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Is it best to sleep your baby in a cot during the day?

Dr Pamela Douglas16th of Sep 202321st of May 2024

baby lying on back in a cot during the daytime

You don't have to sleep your baby in a cot. Many babies don't like the cot at all. You can find out about baby sleep safety, including in cots, here.

Quality of sleep is not affected by where your baby is sleeping. It could be you place your sleeping baby on a mat on the floor or ground. It could be you place your sleeping baby on some other kind of safe sleep surface. It could be your baby falls asleep in a pram or a stroller. It could be your baby falls asleep in the car capsule or car seat, or in the baby carrier. Often your baby will fall asleep in your arms.

Sleep is sleep, wherever it happens, and you can trust your baby's sleep regulators, the body clock and sleep pressure, to take the sleep your baby needs without you having to worry. Baby sleep architecture is flexible and dynamic.

Sleep is also not controlled by sleep associations. You might have heard that it's best to get a sleep routine happening, with your baby getting used to going to sleep in the cot during the day to create healthy sleep habits. But this advice comes from the belief that sleep is under the control of sleep associations. Actually, the sleep science tells us that your baby's sleep is controlled only by his sleep regulators, not by positive associations.

However, a certain kind of association can seriously interfere with easy sleep! Your baby (who learns things very quickly) might start to cry when you go into the bedroom or go close to the cot! This is a conditioned dialling up with the cot, a learned association which we would hope to avoid. If this is happening with your baby, it's best to not use the cot at all for a time, so that the conditioned dialling up with the cot fades away. Another way of saying this is that we avoid using the cot for a time so that the neural pathways which have been laid down connecting the experience of the cot with distress, remain unused, and are pruned away!

It's best for both your own and your baby's wellbeing for sleep to happen on the go during the day, as you create a life that is rich in sensory motor nourishment for your baby, and as enjoyable as possible for yourself. Sometimes you might use a cot. Often times, you won't be anywhere near a cot, but hopefully you'll be having an interesting day!

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What to do about baby sleep when you have an older child or other children who need your attention?

Father carrying baby in daylight in the kitchen while toddler looks on

Sometimes families are warned to keep the older child out of the way as much as possible when a new baby comes into the house. They might be advised to have one parent take the older child out much of the day, leaving the mother alone with the new baby in the house for long periods of time. Having a lot of support in the early days can make an enormous difference for a woman with a new baby, and especially when there is an older sibling. Every family has their own style and makes their own decisions. There isn't a right or wrong.

But after the first couple of weeks, newborns are usually showing signs of a voracious hunger for rich and changing sensory motor stimulation. Inside the

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