A space heater in a baby's room must be electric, never fuel-burning. Place it at least one metre from the cot, the curtains and any laundry, plug it straight into a wall socket and switch it off at night. The right heater is one whose reachable surfaces will not burn a little hand.
A space heater for a baby's room usually solves a specific problem: a north-facing room, a bedroom in the loft, a main radiator that is too weak. Before you buy, it helps to know what you are trying to fix, and what the authorities say about the real risks: burns, fire and, with fuel-burning heaters, carbon monoxide.
Does your baby's room really need a space heater?
Not always. The Assurance Maladie (France's national health insurance) recommends a room temperature between 18 and 20 °C for an infant's sleep. A room just under 18 °C is not a problem if your baby is dressed for it: add a layer under the sleeping bag rather than turning up the heat. An overheated room causes more trouble than a slightly cool one.
A space heater becomes useful when the temperature stays clearly and consistently below 18 °C despite the main heating. To find out, measure before you act. Our guide to the baby room thermometer explains where to put it for a reliable reading. Clothing, for its part, is adjusted using the warmth rating described in our article on the baby sleeping bag and TOG rating.
In the cot, nothing replaces the sleeping bag: no blanket, no duvet, no pillow, whatever the temperature. A space heater does not make up for clothing that is too light, and warm clothing should not be added on top of an overheated room.
Electric or fuel-burning: a choice that is not up for debate
Fuel-burning space heaters run on paraffin, gas or ethanol. They produce carbon monoxide, an invisible, odourless gas. Santé publique France (the French public health agency) points out that these heaters must never be run continuously. So in a room where a baby sleeps, a fuel-burning heater has no place at all.
The Institut national de la consommation (INC, the French national consumer institute) confirms this in its autumn 2024 advice: portable gas or oil heaters carry a risk of poisoning and are not recommended in poorly ventilated rooms. A baby's room kept closed at night is one of them. The warning signs and what to do about this gas are covered in our article on carbon monoxide and babies.
The choice therefore comes down to electric heaters. They give off no gas, but they carry two other risks: fire and contact burns.
The real danger for a baby: contact burns
The Commission de la sécurité des consommateurs (the French consumer safety commission) devoted an opinion to this risk on 22 March 2012. It started from two accidents. A 16-month-old girl burnt her hands on a glass panel estimated at over 85 °C. An 11-month-old girl suffered second-degree burns on a chrome towel rail measured at 73 °C.
The figures gathered in this opinion speak for themselves. In a study carried out in Nantes in 2006, 22 out of 179 burns in children were caused by a heating appliance, or around 12%. Of the children burnt, 61% were between 6 and 36 months old, and 48% of the burns were to the hands. A survey by the Institut de veille sanitaire (the former French health surveillance institute) recorded 389 burns linked to radiators or stoves between 2004 and 2010, two thirds of them in children under 5.
The Commission also sets out physiological thresholds. A surface at 60 °C causes a second-degree burn in 5 seconds. At 53 °C, it takes about a minute. Yet a child under 2 takes around 15 seconds to pull their hand away, according to the standard cited in the opinion. Appliance standards, designed mainly to prevent fire, allow surface temperatures that can burn.
For a toddler who pulls themselves up on anything they can grab, this is the deciding factor. Our article on burns in babies goes over what to do if an accident happens.
Space heater for a baby's room: which one to choose?
No official French text ranks heaters by type for a child's bedroom. The criteria below follow from the risks described by the Commission and by Health Canada. Use them to compare models in the shop.
Reachable surfaces that stay lukewarm
The Commission advises choosing appliances whose reachable surfaces pose no risk of burns. It warns against highly conductive finishes such as chrome, and against appliances whose heating function cannot be seen, such as heated mirrors. Before you buy, the instructions should state the surface temperature. If they do not, ask the seller.
The safety features that matter
- Tip-over cut-off: a heater knocked over by a child or a pet switches itself off.
- Overheat protection: the heater switches off if its internal temperature runs too high, for example if it is covered.
- Adjustable thermostat: it lets you reach the target temperature without heating non-stop.
- Conformity marking: in Europe, the CE marking and instructions in English; Health Canada likewise recommends buying only appliances that carry the mark of a recognised testing body.
Types of heater, seen through the lens of risk
An oil-filled radiator heats up slowly and does not blow air, but its metal casing gets hot. A fan heater warms the room quickly and dries the air. A slim radiant panel is often wall-mounted, out of reach. In every case, it is the surface temperature and the distance that make it safe, not the technology.
Where should you put the space heater in the room?
Health Canada gives a simple rule of thumb: keep portable electric heaters at least one metre away from anything that can burn, including beds, sofas, clothes and curtains. In a baby's room, that rules out the spot right next to the cot, however tempting it may be.
- Stand the heater on a flat, hard floor, never on a thick rug or carpet that could make it tip over.
- Leave clear space in front of and around it: no drying laundry, no soft toy, no basket nearby.
- Plug it straight into a wall socket. Health Canada advises never using an extension lead or a multi-plug adaptor, and the INC reminds you not to overload them.
- Never cover the heater, not even to dry a vest.
- Keep it out of the path of a child who is walking, and out of reach of their hands as soon as they are on the move.
If your child plays on the floor in their room, what they feel most is not the warmth of the air but the cold of the floor. A play mat insulates better than one more degree on the thermostat. Our article on where to put a play mat covers cold floors and underfloor heating.
Should the space heater stay on at night?
No. Health Canada recommends unplugging a portable heater before going to sleep or leaving home. The best approach is to warm the room before bedtime, then switch the heater off when you put your baby down. The right sleeping bag takes over for the night.
If the room is too cold for that to be enough, the problem lies with the home rather than the heater. Better insulation, a properly sized fixed radiator or moving your baby's sleep to another room are safer solutions than a heater running all night beside the cot.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Using a paraffin or gas heater ‘just to take the chill off the room’ before bedtime.
- Putting the heater next to the cot so that your baby is ‘nice and warm’.
- Drying laundry on it or next to it.
- Plugging the heater into an extension lead that runs across the room, where your child can pull on it.
- Heating above 20 °C and adding warm clothing on top.
- Forgetting that the heater stays hot for several minutes after it is switched off.
More broadly, a space heater is part of an overall approach to prevention, room by room, which we describe in our guide to babyproofing your home.
Key takeaways
- Measure before you buy: 18 to 20 °C is enough, and a slight chill can be offset with clothing.
- Electric only: no fuel-burning heater in a baby's room.
- Reachable surfaces that do not burn, a tip-over cut-off and overheat protection.
- At least one metre from the cot and curtains, a wall socket, never an extension lead.
- Switched off while your child sleeps.
Sources
- Commission de la sécurité des consommateurs, opinion on the risk of contact burns from electric radiators and domestic heating appliances, 22 March 2012 (economie.gouv.fr).
- Institut national de la consommation, “Vous voulez ajouter un chauffage d'appoint ? Lisez ces conseils”, 30 October 2024, updated 14 November 2024.
- Health Canada (Santé Canada), “Sécurité des produits électriques”, page modified 12 August 2026.
- Santé publique France, “Comment réduire le risque d'intoxication au monoxyde de carbone ?”, updated 13 May 2020.
- Assurance Maladie, “Comment bien coucher un bébé ?”, 10 October 2024.
