Please consider the following as ideas and NOT medical advice, or advice in any form. If you wish to try these suggestions, please consider any reasons why you might not want to and do so at your own risk, and please don’t try these on children who may not be able to move a heavy blanket as easily. Thank you.

I recently got a heavy blanket, also known as a weighted blanket or gravity blanket, after hearing about their potential benefits to help one sleep better. Click here to see just one of many articles that can tell you more about these blankets. The basic idea is it makes you feel like you’re in a cocoon or hug, and that comforting feeling, for those to whom it is comforting, helps you sleep better, possibly even faster from getting into bed. The recommended weight is about 10% of body weight, though I’m not sure why 10% and not, say 15% or 5%, but just keep that in mind in reading this.

The recommended weight didn’t matter the least to me, as you’ll see, in my experimentation for ways I can layout the blanket to be used. I LOVE this blanket almost any way I lay it out for use! These configurations completely throw off the weight distribution, which is part of what I was looking for, to get more weight in some areas and less in others. Below are the five configurations I came up with, and what I liked and didn’t like about each. You may find one or more of these configurations to your liking, if you haven’t thought about using the blanket in some other way than just slipping under it. Not all of these configurations might work for you depending on your relative size to your blanket. I’m pretty small so all of these can work for me with a 4′ x 6′ heavy blanket.

1 – Lengthwise with bed

This is how you’d expect to use it, lengthwise on bed. However, if you need your feet to point upward lying on your back, there’s enough weight to maybe make them uncomfortable. This is 4 feet across so at the edges of the bed, you don’t have that “hug” from the heavy blanket that sleeping under one makes you feel like having, even if not a very strong hug.

 

 

 

2 – Folded at top lengthwise

You could shorten the lengthwise layout to double up on the upper body while leaving your feet to point upward without lots of pressure on them from lack of the heavy blanket weight. Double layering is probably not suggested from the blanket weight being about 10% of body weight, but I don’t think any harm could come from it unless a kid gets lost under it. These smaller configurations also gives more room for body heat to escape. A tight wrap around your body can collect a lot of heat, as you can imagine.

 

 

3 – Across bed

You can turn the blanket to run across the bed to leave your feet sticking out, and share among more than one people. You can also turn more in bed and still stay under the blanket fully.

 

 

 

 

 

4 – Doubled up across bed

If you don’t need the leg coverage for the blanket weight, you can fully double up the blanket across the bed and sleep under a good hug on the upper body. The darker look is the reverse side of the blanket. There’s a smooth bright side that feels rather synthetic, and a softer, darker side that feels more natural material.

 

 

 

 

5 – All folded up

Finally, you can fold up the blanket to get almost a quadruple weight on your torso This was the configuration I went with my first night, loving the weight on me so much I went for it all!