The complete guide
Buying Guide
Weighted Blanket Guide: Everything About Heavy Blankets and Heavyweight Blankets
A weighted blanket is a blanket with a measured amount of fill sewn into it so it presses evenly across you instead of simply lying on top of you. That is the whole idea. Everything else in this guide is about getting the weight, the size and the construction right, because those are the three things that decide whether you end up using it or folding it away.
We should say plainly what this page will not do. We are a homeware shop, not a clinic, and we make no claim that a blanket treats, relieves or improves any medical condition. If you are looking at a weighted blanket because of your sleep, your stress or a diagnosed condition, that is a conversation worth having with your GP or the professional supporting you. What follows is about the product.
What A Weighted Blanket Actually Is
Weighted blankets are filled with dense material, most often glass beads, sometimes plastic pellets or steel shot, stitched into a grid of pockets. Total weight across the market runs from roughly 5 to 30 pounds, with most adult options between 12 and 25 pounds. Ours are 1.8 kg, 5.4 kg and 6.8 kg.
The pockets are the part people overlook. The grid exists to stop the fill migrating. Get it right and the weight over your shoulders matches the weight over your shins. Get it wrong, with pockets too large, and the fill slides downhill over a few nights and collects at the foot of the blanket, which is both uncomfortable and the end of the blanket's usefulness.
How It Differs From Ordinary Bedding
An ordinary blanket is doing one job: keeping heat in. A weighted blanket is doing a different one, and the weight rather than the warmth is the point. It does still provide warmth, which is worth knowing if you sleep hot, because you are adding a layer as well as adding weight.
Choosing The Right Weight
The Ten Per Cent Guide
The common starting point is around ten per cent of your body weight. It is a rule of thumb rather than a rule, and it is a starting point rather than a target. Plenty of people settle on something lighter and are perfectly happy.
If you are between two options, take the lighter one. A blanket that feels like slightly too little is a blanket you will use. A blanket that feels like too much is one you will stop reaching for after a fortnight.
Sharing A Bed
Two people rarely want the same weight, and a single shared weighted blanket is usually a compromise nobody enjoys. Most couples who get on with them end up with one each, sized individually, rather than one large one between them.
Children
Children need proportionally lighter weights, and this is the one area where we would ask you not to work it out from a web page. Always speak to your paediatrician or another qualified professional before giving a weighted blanket to a young child, and follow the guidance they give you on weight and supervision.
Sizes And What They Are For
Lap And Throw Sizes
Our 91 x 122 cm at 1.8 kg is the sofa size. It is meant for over the knees while reading or watching something, and it is the one people buy when they are not sure whether they will like a weighted blanket at all.
Bed Sizes
The 122 x 183 cm at 5.4 kg and the 152 x 203 cm at 6.8 kg are the bed sizes. Here is the thing most people get wrong: a weighted blanket is sized to your body, not to your mattress. It is meant to cover you, not to hang over both sides of the bed. That is why a 152 x 203 cm weighted blanket is not the same purchase as a 152 x 203 cm duvet, and why buying up a size to match your bed usually leads to a blanket that drags itself onto the floor overnight.
Fill Materials
Glass Beads
Fine glass beads are the current standard and what ours use. They are denser than plastic, so the same weight fits into a thinner blanket, and they are quieter to move under. Ours are non toxic and hypoallergenic.
Plastic Pellets
Plastic pellets are cheaper and larger. Because they take up more room, a pellet-filled blanket of the same weight is bulkier and warmer, and they can be audible when you shift about.
Steel Shot
Steel shot beads are heavier per bead, which suits the top of the weight range, but they make for a firmer blanket with a more noticeable texture through the fabric.
Covers And Fabrics
The outer fabric is what you actually feel, so it matters more than the spec sheet suggests. Polyester fleece is soft and warm and is the common choice. Cotton breathes better and suits anyone who sleeps hot. Bamboo and other cooling fabrics go further in the same direction.
Some weighted blankets come with a removable duvet-style cover. If yours does, use it: washing a light cover regularly is far easier than washing a 6.8 kg blanket, and the weighted inner then needs washing only rarely.
Judging Construction Quality
Pocket Size And Stitching
Smaller pockets hold the fill more evenly. Look at how the grid is stitched and whether the seams are reinforced, because those seams are carrying weight every time the blanket is picked up or washed.
Edge Finishing
Proper edge binding is what stops fill escaping and is usually the first thing to fail on a cheap blanket. It is worth a look before you buy.
Even Fill
Lay the blanket flat and feel across it. It should feel the same at the corners as in the middle. Anywhere noticeably lighter or heavier means the fill was not distributed properly at the factory, and it will only get worse.
Living With One
Give It A Few Nights
A weighted blanket feels strange on the first night, in the way any change to your bedding does. Most people know within a week whether they like it. If after a week it still feels like too much, it is too heavy, and going lighter is the fix rather than persevering.
Position
It should cover your body and stop there. Letting it hang over the side of the bed means it slowly pulls itself off you during the night.
Temperature
You are adding a layer. If you already sleep warm, choose a breathable cover and expect to use fewer other layers underneath.
Safety And Suitability
You should be able to move under it, turn over, and get out from under it easily and without help. If you cannot, it is the wrong weight.
Anyone with respiratory or circulatory conditions, difficulty regulating temperature, or anything affecting mobility should speak to a healthcare professional before using a weighted blanket. The same goes for young children, as above. A weighted blanket is not appropriate for everyone and it is not a medical device.
Some people simply dislike the sensation, and people who feel confined easily often find weight unhelpful rather than comforting. That is a normal reaction and worth testing before you commit to using one nightly.
Care And Washing
Washing
Wash inside a laundry bag on a gentle cycle in cold water. Hand washing is gentler again. Check your machine's capacity before you start, because a wet 6.8 kg blanket is considerably heavier than a dry one and can overload a domestic drum.
Drying
Air dry. Heat is what damages the fill pockets and the stitching over time. Lay it flat rather than hanging it, because hanging a wet weighted blanket pulls the fill toward one end.
Spot Cleaning
For small marks, spot clean rather than washing the whole thing. It is quicker and it puts less strain on the seams.
Storage
Store it flat or loosely rolled rather than tightly folded, somewhere dry. Tight folding creases the pockets and encourages the fill to settle unevenly.
Choosing Yours
Work out first where it will actually be used. Sofa use points at the 91 x 122 cm; sleeping under it points at one of the two bed sizes. Then pick the weight from your own body weight rather than from the size of your bed, and if you are between two, go lighter.
After that it is down to fabric preference and how warm you sleep. Ours are breathable by design, with fine glass beads in small stitched pockets, and they come in three weights so the choice is genuinely yours to make.