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

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!