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Baby Sleep (0-12 months) icon

Baby Sleep (0-12 months)


  • Plan enjoyable days outside the home to help with baby sleep
  • It's ok to wake a sleeping baby
  • Go for lots of walks when you're caring for a baby or toddler
  • Get creative about physical activity (outside the house) when you're caring for a baby
  • Four ways of carrying your baby from birth which make life easier (not harder)
  • Spend as much time in green or blue spaces as possible when you're caring for a baby or toddler
  • Is the saying "there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing" true for babies and toddlers?
  • Is tummy time a good form of sensory motor nourishment?
  • What to do about sensory motor stimulation when your baby doesn’t like the car?
  • What to do about sensory motor stimulation when your baby doesn’t like the pram?

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  • Baby Sleep (0-12 months)
  • S2: Daytimes
  • CH 2: Making changes
  • PT 2.2: Meeting baby's sensory motor needs

It's ok to wake a sleeping baby

Dr Pamela Douglas23rd of Aug 202321st of May 2024

caucasian mother holding baby in her arms

It's perfectly ok to wake a sleeping baby. It's also best not to be quiet around babies when they are sleeping!

You can trust your baby's sleep regulators, the sleep pressure and body clock, to take the sleep your baby needs. If your baby really needs to sleep, she'll stay asleep as you lift her up out of the stroller or pram or car seat or cot, for the next activity you have planned.

If she wakes and cries, then you might offer a little feed to help dial her down. Then ... on with the day!

Here are the key things to experiment with during the day, which make your baby's sleep as easy as possible, day and night.

  • Keep your little one as dialled down as you sensibly can by using your two superpowers:

    • Is it milk that my baby needs (if under six months; after six months you're thinking milk or solids).

    • Is it a change of sensory motor nourishment that my baby needs?

  • Don't try to put your baby to sleep

  • Don't try to keep your baby asleep.

You can simply let sleep look after itself in the midst of a day that you enjoy, spent outside your home as much as possible, since our interior environments are so low in sensory interest for babies. This makes sure that your baby's body clock is set in a way that keeps the Big Night-time Sleep as consolidated as possible.

Do you have other children in your care? Then you know how it is: school drop-off, soccer practice, play-dates, music class, kindy fundraisers - your baby has to fit in with your busy life caring for her older siblings. And she does. She takes sleep during the day without you having to try, just whenever her sleep pressure is high enough. She takes sleep on the go, in the midst of the rich and changing sensory motor nourishment that comes with being by your side, as you and her siblings enjoy the outside world.

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Next up in Meeting baby's sensory motor needs

Go for lots of walks when you're caring for a baby or toddler

mother walks outside with baby in forward facing carrier

Many parents walk, and walk, and walk some more when they're caring for a baby or toddler!

Walking is great for sleep, both yours and your small child's. Walking provides your baby or toddler with lovely rich sensory motor experiences, which keep her dialled down while her sleep pressure is rising. This helps a lot with night-time sleep. And walking is great for your mental and emotional well-being!

I acknowledge that many carers of babies and toddlers live with disabilities. If this is your situation, you may not…

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