It is also important to remember that babies and children of every age have their own subconscious and unconscious fears. Like adults, they can wake suddenly for no reason, or because some noise outside surprises them at a time of shallow dozing (possums leaping onto the roof was common at our farm). After the noise has gone, they don't know why they woke up - and nor do you! Like us, kids go through phases of worry about changes in their life, and have nonsensical dreams which can disorientate them in the night. The best a parent can do is to settle a child before sleep with a calm and happy mind, check in on them, just before they retire themselves and attend to their needs and console them should they wake in the night.
  One should never scold a child simply because they wake in the night. I'm sure they don't want to, nor try to. Only if their waking behaviour becomes a habit and they manipulate the occasion for unnecessary advantage would it be necessary to be firmer about such behaviours and let them put themselves back to sleep until the pattern is broken.

	~Quality of Sleep~

   We all know where we have the best sleep - in our own beds after a satisfying day. And for children of all ages, the importance of quality sleep is no less different. While a newborn may seem content enough to sleep in a pram as it is wheeled around the shopping centre, or in the car capsule, the best way to teach a baby to sleep in a bed is to put them in one as often as possible. If babies spend a lot of time out of their home environment, and away from the opportunity to sleep in their own beds, snatching bits and pieces of rest as they fit in with their parents' busy day, it is no wonder that their sleep patterns become random. I have noticed that my children's sleep patterns take several days to get back to normal after just one day out and about. Frequent travel during daylight hours and even after dark, allowing only short and irregular sleeps for a young child, must surely play a factor in disordered patterns of sleep. I try to limit my trips out with pre-school age children to once every fortnight or once per week at the most, or short trips in the morning so they still have a restful afternoon nap.
   It is true that babies love gentle movement, since this imitates the feeling they experienced in the womb. But like all things, they must grow out of this phase. Helping a young baby into sleep by the closeness of the mother with her warmth

and movement in a sling or pouch is fine, but once asleep, he should be returned to his cot.
Children sleeping semi-vertical in car seats is a horrible way to rest the body and mind. The head is tossed from side to side on the corners, the body is rocked back and forth with the brakes, the subconscious mind is full of the passengers' and the traffic's noise. When you arrive, they get woken by the change in body momentum or by being lifted from their travelling position, whether or not that is their need at the time. It can also be a bit of a shock to their system when they have gone off to sleep in a familiar place like home, to abruptly wake up in an alien environment - say, a shopping trolley in the supermarket carpark!
   Personally, I try not to have a child sleeping in any other place but their bed and in any other position other than lying down. This is the yogi's way of sleeping, where the body gets its greatest possible relaxation by being fully horizontal, the emotions get their greatest relaxation by being in a place of security and familiarity, and the mind gets it greatest possible relaxation by being in a place of serenity. Although this isn't always possible, it has always been a guiding force to plan outings around my babies' sleep times.
   If it is unavoidable to travel with babies or young children who may need to sleep during the journey, the best way to arrange things is so that their normal sleeping patterns are not disturbed too much by the journey. For example, when on a day-trip, if their normal morning sleep is around 9 am - 11 am, put them down in the car as you leave your home base and break the journey for their normal waking, feeding and playing session at roughly the same time. If the trip is longer, try to make each leg of the journey similar to their usually daily routine at home. When away on holidays, try to keep the same morning wake times, day sleep times, meal times, and evening routine of bath time, dinnertime and bed time. In this way your children will be far less fractious from the changes to their routine and there will be far less "recovery time" after the holiday.
   One should also consider the ambient noise around the home. Whilst you can't do much about the external noise of the neighbourhood, the background noise of the house is completely within your control. The worst offenders are TV, radio or computer games. While a tiny baby may not seem too disturbed by such background din, imagine how you feel if your slumber is disturbed by a similar undercurrent of noise. You may think you are tolerating it at the time, but in the morning you don't feel very rested.