Layerly is live: what should my baby wear today?

Every parent of a small child has had the same argument with themselves in a hallway. It is 9°C and grey. Is that a fleece morning or a pramsuit morning? Will the walk be twenty minutes or an hour? Was yesterday colder than this, and did she come home with cold hands or sweaty hair?

Layerly exists to end that argument. Today it is live at layerly.online.

Babies are bad at regulating their own temperature and worse at telling you about it. Under-dressing is uncomfortable and obvious. Over-dressing is harder to spot and, for the youngest babies, a genuine safety concern — especially for sleep.

The usual advice is a rule of thumb: one more layer than an adult would wear. It is a reasonable start and a poor answer. It does not know whether your baby is three weeks or fourteen months old, whether they will be asleep in a still pram or walking, whether it is windy, whether it is raining, or what is actually in your drawer.

Layerly takes four things: today's weather and UV index for your location, your baby's age, the situation you are heading into — home, walk, or car — and the clothes you own. From those it builds one specific outfit, layer by layer: base layer, bottoms, mid layer, outer layer, and accessories like a hat, mittens or socks.

It accounts for the details that change the answer. A baby lying still in a pram loses heat differently from one in a carrier against your chest. A rain cover traps warmth. A car seat with the heating on is a different problem from the pavement outside. Twenty minutes is not an hour. On hot days it warns about sun and shade rather than layers.

For sleep, it works from room temperature and the TOG rating of the sleep sacks you own, and sets the pyjamas underneath to match.

After a walk you can tell Layerly whether your baby seemed cold, comfortable or too warm. Those ratings nudge future recommendations towards your child in particular, because babies genuinely differ and no chart knows yours.

Layerly is free, works in the browser on any phone, and takes its weather from Open-Meteo. There are no ads and no third-party trackers. More to come — and we will write about each step here.