Safe-sleep basics
The baseline rules for putting a baby to sleep: on their back, on a firm flat surface, with nothing else in the sleep space. Unlike most topics here, these are safety rules to know, not preferences to weigh.
What are the safe sleep rules for a baby?
In short: Parents choose between 1 main approaches: A floor, not a spectrum: back to sleep, firm flat separate surface, nothing else in it, no weighted products, no sofa sleeping. Evidence: well established. Guidance and evidence agree. The real question is whether you'll follow it. Best settled: around the birth.
- Evidence
- Well established
- Best settled
- Around the birth
- Part of
- Pregnancy to first birthday
Safe-sleep basics: what are the options?
Parents usually land on one of these 1 approaches.
1. A floor, not a spectrum: back to sleep, firm flat separate surface, nothing else in it, no weighted products, no sofa sleeping
The baby sleeps on their back, on a firm flat surface of their own, with nothing else in it, and never on a sofa or with weighted products.
Safe-sleep basics: what does the evidence say?
Well established. Guidance and evidence agree. The real question is whether you'll follow it.
AAP 2022
Sources
What else is worth knowing?
These rules exist to reduce the risk of sudden infant death and suffocation, and major health bodies agree on them. They apply to every sleep, including naps, and to everyone who looks after the baby. The other sleep topics are choices; this one is a baseline.
Questions to ask each other
- Do we both know the basic safe-sleep rules, and who will remind the others who care for the baby?
- What will we do when we are exhausted and tempted to bend them?
- Who will tell grandparents and sitters, and how?
More in Sleep
First published 2026-10-03. Last updated 2026-10-05. General information, not medical advice.