Ready Kids › First Job Ready › Badge 5 › Lesson 5.4
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Sleep
Put a baby to sleep on their back in an empty cot, every time, and follow the family's routine exactly.
1Look
Four cots
Four cots
Four cots side by side: one with a pillow and padded bumpers, one with a baby on its front, one with soft toys and a loose blanket, and one bare cot with a baby on its back in a sleeping bag, feet at the foot end.
One of these is right. By the end of this you will see the other three as wrong before you have thought about it.
2The idea
Taught as a rule, because getting it wrong is fatal
Most of this course is judgement. This is not. Babies die in their sleep from things that were avoidable, and the things are known. On their back. In their own cot. Cot empty: no pillows, no bumpers, no toys, no loose blankets or duvets. Every time, no matter what the cot looked like when you arrived.
The rest of the rule: a firm, flat mattress. A baby sleeping bag rather than blankets. The room comfortable, not hot. No hat indoors. Never on a sofa or an armchair, never in a bed with you, and never you dozing off holding them on the sofa. If the parents say the baby rolls over by themselves now, fine; you still put them down on their back.
3The idea
The family's routine, exactly
Every family has one. Bath, feed, story, song, lights, in a particular order, with a particular dummy and a particular noise. Ask for it at handover and write it down. Follow it exactly. Not your version, not a better one. Theirs. A routine done differently is a baby who will not settle, which is a long night for everyone.
For older kids, the same. Bedtime, night light, door open or shut, water by the bed, the parents’ rules on stories and screens. If a child says Mum lets me, the note wins. You learned that in the first badge and it is still true at bedtime.
4The idea
Hana and the cot
Hana, first time with a five-month-old. Handover: feed at half six, bath, sleeping bag, white noise, down at seven, on his back. She does it in that order. The cot has a padded bumper and two soft toys the mum forgot to mention. Hana takes them out and puts them on the chair. Baby on his back, feet at the foot, sleeping bag zipped. Lights off, white noise, door ajar.
She checks every fifteen minutes: on his back, breathing, not hot. She moved the toys without asking. That is the one thing in this course you do not need permission for. If the mum had said he likes the bumper, Hana would have said, politely, that she has been taught the cot has to be empty, and taken it out anyway.
5Decide
Four cots. Which is the one?
Pick one to carry on.
6Say it
The rule, from memory
Say the rule from memory, out loud, fast
“On their back. Cot empty. No pillows, no bumpers, no toys, no loose bedding.”
You will say this to yourself over a cot at seven o’clock, and it will be right.
7Look
Feet to foot
Feet to foot
A cot from above: a baby on its back in a sleeping bag with its feet touching the foot end of the cot, and nothing else in it.
Feet at the bottom, so they cannot wriggle down under anything. It is the one detail people forget.
8Find them
Which of these go in the cot with the baby?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 3.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Say the sleep rule to a parent from memory, no notes: the position, and the four things that are not in the cot. Then say it again tomorrow morning, before school.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
On their back. Cot empty: no pillows, no bumpers, no toys, no loose bedding. Every time.
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