Thousands of babies in England face dangerous overheating at home

More than 70,000 babies in England were living in overheated homes, the equivalent of about one in six, as a family in an eighth-floor flat in Newham said their own home had become unbearably hot. Jackson Bylett lives there with his partner and their five-month-old baby, and the temperature inside has topped 31C.

The family’s baby’s room has reached over 30C, far above the 16C to 20C range the National Health Service recommends for babies to sleep in. Bylett said the strain on parents was constant, describing it as “no way to raise a child when you're in constant fear at the consequences of them sleeping in an unsafe environment.”

The new analysis from the National Housing Federation and the Chartered Institute of Housing, published on 25 June 2026, found that about 1.59 million children in England were living in overheated homes. In polling of 1,592 parents, seven in 10 said overheated homes disrupted their children’s sleep, while 49% said it affected concentration.

The findings place overheating firmly in the housing and public health debate rather than as a short-lived summer discomfort. Alistair Smythe, the National Housing Federation’s director of policy and research, said extreme heat was having a serious impact on family life, as warmer weather becomes more frequent and parents find it harder to keep homes comfortable and safe.

The scale of the problem is already visible in wider housing research. The Resolution Foundation has said that around a fifth of homes in England overheat at current summer temperatures, while 36% have features that put them at high risk of overheating in future. That warning lands against a housing stock built for a cooler climate, with many flats and new-build homes now struggling to cope with hotter summers.

Government has already acknowledged the risk in building rules. A final-stage impact assessment dated 13 December 2021 introduced a new overheating requirement for residential buildings, but the family experience in Newham shows how quickly the issue has moved from planning documents into daily life for tenants and their children.