The Baby Sleep Project

The Baby Sleep Project is a series of research studies, stemming from our work preventing Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) with a wider remit to help protect vulnerable families and their infants. More information can be found on the study website at www.babysleepresearch.co.uk 

  • Family Survey & Interviews

We conducted a large national survey to understand infant care practices, and followed this with interviews with families who had infants at increased risk of a sudden and unexpected death, and families who reported not following safer sleep advice in the survey.  

  • Coproduction of The Baby Sleep Project resources

We used coproduction methods to develop a suite of resources for families and health professionals to improve the uptake of safer sleep advice in families with infants at increased risk. These include:

The Baby Sleep Planner is an online tool to assess risk and plan for safer sleep at times when the routine gets disrupted (eg staying away from home, after a night out). The tool shows the risks for a baby in each sleep scenario. This can be used this to plan for keeping baby safe on busy nights.  We have completed the first process evaluation on this tool and published the results. The tool plans are available in eight languages: English, Polish, Urdu, Arabic, Punjabi, Romanian, Somali, and Welsh.

The Safer Sleep Milestones Cards for babies on neonatal units card has been developed in collaboration with the University of Bristol’s Baby Sleep Project, the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Bliss and The Lullaby Trust. Parents, neonatal staff and researchers have worked together to produce the card and it is now ready for piloting. The card is available in nine languages: English, Polish, Urdu, Gujarati, Arabic, Punjabi, Romanian, Somali, and Welsh. The card provides a way of celebrating when babies can be cared for in ways that match the national advice for safer sleep. The safer sleep milestones card also acts as a reminder to unit staff to model safer sleep while babies are still on the unit so that this can continue at home. There are five milestones on the card with a space to tick each one off when it is reached.

Health Professional training in conversation skills to promote safer sleep, providing guidance for how health professionals can talk about safer sleep in a way that is supportive.

Your Sleeping Baby's Needs is an animation created together with the same four mothers which explains how to protect a baby's airway while they sleep. 
  • Realist Evaluation of the Baby Sleep Project Resources
This evaluation aims to understand how The Baby Sleep Project resources work to improve uptake of safer sleep advice, including for whom, and in what contexts they work best. Realist evaluation was used, including both qualitative and quantitative methods. Data were collected both pre and post health professional training in the new resources. Mechanisms of action, contexts and outcomes from the new resources are tested against initial programme theory. The findings from this research informs evidence-based explanations of how to improve the uptake of health advice in priority populations.
Pease A, Turner N, Ingram J, et al Changes in background characteristics and risk factors among SIDS infants in England: cohort comparisons from 1993 to 2020. BMJ Open 2023;13:e076751. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-076751. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/13/10/e076751

Pease A, Ingram J, Lambert B, Patrick K, Pitts K, Fleming PJ, Blair PS, The Baby Sleep Project Family Advisory Group A Risk Assessment and Planning Tool to Prevent Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy: Development and Evaluation of The Baby Sleep Planner. JMIR Pediatr Parent 2024;7:e49952. https://pediatrics.jmir.org/2024/1/e49952/

Lambert, B., Keegan, A.-A., Ingram, J., Blair, P. S., Fleming, P. J., & Pease, A. S. (2025). “Okay in theory”: a qualitative study of safer sleep advice in families with infants at risk and families reporting risky sleep practices. BMJ Paediatrics Open, 9(1), Article e003620. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjpo-2025-003620

Pease, A., Lambert, B., Ingram, J., Bradley, N., Fleming, P., Blair, P. S., & Farr, M. (2025). Baby Sleep Project Protocol: a realist evaluation of an intervention to reduce preventable infant mortality. BMJ Open, 15(2), Article e091414. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-091414