A lot is said about the importance of keeping the humidity at the proper level in your baby’s room.
And it’s for good reason. The effects of dry air, especially for a baby, can make a person miserable.
Dry cough, sore throat, dry and stuffy nose, to name a few.
Overly dry air can also facilitate the transfer of viruses and allergies that only make matters worse.
So having a good humidifier for the baby’s room can be a godsend. They can help your baby breathe and sleep so much easier when the air is too dry.
But as much as a relief that humidifying your baby’s room can be when the relative humidity is too low,
High humidity also affects the way the babies breathe and sleep too.
Can you over humidify a baby’s room?
The answer is yes. You can over humidify a baby’s room.
Though a humidifier can be one of the best ways to clean the air when the relative humidity is low,
Adding humidity to a room that is already humid can have the opposite effect than what you intend.
High levels of humidity can make the air thicker and harder to breathe.
High humidity also facilitates the growth of mold and becomes a source of nutrition for dust mites.
Which is also a cause of congestion which leads to problems sleeping and breathing.
So there are times of the year that instead of adding more humidity to the air with a humidifier,
You may actually need to take steps to reduce the humidity in your baby’s room.
Sometimes that means running the air conditioner on dry mode, and sometimes that can mean having a separate dehumidifier.
How do you know if you’re over humidifying the baby’s room?
Fortunately you do not have to rely on frizzy hair and static electricity to tell you that the humidity level in your home is out of balance.
A hygrometer is a humidity gauge to let you know exactly what the humidity is in your home and in the baby’s room.
According to most sources, keeping the relative humidity between 30 and 50% is the key to avoiding health problems that arise because of low relative humidity.
Hygrometers can be purchased fairly inexpensively and they also come packaged as a humidity gauge and thermometer combination.
Also humidifiers and dehumidifiers can be purchased with a built-in hygrometer that displays the relative humidity in the room on the front of the machine at any time.
Modern humidifiers come with a hygrometer and a humidistat that you can set to a specific humidity level and will automatically control the humidifier and keep the room at the proper humidity level.
Summary
Can you over-humidify a baby’s room?
Using a humidifier when the relative humidity is already high enough can lead to over humidifying a baby’s room.
The easiest way to avoid over-humidifying is to use a hygrometer to measure your humidity.
A hygrometer is a humidity gauge that is similar to a thermometer but works for humidity rather than the temperature.
Modern humidifiers come with hygrometers built-in so that you can see the relative humidity in the room on the front of the humidifier.
So keeping the relative humidity between 30 and 50% is much easier when you know what your humidity is.
And if you want to spend more, there are humidifiers that use sensors to measure your humidity and control the humidifier to make sure that your room does not become over humidified.
