Hi, My pups are now a week old. I am a little paranoid about the temperature within the room. They are in a high sided whelping box in which they have vet bed and a heat pad. They are spending more and more time off the heat pad, in fact they move off it very quickly and sleeping more split up.
Mum spends a lot of time panting and is clearly too warm. There are no draughts.

my question is, can i allow a more ambient temperature now? The pups are very chunky and thriving but i think it may be putting mum off being in the box with them as she comes out to lie on the tiled floor. i live in a modern house and this room is toasty compared to the rest of the house.

Turn heating down a notch and see how you go.At 8 days mine usually split a bit.I have two heat pads and find by about a week old they only use one.

I would say keep it warm but not hot especially as you have a heat pad there, if mum gets over hot she will want to spend more time away, as long as its draught free it doesnt have to be very hot.

i agree turn it down if the pups where cold they would stay close together be carefull you dont cook them ,and the last thing you want is mum not wanting to go in and feed pups :)

I pin a thermometer on the side of the whelp box and keep the room at 85 degrees for the first week then down to 70-75 degrees the remainder of the of the time until hey are up and running , if they are very pink just open the door and let some air in to cool the room down a little but I wouldnt keep changing the temperature.

The pups need to be kept at 21 degrees centigrade. I have a marvellous device that I got from my vet, it's really designed for lizards, snake tanks etc but it's brilliant for puppies. It has a long lead with a sensor at one end and a temperature readout at the other. You just hang the sensor bit, (It's about the size of a jack plug on a mobile phone charger) either over the side of the whelping box or a couple of feet above it and it will tell you the ambient temperature of the whelping box. It was about £10.