Safe sleep and safety information for NapBay

NapBay is a calculator and a logbook. That is all.

It does two things no schedule article does for you: the arithmetic, and the record-keeping. It does not decide how you get your baby to sleep.

It is method-agnostic on purpose. Cry-it-out, Ferber, pick-up-put-down, gentle, feeding to sleep, contact naps, co-sleeping per your own safe-sleep guidance: NapBay takes no side and works alongside all of them. If you have already read a book, hired a consultant or been given a plan by your paediatrician, keep it. NapBay runs the numbers of that plan on the days it derails.

This is not medical advice

Nothing here diagnoses anything, and nothing here should replace your paediatrician, family doctor, health visitor, nurse or midwife. The wake-window presets are common published starting ranges, written as single planning values so an app can add them up. They are a starting point. Your child's real wake windows are whatever your log shows after seven days.

Safe sleep comes before any schedule

No number in NapBay is worth more than these. Follow your own country's official safe-sleep guidance, and if NapBay ever conflicts with it, the guidance wins.

• On the back, every sleep, every time, naps included.
• Own flat, firm sleep surface with a fitted sheet. No pillows, no duvets, no cot bumpers, no loose blankets, no toys.
• Nothing inclined, nothing propped, no positioners, no wedges.
• Never in a car seat, pram, bouncer, swing or sling for unsupervised or overnight sleep. A bridge nap in a pram or car (NapBay suggests one occasionally) is a supervised, awake-adult, capped, short nap. Move them to a flat safe surface for anything longer.
• Smoke-free, not overheated, and no chin-to-chest slumping in a car seat.
• Room-share for as long as your local guidance recommends.
• If you bedshare, follow official safer-bedsharing guidance for your country rather than improvising.

Stop using NapBay and call a professional today if

• Weight gain, feeding or nappy output is a concern. Feeding always outranks a schedule.
• Your baby snores, gasps, pauses in breathing, sleeps with their neck extended, or breathes noisily through their mouth every night.
• Sleep has changed suddenly and dramatically, or comes with fever, vomiting, rash, floppiness or unusual crying.
• Your baby is under 3 months, was born early (use corrected age and ask your clinician first), or has a medical condition, reflux, low tone or a diagnosed sleep problem.
• You are told to feed at set intervals overnight. Do that, and use NapBay only for daytime planning.
• You are not okay. Rage, hopelessness, intrusive thoughts, or the feeling that you cannot keep the baby safe are medical situations too, and they are urgent. Ring your doctor, midwife or an emergency line today. There is no app fix for exhaustion at that level, and asking for help is the competent move, not the failure.

Two ground rules that will save you a fortnight

• Change one thing, hold it five days. Sleep is noisy. Anything shorter than five days is not data, it is weather.
• Never fix a bad night by shrinking day sleep on impulse. Look at the log, not at last night.