Even the best heat and moisture-managing sleepwear won't keep you dry in a sauna

A few years ago, we travelled from our home (Montreal at the time) to California. It had been a long travel day and by the time we arrived I was exhausted and eyeing my bed longingly.

I got into my Simone nightgown (great for travel, BTW) and snuggled under a duvet that was about 6 inches thick. Normally, a duvet that thick will make me break into a massive sweat just looking at it, but I was so tired that I was chilled and the warmth of the heavy duvet felt great.

I promptly fell asleep only to wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. In fact, my Simone was completely soaked.

I got out of bed and walked around considering my options – I didn’t have another nightgown with me and I hate sleeping without anything on.

In the end I decided to keep my soaking wet nightgown on. I put a towel over the soaked bottom sheet and lay down on my side only needing the top sheet by then.

Within half an hour I was completely dry. I moved onto my back (my preferred sleep position), and promptly fell back to sleep.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “That doesn’t seem like a very good advertisement for your products. Your nightgown was completely soaked.”
So, let me explain what happened and why.

The bedding played a critical role, but so did my own exhaustion.
Here are the elements that had a hand in my, er, “soakedness” (sorry, can’t think of a better description.)

1. The thick down-filled duvet acted as a powerful thermal layer – thick and warm, keeping any heat under its cover.
2. The luxury cotton sheets were super soft and comfortable – and also tightly woven which traps heat and moisture. Cotton loves water.
3. I was completely exhausted leading to a drop in core body temperature – a signal telling you it's time for bed, to the point where I went into a very deep sleep, and slept right through some night sweat cycles so I didn’t wake up to throw off my covers.

What’s happening while you’re sleeping

When you’re that tired, you won’t wake up even when your body is going through night sweats. And even though you’re that tired and started out so cold you needed a duvet, eventually your body decided it was time to turn on the old night sweats engine again and do its thing.

If your sheets and thermal layer (in this case a big thick duvet trapping all that heat, there is nowhere for the moisture to go. It stays trapped under that duvet. And when you’re sleeping in luxury cotton sheets, the sheets will absorb a lot of that water. If the water can’t move to the next layer it will stay in those sheets and your sleepwear.

To make matters worse, once your body gets into its night sweats cycle, your night sweats will be more frequent if your environment is too warm – and that lovely duvet is keeping all the heat there, promoting even more night sweats cycles.

The more cycles you have before you wake up, the more soaked you’ll be when you finally do wake up.

This is exactly what happened to me.

Because I was in deep sleep and didn’t wake up to throw off my covers during a night sweat, the moisture had nowhere to go so it just stayed in the sheets and sleepwear.

When I woke up soaked, I was surprised – not because I was wet, but because I was so exhausted that I’d slept through enough night sweats cycles to make me soaked.

So, as I like to say, even the best moisture-wicking, heat- managing, sleepwear in the world won’t keep you dry in a sauna.

What can you do?

If you’re waking up soaked all the time, make sure you’re sleeping in the best fabrics that promote the transfer of moisture from one layer to the next, especially if you’re a deep sleeper. Your layers should be just warm enough to keep you comfortable, but not so powerful that they trap heat and moisture next to you.

Thanks for reading!