Shopping for
Baby Sleep

Somewhere to Sleep

This is where baby sleep shopping starts looking like six versions of the same thing. The differences are mostly about how much room you have, whether you want it to move and how long you want it to last.

Bassinet

If you want bub sleeping in your room for the first six months but a full-size cot won't fit beside your bed, this is where a bassinet earns its keep. It gives bub a smaller sleep space for those early months, just with a much shorter career than a cot.

Cradle

Some babies settle beautifully with gentle motion; others couldn't care less and you've paid extra for a feature nobody uses. That's really the difference between a cradle and a bassinet: you're buying the rocking. If that isn't a feature you particularly want, the two solve much the same problem.

Moses Basket

If you want a newborn sleep space that can move easily from bedroom to loungeroom, the handles and small footprint are the appeal. It's another short-term option though, and overlaps heavily with a bassinet, so having both can mean buying two versions of the same job.

Bedside Sleeper

Those every-two-hour newborn feeds are why putting bub within arm's reach starts sounding very appealing. A purpose-built bedside sleeper gives baby their own sleep surface right beside your mattress, but if an ordinary bassinet already fits beside your bed, you may be solving the same problem twice.

Cot

If you've got room for a cot in your bedroom, you can skip the bassinet altogether. Bub can sleep in it from day one, you'll use it for years (and possibly for more than one baby) so one bigger purchase can save you buying the short-term version first. Borrowing or buying secondhand can make even more sense.

Portacot

For Grandma's house, holidays and the friend's place where dinner ran late. It folds into a bag, sets up in minutes once you've done it four times, and gives bub somewhere to sleep away from home. If nights away are rare, this is an easy borrow-or-buy-when-you-need-it product rather than something every nursery needs from day one.

Pram Bassinet Stand

If your pram bassinet is approved for sleep, a stand can turn something you've already bought into bub's sleep space at home too. That may save you buying a separate bassinet for the early months - just check your particular pram bassinet is actually designed for sleep.

Making the Bed

Beyond a mattress and fitted sheet, most of what you’ll find is protecting something, adding something or solving a problem you may never have.

Bassinet Mattress

Most bassinets already come with a mattress, so this is usually a check-what’s-in-the-box rather than an extra purchase. If you do need a replacement, it has to fit the bassinet properly; this isn’t one to improvise with a piece of foam cut roughly to size.

Cot Mattress

The price on the cot often doesn't include the thing bub actually sleeps on. Cot mattresses are usually sold separately, so factor that in when you're comparing prices, and buy the exact size your cot calls for rather than a near-enough fit.

Mattress Protector

The first midnight nappy leak is when the mattress protector earns its place on the list. Choose one that fits tightly under the sheet, and whether you need a spare is mostly a laundry-cycle decision

Cot Sheet

Cot sheets have an unusually busy washing career thanks to milk, dribble and whatever escaped the nappy overnight. A fitted sheet made for your mattress stays put properly; how many you buy is really a laundry-cycle decision rather than a baby-list rule.

Tuck Sheet

Some newborns seem to want one more layer of snug even after they're wrapped or zipped into a sleeping bag. A tuck sheet adds that firmly tucked-in feeling around bub, which makes this very much an actual-baby problem rather than something to buy just in case.

Cot Liner

The problem is believable: little arms and legs poking through cot rails. Mesh liners are sold as the fix, but current safe-sleep guidance recommends keeping the cot clear, so this is one problem you don't need to shop your way out of.

Cot Bumper

Your mum probably had one, and plenty of beautiful nursery photos still do. But cot bumpers are one of those baby products the advice has moved on from, so despite what Pinterest says, this one's an easy cross off.

Infant Head Rest

Notice a flat spot on the back of bub's head and the internet will sell you a solution within the hour: shaped pillows, contoured foam, wedges. None belong in a baby's sleep space, so this isn't a product to add to the cot. If you're concerned about bub's head shape, that's one for your child health nurse or GP rather than the nursery aisle.

Sleep Positioner

Wedges, rolls and nests promise to keep bub exactly where you put them, which sounds reassuring enough to earn them a spot on plenty of shopping lists. Red Nose doesn't recommend products that hold babies in a particular sleep position, so this is another one you can cross off.

What They Wear

What bub wears to bed does a lot of the work that blankets used to do, which is why this section earns more space on the list than you might expect.

Swaddle Wrap

Newborns arrive with a startle reflex that flings their own arms into their face and wakes them up, which seems like a design flaw. A lightweight wrap can help contain the flailing for babies who like that snug feeling, but it has a short career, wrapping stops once bub starts showing signs of rolling.

Swaddle Suit

Recreating the maternity-ward wrap at 2am can feel like an advanced craft project, which is exactly why swaddle suits exist. Zip bub in and the snugness is done for you, handy if wrapping isn't your special skill, but still only useful for that short pre-rolling stage.

Transition Swaddle

Just when you've finally found a swaddle that works, bub starts showing signs of rolling and the arms have to come out. A transition swaddle is the halfway house between wrapped and sleeping bag. Useful if your baby considers sudden change a personal betrayal.

Sleeping Bag

The workhorse of Australian baby sleep, from newborn to toddler. A well-fitted sleeping bag keeps bub warm without loose blankets and defeats the small person determined to kick every cover off. TOG tells you how warm it is, so Melbourne babies in particular can end up with a little seasonal wardrobe.

Pyjamas

Under the sleeping bag or on their own in warm weather. The zip-up ones with a two-way zipper let you do nappy changes without undressing a sleeping child from the neck down, and the mum who invented those deserves a statue.

Mittens

Newborns come with tiny, weirdly sharp fingernails and no idea where their hands are, so scratch mittens look like an obvious fix. Suits with fold-over cuffs do the same job without leaving a tiny mitten loose in the sleep space, and standalone mittens fall off constantly anyway. You'll find them in the washing machine, the pram, and once, inexplicably, the fruit bowl.

Baby Blanket

One of those baby-list staples you can absolutely buy and then discover you hardly use for sleep. A sleeping bag can do the warmth job instead, which means the mountain of blankets you were given may spend more time in the pram, on the floor and everywhere else bub lands than actually on the bed.

Personalised Blanket

The one with bub's name embroidered on it, usually a gift, usually gorgeous. Same rules as any blanket in the cot, so for the first year most of these live on the nursery chair looking beautiful. Perfectly good for floor play, pram walks and every photo you send the relatives.

Setting the Room

None of this goes in the cot, which is why the room is where the gadget budget tends to escape.

Blackout Blind

Daytime naps in an Australian summer mean asking a baby to sleep through what is essentially stadium lighting. Blackout blinds turn 3pm into midnight, and suction-cup portable versions do the same job at holiday houses where the curtains are decorative.

Room Thermometer

Takes the guesswork out of wondering whether the nursery feels too hot or too cold. But before buying a separate one, check your monitor or night light, room temperature is one of those features that often sneaks into another gadget you've already bought.

Heater

Melbourne winter is real, and some bedrooms are considerably colder than the rest of the house. A heater solves that room problem rather than a baby-sleep problem, so whether you need one depends entirely on where bub will actually be sleeping.

Humidifier

The stuffy-nose purchase. A humidifier adds moisture to dry air, which is why they suddenly start looking interesting when bub gets their first cold. The catch is the cleaning: the tank needs regular attention, so you're buying yourself a small appliance and another job.

Aroma Diffuser

Lavender oil misting through the nursery smells like a day spa, but babies aren't small adults and not every essential oil is suitable around infants. So this isn't something bub needs for sleep, and if you're buying one for the fragrance, the spa smell is mostly for you; bub was never fussed.

Night Light

Not for the baby, who slept in complete darkness for nine months and is fine with it. The night light is for you: enough glow to find the cot, the dummy and your footing in the middle of the night without switching on the big light and startling everyone awake.

Night Light Projector

Casts stars or waves across the ceiling, often with music, aiming to give bub something calming to gaze at while drifting off. Some babies find twenty minutes of galaxy projection soothing. Others find it the most interesting thing that's ever happened and treat bedtime as cinema. You won't know which baby you have until you own one.

Wall Lights

Plug-in or stick-on lights along the hallway between your room and the nursery, for the fourteen trips you'll make along it each night. Motion-sensor versions mean nobody fumbles for a switch with a baby in their arms. They also solve the age-old problem of stepping on the cat.

White Noise Machine

Consistent sound masks the doorbell, the dog and the older sibling's interpretive dance practice. Some babies love it and others couldn't care less, so this is an excellent thing to test with an app before buying the dedicated machine. Rain, static, womb sounds, dishwasher - babies apparently have genres.

Portable Noise Machine

If your baby has decided sleep only happens to the sound of static, the portable version keeps the illusion going at Grandma's, on holidays and through pram naps. It only earns a separate spot on the list if taking your full-size machine everywhere starts becoming ridiculous.

White Noise App

Before spending anything on either machine above, there's a free version already in your pocket. A white noise app is an easy way to discover whether you've even got a white-noise baby before buying the hardware. The catch is committing a phone to the nursery all night; the night it comes with you to answer a call is the night the silence wakes everyone.

Settling & Soothing

The gap between "in the cot" and "actually asleep" is where this entire section lives.

Dummy

Some babies are born sucky and a dummy settles them in seconds; others spit it across the room with surprising force. You won't know which one you've got until you meet them, so this is probably a buy-one-to-try rather than a stock-the-drawer product.

Comforter

Some babies eventually decide one particular scrap of fabric is absolutely essential to civilisation; others never attach to one at all. This is very much an actual-baby purchase rather than something you need before birth. If one does become The One later, mums who've lost The One before will tell you to buy a twin.

Sleep Aid Toy

The plush version of a white noise machine, sleepy sheep and all its many cousins, with sounds, heartbeat or music tucked inside. For a newborn, it's the sound you're buying, not the cuddly toy, so if you already have white noise covered you may be doubling up. And check how long it actually plays; a sheep that switches itself off after ten minutes when bub takes forty is a cruel joke.

Silk Sleeve

The newborn bald patch bothers parents considerably more than it bothers babies, which is how silk mattress sleeves found their way into the sleep aisle. They're designed to reduce friction where bub's head rubs against the sheet, so the real question is whether the bald patch bothers you enough to buy something for it.

Cot Mobile

Somewhere between nursery decoration and baby entertainment lives the cot mobile. Some babies will stare at one like you've installed Netflix above the cot; others couldn't care less, so buy it because you love it too, not because every baby needs one.

Cot Mobile Arm

The clamp-on arm the mobile hangs from, sold separately because of course it is. Worth checking your mobile and your cot are compatible with the same arm before you're standing in the nursery with three boxes and no combination that fits.

Cot Toy

Once bub has discovered hands, buttons, mirrors and spinning things suddenly become a lot more interesting. Cot toys are really for that baby, not the newborn you're currently shopping for, and by then you'll know whether a bit of cot entertainment would actually be useful.

Musical Toy

Pull a string, press a belly, hear the same lullaby approximately 900 times. A musical toy gives you a portable bit of bedtime sound, but if you've already bought a white noise machine, sound toy or projector with music, check you're not collecting five products that all sing bub to sleep.

Cot Canopy

The floaty fabric over the cot is mostly there because nursery Pinterest exists. It's decoration rather than sleep equipment, and current safe-sleep guidance means it doesn't belong hanging around bub's sleep space anyway, so this one's easy to admire without adding to cart.

Sleep Training Book

You do not need to choose your baby's sleep philosophy before you've even met your baby. Sleep books become useful if sleep actually becomes a problem and you'd like a framework to follow, which makes this a very good buy-later-if-you-need-it product rather than something for the newborn checklist.

Keeping an Eye on Them

The more reassurance you want from a monitor, the more expensive the category gets, so work out what you actually want to know before you buy one.

Baby Monitor

The video kind, so you can watch bub sleep from the couch like the world's slowest television. Handy if the nursery is out of earshot, or when you want to know whether that noise means awake or merely doing something weird in their sleep. Wifi models let you watch from your phone; non-wifi versions keep everything on their own parent screen.

Audio Monitor

The original: it lets you hear bub from the garden or the other end of the house, full stop. Cheaper, nothing to hack, no temptation to watch the screen instead of sleeping. In a small flat, you may discover you can hear everything through the wall anyway and save yourself the money.

Breathing Monitor

These promise the kind of reassurance every new parent understands: an alarm if bub stops moving or breathing normally. But Red Nose says home breathing and movement monitors haven't been shown to prevent SUDI and aren't recommended for healthy babies. If bub has a medical reason to be monitored, that's a different conversation with their care team.

Sock Monitor

The sock that texts your phone: heart rate, oxygen levels and a stream of numbers you previously only saw in hospital. For some parents that data feels reassuring; for others it creates a brand-new hobby called checking the app at 2am. Red Nose doesn't recommend these monitors for healthy babies as a way to prevent SUDI, so the real question is whether having more data would reassure you, or give you more things to watch.

Wearable Sleep Tracker

Logs sleep cycles, wake windows and night wakings into an app, for parents who like graphs. The data can be interesting, and it can also turn every rough night into a chart you stare at instead of napping. If bub's sleep is genuinely worrying you, the child health nurse reads the situation better than the app does.

Every product here solved a very specific sleep problem for somebody.

You won't know which ones are yours until you've met your actual baby. The bassinet might solve a bedroom-space problem, the swaddle suit might make 2am considerably easier, and the white noise machine might turn out to be an expensive little rain soundtrack nobody asked for.

The shops don't close because you had a baby.