Thursday, May 17, 2012

 
Hot water bottle placement. I grew up with electric blankets but I don't like them as an adult. I feel uneasy about the electric current running under my body and worried about overheating, catching on fire, and spending too much on electricity bills.

Hot water bottles are cheap, comforting and old-school. I like the way that a hot water bottle can be used strategically as a heat pack, especially to ease back pain and period pain as I fret that I use too much ibuprofen for that.

I have done up this diagram of where I like to place the hot water bottle as I lie in bed. It was actually quite difficult to find a full-length image of someone asleep on their side that did not involve pregnancy or a ridiculously shaped pillow.



I like to place the hot water bottle in position 5 first of all, to warm the end of the bed before I get in so my feet don't feel cold. After a minute or two of lying there with nice warm feet, I scoot the bottle up to position 2 or 3, my shoulders or lower back.

This is very pathetic to put in words, but I also like positions 2, 3 and 4 because they produce the same comforting effect as being spooned by another person while actually being alone.

Position 1 is usually where I have the hot water bottle as I fall asleep, and I will often wake up with it there, or if I have rolled onto my other side, it will be in position 3.


Comments:
Hot water bottles are rad. Even with another person in the bed, it's near to impossible to completely smother ALL the cold bits of your feet with their non-foot-smothering shaped flesh. I use a wheat bag in winter that I heat in the microwave. Leith hates it, he reckons it smells like stale porridge. But on really cold nights I can't give it up!
 
The one night I slept on an electric blanket I found incredibly uncomfortable. I am not a 'stick out as many limbs as you need to cool down' person. I am 'stick as much of yourself as possible under blanket to warm up' person. On cold nights I just wait until my body warmth heats up the blankets around me, and on really really cold nights I just put socks on. The end.

I don't think I'd ever be able to try hot water bottles.
 
I have absolutely the same fears as you about electric blankets, largely because we received a 'fire safety' visit from some firemen when I was in kindergarten, in which they told a story about an elderly couple who burned to death after sleeping on a faulty electric blanket.

Besides, what's not to love about a hot water bottle? Almost as good as an obedient cat in bed (and what cat is ever obedient)?
 
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