long summer days can feel brutal when you’re a parent – trust me, I’ve been there.
Why are kids more liable to overheat while they sleep? Because young children haven’t yet fully developed their thermoregulating systems, which means their core temperature is less stable than that of an adult’s.
Kids also spend longer in deep sleep (aka slow-wave sleep) – the lucky things. This deep sleep is crucial for physical recovery and growth, but during slow-wave sleep the body is less able to regulate temperature. And voila – a heady cocktail of ingredients that produce sweaty children.
Enter Slumberdown’s Climate Control duvet. I wasn’t expecting a synthetic duvet to be a sweaty-night saviour – I usually favour natural fibres like wool or silk as the best duvet for hot sleepers – but this one surprised me.
(Image credit: Future PLC)
It’s filled with Dacron hollowfibre, which has a hollow structure that provides airflow and insulation. This makes it feel warm without overheating the sleeper.
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It comes in a range of togs, but I went for the coolest 4.5 tog version for summer. My kids liked that it felt light and breathable, without that clingy, sweaty feeling you get from some synthetic duvets, and it kept them cool through even the hottest nights.
The fact it’s so easy to care for is another huge bonus for parents and allergy sufferers. One of my children suffers from various allergies, and bedding can exacerbate their allergy symptoms. So I was happy to note that this duvet can be washed at 40ºC to blitz allergens, and it can even be chucked in the tumble dryer.
This might also be a relief to those parents who are still in the trenches with kids who have nighttime accidents.
(Image credit: Future PLC/David Brittain)
For those of us who are concerned with beds looking inviting, thin duvets can often fall a little flat; many low-tog duvets just don’t look inviting. So I was also impressed with how much this Slumberdown Climate Control duvet fluffed up and held its shape – even when my sons decided to pummel this duvet during a particularly active session of den building.
Plus, the Slumberdown Climate Control Duvet isn’t just a great kids’ duvet – it’s also ideal for guest rooms, uni halls, even camping – and with sizes from single to superking, you can kit out the whole family without spending a fortune.
For under £20, I think this is a small price to pay for cooler, calmer nights – and fewer complaints about bedtime when it feels like a sauna in their bedroom.
While we all love the sunshine, hot weather can make sleeping almost impossible. But luckily, as this weekend’s heatwave hits, Aldi’s cooling bedding is returning to stores.
Landing in stores tomorrow (10 July), Aldi’s cooling bedding couldn’t have arrived at a better time to help you stay cool in bed. Specially designed to keep you cool, this collection of duvets and pillows is an affordable option to help you beat the heat.
If you’re a hot sleeper anyway, you’ll want to invest in a cooling mattress topper and cooling bedding so that soaring temperatures don’t disrupt your sleep pattern. Aldi’s cooling bedding starts at just £9.99, making it a great, affordable option.
SLUMBERDOWN
Always Cool Pillow Pair
SLUMBERDOWN
Hydrocool Pillow
SLUMBERDOWN
Always Cool Hydrocool King Duvet
In case you didn’t already know, the best room temperature for sleep is between 15.6 to 19.4°C according to experts. So, even though British summers can be a little unpredictable, it’s still likely that your bedroom temperature will be regularly pushed above this, making investing in cooling bedding a smart choice.
The two cooling Specialbuys in question are the Always Cool Duvet (£14.99 for a double and £16.99 for a king), the Slumberdown Hydrocool Memory Foam Pillow (£12.99) and the Always Cool Pillow Pair (£9.99).
You don’t have to worry about flipping your pillow to the cool side anymore as the Always Cool duvet and pillows have been designed with moisture-wicking technology that absorbs sweat and helps to regulate body temperature, ensuring a cooler, more comfortable night’s rest.
(Image credit: Aldi)
Meanwhile, the Slumberdown Hydrocol Memory Foam Pillow has a memory foam fibre filing combined with cooling technology that regulates your body temperature and keeps you supported and comfortable. Just think, one of the best memory foam pillows that will keep you cool, too.
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If you really want to stay cool, you should consider pairing Aldi’s cooling bedding with cooling bamboo bed linen. While you may be used to cotton sheets, bamboo bedding feels smooth, silky and cool to the touch, making it a great choice for hot sleepers.
With temperatures predicted to reach 30 degrees and even higher in the UK this weekend, it’s wise to invest in cooling bedding and learning how to cool a bedroom. But if you aren’t able to track down Aldi’s cooling bedding, here are three more alternatives.
Simba Hybrid® Pillow
Simba are responsible for some of the best pillows you can buy. One side of this pillow has a quilted cover to provide instant freshness and cooler comfort.
Woolroom Deluxe Washable Wool Duvet
This duvet is an investment piece, but two of our editors vouch for it as keeping them warm in winter and cool in summer. That is because it is made from wool, whose breathability is second-to-none.
Panda The Topper
If you like memory foam, this is one of the best toppers we’ve come across that won’t cause overheating.
Staying cool is key to a good night’s sleep, and your morning self will thank you for investing in cooling bedding.
It would be something of an understatement to say that Amazon is a very popular place to shop. A huge range of products, some of the cheapest prices going, and the fastest delivery out there; it’s easy to see why the retail giant dominates the market.
But there are some things that aren’t quite as easy to shop for on Amazon, such as luxury bedding. We’ve probably all had the experience of ordering something on Amazon that hasn’t *quite* been what we expected when we saw it in the flesh. And bedding is particularly tricky to order without handling it first.
As such, I decided to put the retailer to the test. As Ideal Home’s Sleep Editor, I’ve been lucky enough to sleep on and under all types of luxury bedding, but would I be able to source the same quality from Amazon?
I set to work looking for the most luxurious bedding you can buy; silk. And I found it in the form of one of Amazon’s bestselling bedding products, the £25.99 Alaska Bear 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcase.
Alaska Bear 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcase
This Amazon bestseller is one of the most affordable silk pillowcases I’ve come across.
According to Amazon’s own stats, over 300 of these silk pillowcases have been sold in the last month, and with more than 20,000 largely positive reviews, it seemed like a safe bet. I added to basket and checked out.
No sooner had I done so than this luxury pillowcase was at my door. Or so it felt.
I’ve tested a few of the best silk pillowcases on the market recently, and although there was nothing wrong with the Alaska Bear packaging, I have to admit, it didn’t immediately scream luxury in the same way as the carefully boxed and tissue-wrapped silk bedding I’ve received from other retailers has.
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However, I did get a bonus silk hair scrunchie I wasn’t expecting in the box. You win some, you lose some, I guess.
(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
The packaging also contains a card that explains the types and quality of silk that are available. The softest and most luxurious silk bedding I’ve tested is made from 6A grade Mulberry silk, which is also what the Alaska Bear pillowcase is made from. The brand says this pillowcase is a 19 momme weight.
Momme is the unit of measurement used to describe the weight of a silk fabric, a bit like the silk equivalent of a thread count in cotton bedding. The higher the momme count, the heavier and thicker the silk fabric.
The Alaska Bear option does feel a little thinner than the latter two, but not considerably so, and there’s a big price difference. As a reminder, the Alaska Bear 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcase cost me £25. Whereas, all of the other options I’ve mentioned cost nearly twice that.
Blissy 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcase
Made of 100% Mulberry Silk in a 22 momme weight, the Blissy pillowcase comes beautifully boxed and is available in over 100 colour options. You can also shop Blissy on Amazon, although prices are currently higher than buying direct.
Soak & Sleep 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcase Pair
These 19 momme 100% Mulberry silk pillowcases are a much better buy than they might first appear as you get a set of two for your £65 investment. There’s also a ‘housewife’ pillowcase design, if that’s more your thing.
scooms 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcase
scooms 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcase is another great 22 momme weight option, however, it is only available in black and white. Its packaging is first-rate though, and one of the most luxurious silk pillowcases I’ve unwrapped.
It’s super soft and silky to the touch, great for combating frizzy hair or providing a hypoallergenic sleep surface if you suffer from eczema or allergies, and its cool surface is perfect for hot and sticky nights. It also has OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certification to confirm it’s been tested and found free from any harmful substances.
(Image credit: Future / Amy Lockwood)
The only thing it lacks is that ‘je ne sais quoi’ that comes with luxury bedding. The zip feels a little cheap, the care labels are basic, and the packaging didn’t make me feel like I was unwrapping something special.
We all know first impressions count, and if I were giving a silk pillowcase as a gift, I would choose one of the above options that come beautifully boxed and feel like a real treat to receive.
However, if you’re looking for luxury for less, this Mulberry Silk Pillowcase does deliver, and with Amazon Prime Day kicking off today – the discounting event runs from Tuesday 8th until Friday 11th in 2025 – it could be about to become even more affordable yet.
