Nursery Checklist

The whole nursery checklist reduces to one line: a firm, flat, level mattress that fills the cot, a fitted sheet and nothing else in there with her. Everything after that is the room around it — 16C to 20C on a thermometer, a cot placed away from radiators, heaters, windows and direct sunlight, a light you can use at three in the morning, and somewhere for you to sit that supports your back. For the first six months the room is usually yours, not hers, and that is the arrangement with the evidence behind it.

Most nursery lists are furniture lists. This one starts with the empty space, because the empty space is the part that matters and it is the part every product on the market is sold to fill.

The cot: what goes in it

• A firm, flat, level mattress. Firm means it returns to its original shape quickly when you press on it. Flat means a table rather than a hammock. Level means not inclined, propped, wedged or tilted. It fills the frame, with no gap at the sides.
• A fitted sheet. Fitted to that mattress, not tucked, folded or improvised from something larger.

That is the list. A cot holding nothing but a fitted sheet is named by the federal guidance as the safest option there is, and the phrase used for the cot itself is the one worth memorising: a fitted sheet and nothing else.

The cot: what does not go in it

• Pillows, duvets, loose blankets. Nothing that could cover her face and head.
• Cot bumpers — padded, mesh or otherwise. They are named on the NHS's list of what to keep out.
• Soft toys. Including the one bought before she was born. It can sit on a shelf and be handed to her in daylight.
• Pods and nests. Named by the NHS; the same category as anything soft, squishy or non-fitted.
• Any sleep positioner — a wedge, a support, a shaped insert, whatever the box calls it. It is exactly what the guidance asks you to keep out of the sleep area, and no product on the market has been shown to earn a place in an empty cot.
• Anything weighted. On her, over her, or in the sleep area, at any age. The AAP says nothing weighted, because it can put too much pressure on a baby's chest and lungs.
• Cables, monitors and cords within reach of the cot, at the length she will be able to reach in six months rather than the one she can reach today.

Babies go down on their back for every sleep, day and night, on a firm flat mattress, in a cot clear of blankets, pillows, bumpers and soft toys. Safe sleep basics carries the whole of the guidance; this page is the room it happens in.

The room she is actually in for six months: yours

Her own cot or Moses basket, beside your bed, for every sleep, for at least the first six months. That is the NHS's instruction, and the federal guidance attaches the strongest single number in this subject to it: room sharing without bed sharing may reduce the risk of SIDS by as much as 50% compared with sharing an adult bed or having the baby sleep in a room of her own.

Which means the nursery you are decorating is, for half a year, a room for storage, changing and getting dressed. That is worth knowing before you spend on it, and it makes the case for one good sleep surface that can move rather than two rooms' worth of furniture. The newborn essentials checklist takes the same view of everything else.

Temperature, and the scale on the label

Keep the room between 16C and 20C, checked with a room thermometer rather than by how the doorway feels to an adult who has been running up and down stairs. Check her by feeling her chest or the back of her neck — not her hands or feet, which are normally cool — and take a layer off if her skin is hot or sweating.

The tog scale on a sleeping bag assumes that band, which is why the bag has to match the room rather than the season:

• 2.5 tog for a room of 16 to 20C.
• 1.0 tog for 20 to 24C.
• 0.5 tog for 24 to 27C.

A bag must fit well around the shoulders. If you use a blanket instead, she goes on her back with her feet at the foot of the cot and it is tucked in firmly, no higher than her shoulders, never doubled over. And never a hot water bottle, an electric blanket, a spot next to a radiator, heater or fire, or a patch of direct sunlight — overheating raises risk, and it is the rule people skip because a cold-looking baby is easier to picture than a hot one. The room temperature guide works through the bands.

Where the cot goes, and what is above it

Away from the radiator, the heater and the window — the first two because of heat, the window because of both draught and sun. Nothing hangs over the cot, and nothing sits on a shelf above it.

Neither safe-sleep document registered here names a blind cord or a shelf, so take the next line as reasoning read off the same principle rather than as guidance: a cord within reach of a cot is a hazard for exactly as long as it takes a baby to learn to reach, which is sooner than anybody expects. Tie it up, or move the cot.

Dark, or not

Blackout helps in a room that gets a five o'clock sun in June, and it does nothing for a baby under about four months whose sleep is not yet on a clock. It is a preference rather than a requirement, and no guidance registered here has an opinion on it. What is worth arranging is the opposite: daylight during the day, so the difference between the two halves of the day is obvious, which the day-night confusion page covers.

The parts of a nursery nobody photographs

The working room, in the order you meet it at three in the morning:

• A changing surface you can reach with one hand — with everything on it before you start, because you never leave a baby on it to fetch anything.
• A light you can use without waking her. Low, warm, reachable from where you sit, and on a switch you can find in the dark.
• Somewhere to sit that supports your back for forty minutes. Feeds are long. A chair that is comfortable for ten minutes is not the same object.
• Storage in the order you need it in the dark: nappies and a change of clothes at hand height, the rest anywhere.
• A bin. Unglamorous, and the difference between a room you can use at night and one you leave.

One thing not to arrange: a feeding chair you would fall asleep in without meaning to. An adult sofa or armchair is soft, curved and full of gaps, and it is particularly dangerous when an adult falls asleep on it while feeding or comforting a baby. If there is any chance of dozing off, feed somewhere you have already made safe.

Sound, honestly

A sound machine is a tool, not furniture, and the whole question is volume and distance. Nobody publishes a target volume for a nursery, so any page handing you a figure to set the dial to has invented it. What is published is a measurement: fourteen infant sleep machines played at maximum volume all exceeded the noise limit recommended for infants in hospital nurseries at 30 cm, and three could exceed adult occupational limits over an eight-hour night.

Read across the room rather than at the cot: put the machine as far from her as the room allows, run it well below maximum, and use a timer rather than all night if it works. White noise for babies has the study in full and the player here opens quiet and says why beside its own volume slider.

A nursery is not a safety device

Say it once and it covers the rest of the market: no product removes the need for the empty cot. Not a monitor, not a mat, not a wearable, not a shaped insert, not a machine that plays a heartbeat. Some of those are useful and some are pleasant, and none of them changes what she is put down on or what is in there with her. If a product is sold on the promise that it does, that promise is the reason to put it back.

The checklist that actually matters fits in a sentence, and you can run it from the doorway every night: on her back, firm flat level mattress, fitted sheet and nothing else, room 16C to 20C, cot away from the heat and the window, and her cot in your room. A printed day sheet is worth keeping in the room too, because a week of notes is what turns a vague worry into something a health visitor or pediatrician can work with. This page is general information, not medical advice, and it cannot see your baby.