Can You Sleep On Your Side In A Mummy Sleeping Bag?

In a standard sleeping bag, you’ve got an awful lot of wiggle room on all sides. This means that when you’re in the bag you can comfortably sleep on any side that you want, while also making sure that the bag lies flat on the floor.

The main reason that this is good is to help insulate you from the cold air around you. This is because only one side of the bag is ever in contact with the cold air, and the other side is in contact with your warm body and insulated by the floor.

You can sleep on your side in a mummy sleeping bag, however, the bag is designed to be close to the skin and therefore comes with you when you roll over. This is perfectly fine, and actually, be comfortable if you’re sleeping on a soft enough surface, but it’s unconventional, to say the least.

The main failing of that method is that both of your sides (front and back) are then unprotected from the cold air around you.

Therefore, you can lose a lot of heat from all over your body, when that’s the opposite of what you want to do. Of course, mummy bags and all sleeping bags are well-insulated, but even the best-insulated sleeping bag still loses a little bit of heat.

Are Mummy Sleeping Bags Uncomfortable?

As with the comfort of everything. It’s a sliding scale of what you consider comfortable. That said, there are two reasons why people may consider mummy sleeping bags uncomfortable: their size, and the position that they encourage you to sleep in.

Mummy sleeping bags are designed to be small and lightweight. This means that they can be folded up easily and stowed away for the next leg of a camping trip, but it also means that the bags themselves are quite small.

Especially if you’re a fairly tall or broad person, you may find that the mummy sleeping bags are a little too small for you in general, meaning that you’re uncomfortable. Of course, this is subjective. If you don’t tend to move around much while you sleep, or you’re a fairly small person, you might actually prefer the mummy sleeping bags to more conventional ones. The best way to find out is to try one out for yourself.

Again, since they are designed to be small, compact, and easily stow-able, they have a very streamlined shape that can tend to hug a person a little.

This means that while, in a conventional sleeping bag, you may be able to lay the bag on the floor and still roll over, this won’t be the case in a mummy sleeping bag.

If you prefer to sleep on your side, you may have to simply role the whole bag over, with you inside, instead of simply rotating yourself.

This restriction of movement also extends to a camper not being able to sleep on their front. Because the front is the only place on the sleeping bag where there’s a hole available for breathing, the bag isn’t really suitable for sleeping on your front.

Best Way To Sleep On Your Side In A Mummy Sleeping Bag

Many people among us all are side sleepers, myself included. When you’re going on a  camping trip, it’s likely that you’ll want to carry on sleeping like that, regardless of where or how you’re getting some rest.

In a conventional sleeping bag, you’ve generally got quite a lot of room around you which allows you to roll over or fidget. In a mummy sleeping bag, however, it’s a whole different ball game.

As I’ve said quite a few times in this article, the mummy sleeping bag is relatively small, as it’s designed to be particularly portable and lightweight.

As a result of this design methodology, the bag is fairly small and often can feel a little tight around campers as they sleep. This means that you don’t have enough room within the bag to roll over which, in turn, can mean that you might have trouble sleeping on your side.

The best way to sleep on your side in spite of the small dimensions of the mummy bag is to simply roll over as one big unit, bag and all.

The outside of the bag will remain strong and warming no matter which way it’s facing, so it’s simply a matter of rolling as one big burrito until you’re in a comfortable position.