Quick answer: feeling cold when you get into bed and hot by morning is usually a mismatch between your bedding and your body’s own overnight temperature rhythm. To fall asleep, your body pushes heat out through your skin, so bedtime feels chilly; the extra covers you pile on to warm up then trap that heat for the rest of the night, and you wake up warm or sweaty as your temperature starts to climb again toward morning. If you regularly wake with soaking-wet sheets in a cool room, or you feel shivery and unwell, that is a different problem, and the causes and warning signs are covered below.
Quick Fix / Summary
- Dress the bed for 3am, not 11pm: a lighter duvet plus one extra layer on top that you can push off in your sleep
- Warm your hands and feet rather than the whole bed: bed socks, or a warm bath or shower 1 to 2 hours before bed
- Use breathable cotton or linen sheets and sleepwear instead of fleece or polyester
- Keep the bedroom cool, roughly 18 to 20°C (65 to 68°F), rather than heating it overnight
- If you pre-warm the bed with a hot water bottle or electric blanket, take it out or switch it off before you sleep
- See a GP if you regularly wake with soaked sheets, or have night sweats with a fever, cough or weight loss
Who This Is For
- You get into bed with cold hands and feet and pull on extra blankets to warm up
- You wake at 3am or by morning feeling hot, with the covers kicked off or your skin damp
- Your partner seems comfortable all night while you swing from cold to hot
- You want to know whether this is normal or a sign that something is wrong
If you wake up hot but never sweaty, see why you wake up feeling hot but not sweating. If the main problem is waking drenched even though the room is cold, our guide to waking up sweating in a cold room goes through the internal triggers in detail.
Your Body Temperature Isn’t Flat Overnight
Your core temperature follows a daily rhythm. A 2012 review in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology (Okamoto-Mizuno and Mizuno) describes core body temperature falling during the night-time sleep phase and rising during the waking phase, repeating every 24 hours. The Sleep Foundation puts the overnight pattern in plain terms: the drop starts about two hours before you go to sleep, continues while you sleep, reaches a low point in the early morning, then gradually warms up.
| When | What your body is doing | How it can feel |
|---|---|---|
| Evening, before bed | Core temperature starts to fall | Getting into cool sheets feels cold, especially in winter |
| Falling asleep | Blood flow to the hands and feet increases to release heat | If your hands and feet are cold, you feel cold and struggle to settle |
| Early part of the night | Deep sleep, with the body still offloading heat | Under heavy covers, this is when early-night sweating tends to show up |
| Toward morning | Core temperature climbs again; dreaming (REM) sleep periods are longer | Bedding that felt right at 11pm now feels too hot |
Why Bedtime Feels Cold
Falling asleep is partly a heat-dumping exercise. The Okamoto-Mizuno review explains that normal sleep onset comes with increased heat loss through the skin and a drop in core temperature, as blood vessels near the surface relax and let warm blood flow out to the hands and feet. A 2019 review in Frontiers in Neuroscience (Harding, Franks and Wisden) notes that how much the blood vessels in the hands and feet open up is a good predictor of how quickly sleep begins.
That is why cold extremities are such a problem at bedtime. When your hands and feet are cold, the vessels there are clamped down, your body cannot offload heat efficiently, and you lie there feeling chilly. The natural response is to pile on covers, but what actually helps is warming your hands and feet so they can do their job. If it is your feet that burn up later in the night, see why do my feet get hot at night.
A 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis in Sleep Medicine Reviews (Haghayegh and colleagues) found that warm water of about 40 to 42.5°C (104 to 108.5°F) was associated with better self-rated sleep quality, and that when a bath or shower was taken 1 to 2 hours before bed, even 10 minutes in the water was linked with a significantly shorter time to fall asleep. The authors note the evidence is limited. The mechanism is thought to be that warm water boosts blood flow to the hands and feet, which helps the body shed heat afterwards.
If you feel cold all the time, not just at bedtime, that is worth mentioning to a doctor. The NHS lists feeling cold more than usual, along with tiredness and weight gain, among the symptoms of an underactive thyroid. Our guide to thyroid problems and sleep explains the link.
How Bedding Turns That Into Overheating by Morning
You choose your covers based on how cold you feel at the moment you get into bed, which is close to the coldest you will feel all night. Once you are asleep, three things change.
1. Heat builds up inside the bed
Your body keeps releasing heat into an insulated space. The Okamoto-Mizuno review notes that when sleep is normal, the climate inside the bed generally sits around 32 to 34°C and 40 to 60% relative humidity, and that humid heat adds to the body’s heat load and disrupts both sleep stages and temperature control. A heavy duvet over fleece pyjamas pushes the bed well past that comfortable zone.
2. Deep sleep makes you sweat; dreaming sleep makes you worse at cooling down
The same review reports that sweat rate rises during deep (slow-wave) sleep compared with other stages, which may be why some people find their neck or back damp a couple of hours after falling asleep. During REM sleep the picture flips: sweating starts later and at a lower rate, so you shed heat less effectively. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke explains that REM periods get longer as the night goes on, so the second half of the night is when your body is least able to cope with an overheated bed.
3. Your core temperature is rising again
Toward morning your temperature is on its way back up. Combine that with a bed that has been collecting heat for hours, and the result is the familiar pattern: freezing at 11pm, too hot at 5am. The Harding review also notes that transitions into wakefulness or REM sleep come with narrowing of the skin’s blood vessels and warming of the brain, which may help explain why you often notice the heat at the moment you wake.
Warm, Sweaty or Drenched: Which One Is You?
| What you notice on waking | Most likely explanation | Where to go next |
|---|---|---|
| Warm, covers kicked off, skin dry | Normal temperature rhythm plus bedding that is too warm for the second half of the night | Adjust your layers (below), and see waking hot without sweating |
| Damp neck, back or chest, fine once you cool down | Heavy or non-breathable bedding, a warm room, alcohol or a late heavy meal | Breathable fabrics and fewer layers; our guide to staying cool while sleeping has more |
| Night clothes and bedding soaking wet, in a cool room, regularly | Night sweats, which have their own causes | Read the next section and the doctor checklist |
| Shivery or very cold at bedtime, then hot and sweaty, and you feel unwell | Possibly a fever from an infection | Take your temperature and see the doctor checklist |
The NHS draws the line clearly: most people sweat during the night, but night sweats are when you sweat so much that your night clothes and bedding are soaking wet, even though where you are sleeping is cool.
When It’s Sweating, Not Just Warmth
If you are regularly drenched rather than just warm, bedding is unlikely to be the whole story. The NHS lists these common causes of night sweats:
- Menopause and perimenopause: the NHS menopause symptoms page describes hot flushes as the face, neck and chest suddenly feeling very hot or cold, happening during the day or at night (night sweats), and notes symptoms can start in perimenopause, before periods stop. See how to sleep better with menopause night sweats
- Anxiety: a common cause on the NHS list. If you also wake with a racing heart or racing thoughts, see waking up with anxiety in the middle of the night
- Medicines: the NHS names some antidepressants, steroids and painkillers. Do not stop a prescribed medicine on your own; ask your doctor or pharmacist whether timing or an alternative could help. Our guide to antidepressants and sleep covers what to expect
- Alcohol or drug use
- Low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia): see the next section before assuming this applies to you
- Hyperhidrosis: a harmless condition that causes excessive sweating
The NHS also notes that sometimes the cause of night sweats is never found.
Blood Sugar: Possible, but Unlikely Without Diabetes
Low blood sugar can cause night-time sweating, but mainly in people being treated for diabetes. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases lists sweating enough to make pyjamas or sheets damp, and nightmares or crying out, as signs of low blood glucose during sleep. It describes hypoglycaemia as a side effect of insulin and some other medicines that make the pancreas release more insulin, such as sulfonylureas and meglitinides.
For people without diabetes, the evidence that blood sugar dips explain a cold-then-hot night is thin. Mayo Clinic notes that hypoglycaemia in people without diabetes is much less common. So:
- If you take insulin or a sulfonylurea and wake up sweaty, especially with nightmares or a headache, raise it with your diabetes team, as your treatment may need adjusting
- If you do not have diabetes, treat blood sugar as an unlikely explanation rather than the answer. If you also feel shaky, confused or faint, mention it to a doctor rather than self-treating with bedtime snacks
How to Set Up Your Bed for the Whole Night
The goal is a bed that feels warm enough when you get in but lets heat escape once your body starts shedding it.
Layer for the middle of the night
Choose a duvet that suits the room at 3am, not at 11pm, and add a separate blanket or throw on top for the first part of the night. A top layer is easy to push off half-asleep; a single heavy duvet is all or nothing. If you share a bed with someone who runs warmer or colder, two single duvets let you each set your own level.
Warm the edges, not the whole bed
Bed socks, a warm bath or shower an hour or two before bed, and a hot water bottle at your feet while you settle all help your hands and feet release heat without loading the whole bed. If you use a hot water bottle or electric blanket to pre-warm the bed, remove it or switch it off before you go to sleep, and follow the manufacturer’s safety instructions. For what the safety sources say about overnight use, see whether you can sleep with an electric blanket on.
Pick fabrics that let heat and moisture out
Cotton and linen sheets and sleepwear let heat and moisture escape more readily than fleece, flannel-backed synthetics or polyester. If you are replacing bedding anyway, our roundup of breathable bedding for hot sleepers compares the main fabric options.
Keep the room cool and steady
The Sleep Foundation says most doctors recommend a bedroom thermostat setting of 65 to 68°F (about 18 to 20°C). Turning the heating up so bedtime feels cosy works against you later in the night. The Okamoto-Mizuno review notes that bed covers, by keeping a warm climate inside the bed, are critical for maintaining sleep in cold conditions, which is another argument for warm layers you can adjust over a warm room you cannot. If you overheat before you even fall asleep, that is a different pattern; see why you feel too hot to fall asleep.
Practical Tips That Actually Help
- If your hands and feet are icy at bedtime → warm them first (socks, warm shower) instead of adding blankets
- If you are hot by 2 to 3am under a winter duvet → switch to a lighter duvet plus a removable top layer
- If you wake hot and damp after an evening drink → try a few alcohol-free nights and compare
- If you felt shivery at bedtime and then hot and sweaty, and you feel unwell → take your temperature
- If you have hot flushes in the daytime too → think perimenopause or menopause
- If it started soon after a new medicine → ask your pharmacist or doctor; do not just stop it
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Choosing bedding by how cold you feel when you first get in: that is close to the coldest you will feel all night
- Turning the heating up overnight: it adds to the heat already trapped in the bed later on
- Fleece pyjamas under a heavy duvet: two heat-trapping layers with nowhere for moisture to go
- Leaving an electric blanket on all night: use it to warm the bed, then switch it off
- Writing off regularly soaked sheets as a bedding problem: true night sweats are worth getting checked
When to See a Doctor
Feeling cold at bedtime and warm by morning is usually normal. Based on the NHS night sweats guidance, see a GP if:
- You have night sweats regularly that wake you up or worry you
- You have night sweats along with a very high temperature, or you feel hot, cold or shivery
- You have night sweats along with a cough or diarrhoea
- You have night sweats and you are losing weight without trying
Also speak to a doctor if you feel cold all the time along with tiredness or weight gain, which can point to an underactive thyroid, or if you are on insulin or a sulfonylurea and think you are having lows at night. The NHS notes that night sweats usually do not need treatment in themselves, but a GP will want to check for other symptoms and may review your medicines.
FAQ
Is it normal to be cold when I go to bed and hot when I wake up?
Yes, for most people it is normal. Your core temperature falls in the evening and through the first part of the night, then rises again toward morning. Bedding chosen for the cold moment you get into bed is usually too warm by the early hours.
Why are my feet freezing in bed but I wake up sweating?
Cold feet mean the blood vessels there are narrowed, so your body struggles to release heat and you feel cold. Once you warm up under heavy covers, your body starts offloading heat into a bed that cannot get rid of it, so you end up too hot later. Warming your feet directly, rather than adding blankets, helps break that cycle.
Should I sleep with socks on if I get cold at night?
Socks can help you settle because warm feet help your body release heat. If you wake up hot, try loose, breathable socks that are easy to kick off, or warm your feet before bed and go without.
Is one heavy duvet or several thin layers better?
Layers are usually better for this pattern. A lighter duvet with a blanket on top lets you shed one layer when you warm up in the night, while a single heavy duvet leaves you choosing between too hot and too cold.
Could a fever make me cold at bedtime and sweaty in the night?
Yes. Feeling cold and shivery and then hot and sweaty can be a sign of a raised temperature from an infection. The NHS advises seeing a GP if night sweats come with a very high temperature or feeling hot, cold or shivery.
Key Takeaways
Going to bed cold and waking up hot is usually your normal overnight temperature rhythm meeting bedding chosen for the wrong time of night. Your body sheds heat to fall asleep, becomes less able to cool itself during the longer dreaming periods of late night, and warms up again toward morning. Warm your hands and feet instead of the whole bed, use layers you can push off, and keep the room cool. If you regularly wake with soaked sheets, or the sweats come with fever, weight loss or other symptoms, see a GP.
About this article
Written by the Sleep Fixes editorial team. We’re not medical professionals. We research each topic against primary sources and hold ourselves to being critical and thorough about what actually makes it onto the site.
This article is part of Sleep Fixes, a site focused on practical, easy-to-follow solutions for common sleep problems like night waking, dry mouth, overheating, and disrupted sleep.
The content is based on widely accepted sleep principles and common real-world patterns, with a focus on simple changes that may improve sleep quality.
It is not medical advice. If your symptoms are severe, persistent, or worsening, consider consulting a qualified healthcare professional.