Many parents will opt for a cot bed when a child is ready to go from the crib to a bed. These beds give toddlers the room they need to roll around without the walls of a crib keeping them in place. 

However, choosing the right bedding for these beds can challenge new parents. After all, what sort of duvet can you use for these beds? Can a single duvet be used? 

Let’s take a look at what you need from your toddler’s duvet to help them get the best sleep they can, regardless of the weather or allergy concerns. 

At What Age Can Toddlers Use a Duvet?

Before choosing a duvet for your toddler’s bed, you should ensure that your child is ready for a duvet. Infants can toss or roll around in their sleep, causing themselves to get wrapped up in larger or heavier bed coverings like duvets, which can result in your infant to sleep too hot, causing them to get cranky from poor sleep or not sleep at all. 

If your toddler is over the age of 12 months, then it’s safe to use a duvet for their bed. Your child won’t toss around as much as they did as an infant at this age. Along with their better motor control, you won’t have to worry as much about your toddler getting themselves wrapped up overnight. 

However, you’ll want to ensure you choose the right duvet for your toddler. At this age, your child’s body still isn’t fully efficient at regulating temperature, especially overnight. 

What Size Is a Toddler Duvet?

As most toddler parents will know, the beds their children use aren’t the same as the ones adults use. Because toddlers are still figuring out their surroundings and motor skills, things need to be sized for them. Otherwise, the toddler might hurt themselves as they explore and figure out the world around them.

For sleeping, a larger bed introduces a higher risk of suffocation for the toddler due to excess bedding. As the toddler tosses during the night, they might get wrapped up, get too hot, or worse. This fact is why many parents opt for a cot bed for their little ones at this age. 

Duvets for cot beds have to be smaller to fit the toddler’s bed, though. The most common size you’ll see for toddler cot beds is 150cm by 120cm (60 inches by 48 inches), giving the toddler enough blanket to stay covered during the night without keeping the toddler too warm or giving them a chance to wrap up tightly overnight. 

What Tog Should a Toddler Duvet Be?

In addition to size, you’ll want to make sure that your toddler’s duvet provides the right amount of warmth while they sleep. Toddlers can’t regulate their body temperature the same other older kids and adults can while sleeping. To help them out, toddlers need duvets with a lower tog rating to sleep well at night. 

If you’re not familiar, Tog is an acronym for Thermal Overall Grade. This rating summarises the total thermal insulation that a piece of bedding or fabric provides when used. The higher the rating, the more heat the fabric can trap. 

Because toddlers tend to sleep hot, they need a duvet with a lower tog to avoid getting too hot overnight. Many of the duvets adults use will be in the 7.5 to 13.5 tog duvet range. For a toddler, it’s recommended that you use a duvet with a 4.5 Tog or lower unless the room is very cool. 

At this rating, the duvet will offer warmth for the toddler without trapping too much heat.

Features of a Toddler Duvet

So, with all that info out of the way, let’s look at other features a toddler’s duvet should have. Overall, a toddler’s duvet should be lightweight, washable, hypoallergenic, and made from natural materials. 

Some of these features make sleeping easier for the toddler, while others make handling and cleaning the duvet easier for parents. Here’s how each quality plays a part in making your toddler’s sleep and your housekeeping easier: 

Lightweight

A lightweight duvet is a practical choice for toddlers. Kids at this age roll and wriggle around while they sleep, tossing around more than adults tend to do. As active sleepers, toddlers will need a lightweight duvet to keep themselves from getting wrapped up in their blankets as they sleep. 

Duvets made from lighter material are easier for the toddler to throw off while they sleep if they get too hot or active, which can keep your toddler from getting too hot, which leads to sweating and uncomfortable sleep. Heavier duvets can also lead to suffocation risks, especially if the duvet is too big for the toddler’s bed. 

Finally, lightweight materials tend to have a lower tog than heavier ones. If your toddler keeps their duvet on during the night, a lower tog value helps their bodies breathe and stay cool during sleep, improving sleep quality. Many toddlers don’t think to remove heavy pyjamas while sleeping, meaning they will sweat and be uncomfortable if wrapped up in a thick duvet while sleeping. 

Depending on your home, you might be able to use a single duvet year-round for your toddler. Toasty pyjamas during the winter months can be enough if your house is well-insulated from the cold. If not, it’s not recommended to go to a 7.5 Tog duvet or slightly higher for toddlers, even on cold winter nights. 

Natural Materials

At such an early age, toddlers are sensitive to the synthetic materials and chemicals used in many modern goods. Even if your toddler doesn’t have any allergies, synthetic materials can irritate their skin, keeping them from getting a good night’s rest. For toddlers, it’s best to get a duvet made from natural materials like cotton. 

This doesn’t mean you have to get a duvet lining made from natural materials. The goal is to choose bedding and blankets made from cotton to give your kid a better chance of getting good quality sleep. Cotton helps with this thanks to being breathable, allowing air to move around and keep your child cool without any harsh leftover chemicals from processing. 

Ideally, a 230 thread count for your cotton duvet covering and sheets is best for toddlers. In addition to being a breathable cloth, this thread count helps prevent dust mites and other pests from settling into the bed. Organic cotton can be even better but is harder to get. You’ll have to choose which option makes the most sense for your family.

Anti-Allergy

For toddlers with allergies, their bedding choices can be limited. To keep your child from having allergy attacks during the night, buying a hypoallergenic duvet covering is your best choice. You might also need to consider anti-allergy sheets and liners, as well, depending on how severe your toddler’s allergies are. 

Some parents recommend buying an anti-allergy duvet and anti-allergy pillows even if your child doesn’t have allergies. These specialist duvets are filled with a specific anti-allergy fibre, making them safer for allergy sufferers. With how sensitive a toddler’s body can be, cutting back on allergy and irritation risks makes sense for some parents. 

Washable

Unfortunately, parents of toddlers know all too well why a duvet should be washable. No parent wants to see their child sick in the wee hours of the morning. Still, tummy aches and overnight accidents happen. When they do, it means someone will be breaking out the spare bedding and running the washer and dryer overnight. 

Having a machine-washable duvet is something parents look for because of convenience. Rather than wash the duvet by hand, a parent could toss the duvet into the washing machine to be cleaned and sanitised without any elbow grease. 

Keep in mind if your toddler’s duvet is safe for the drier, however. Not all duvet covers and linings can be safely tumble dried, meaning you might have to hang the duvet to dry once it’s done in the washing machine. Quick-drying duvets are also a blessing for midnight accidents since they let you get your child’s blanket back to them as fast as possible. 

Best Toddler Duvets on the Market

Here are some of our recommendations for the best toddler duvet on the market. Each of these duvets has its benefits, depending on your toddler’s needs and the time of year: 

Slumberdown Climate Control Duvet Set

The Slumberdown Climate Control Duvet is hard to beat for a great general-purpose duvet. Made from lightweight hollow fibre and a microfibre covering, this inexpensive duvet set will help keep your toddler cool whenever it gets hot outside. Plus, the duvet is machine-washable, helping you keep the bedding clean.

For toddlers, the 4.5 tog rating duvet is the best choice. As the lightest rating, you can ensure that your toddler won’t get too hot as they sleep into the warm summer nights. We also recommend that you skip over the bed set with the included two pillows unless you want to have pillows on hand for when your toddler is old enough. 

Slumberdown Anti-Allergy Summer Duvet

The Slumberdown Anti-Allergy Summer Duvet is similar to the Climate Control duvet from the same brand. However, this duvet has a different manufacturing process, meaning that the filling has been specially treated to have anti-allergenic properties.

Much like the Climate Control duvet, the Anti-Allergy Summer Duvet also has a 4.5 tog rating, making it great for summer or otherwise hot nights. With the extra care put into processing this duvet, it should have the breathability a toddler needs from their duvet to get a good night’s rest. 

Snuggledown Freshwash Anti-Allergy Summer Duvet

Another popular duvet brand, the Snuggledown Freshwash Anti-Allergy Summer Duvet, is the clear choice for a lightweight and anti-allergy duvet. The cover material is 100% cotton, a breathable and hypoallergenic fabric that should keep your toddler’s skin from developing a rash or hives from allergies. The filling is an anti-allergy hollowfibre for the same purpose. 

As a summer duvet, this Freshwash option has a 4.5 tog rating to keep your toddler comfortable overnight. Much like the Slumberdown duvets, this duvet is machine-washable and compatible with many of the anti-allergy detergents out there. 

Thanks to the cotton and extra treatment, this set is a little more expensive than some of the other duvets we have listed here. Still, for a toddler who needs something with a little more protection, this duvet provides a comfortable night’s rest by handling both climate and allergy concerns. 

Slumberdown Little Slumbers Anti-Allergy Bedset

Finally, the Slumberdown Little Slumbers Anti-Allergy set is an excellent blend of cold-weather features and anti-allergy protections for a toddler. The microfibre covering and hollow fibre filling for this set will look familiar to parents that looked at the previous Slumberdown duvets. This duvet has the same hypoallergenic care put on it as the others did.

However, the main difference here is the insulation. At a 7.5 tog rating, this duvet is perfect for the colder months or cooler rooms your toddler might be sleeping through. It is at the top end of recommended duvet tog ratings for small children, meaning it should keep your child warm no matter what the temperature outside the home is.

As a thicker duvet, the price is a little higher than the summer equivalents. Still, for parents that want some allergy protection for their child in the winter months, this winter duvet can do just that.

At Sleepseeker, we are bedding and sleep experts and offer a range of pillows, duvets, mattress protectors and more to help you sleep comfortably every night.