Movement and Rest for Children's Wellbeing

Children, even babies who cannot yet crawl, require regular physical routines every day. Play and movement are natural for them. Variety in the types of activities and setting support children developmentally.

All babies and young children benefit from a mix of physical activity, inactivity and sleep in each 24-hour period. Physical activity for young children mainly happens through unstructured, active play.

Physical activities support many aspects of a child's development:

• Cardiorespiratory and musculoskeletal fitness
• Cognitive development
• Psychosocial health and emotional regulation
• Motor development
• Body composition
• Quality of life

It’s important that parents and carers support and encourage children to be active, to help them be healthier, happier, smarter and stronger.

As young children grow and develop, they should work towards:

• spending more time in active play
• spending less time sitting
• getting enough sleep each day.

Give children the freedom to create their own play, and do things that encourage independence and appropriate risk-taking while supervised. This could be walking along a low wall, building a cubby house with branches or climbing a low tree.

Parents and carers can also be great role models for their children, by being active themselves.

WATCH

Watch the following 2-and-a-half-minute video to understand more about the importance of exercise for children and how to encourage it:

Educators should develop programs that meet the 24-hour movement guidelines for the age and level of development of those in their care:

View the Australian Department of Health’s 24-hour movement guidelines, including guidelines for children birth to five years of age to learn more about why physical activity is important for young children.

WATCH

Physical movement for birth to one year old may seem difficult. However, watch the following 3-minute video to see the importance of tummy time in children’s physical development as well as a demonstration of how to engage in tummy time:

Main areas of physical development

When children move, there are three main areas of physical development that can be involved:

Three main areas of physical development:

• Gross motor skills: Gross motor skills involve the large muscles in the torso, legs and arms.
• Fine motor skills: Fine motor skills use the small muscles in the hands, feet and mouth.
• Perceptual skills: Perception skills involve children perceiving, understanding, and interpreting senses. Some examples include memory, spatial relations, form constancy, and closure. Perceptual skills are used to assist coordination and balance.

WATCH

Watch the following 2-and-a-half-minute video to learn how to distinguish between gross and fine motor skills:

Sedentary behaviour

The Australian 24-Hour Movement Guide also includes recommendations for sedentary behaviour—time when a child is awake but not being physically active. Quality sedentary activities include story time, singing, reading and working on puzzles. Too much sedentary behaviour is associated with poor health outcomes.

When planning physical activities, you should ensure you keep the following considerations in mind:

Use the following tips for helping children to be active:

The National Quality Standard (NQS) Quality Area 3 pays particular attention to outdoor play for babies. Many times, parents and educators assume that babies do not need outdoor play, but science shows this is an important part of their development. Learn more from this NQS information sheet published by ACECQA about the importance of outdoor play for babies.

Children with a disability

It is important that educators create activities that are appropriate and inclusive for each child’s abilities.

Encourage children to be active, whatever their level of ability. Educators can seek input from colleagues and health professionals as well as a child’s parents on the type and amount of activity appropriate for the child’s disability.

Check your understanding

It is important for educators to talk with children about how their bodies work and the importance of physical activity for wellbeing and health.

Age-appropriate learning

Children begin to notice how their body is the same or different from other bodies at an early age. Children are motivated learners and often ask a lot of questions around similarities and differences. Speaking plainly and clearly about all body parts helps children to know how to convey health issues and how to think naturally about all their body parts.

This is also a subject that is important to discuss with families. All families have their own beliefs and values around physical health and movement, and it is important to be inclusive and reflective of all the families that attend your service. The National Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines for Australians, developed by the Department of Health and Aged Care can be a useful resource to share with families for recommendations for physical activity for the different age groups.

Acknowledge and put attention on both physical and non-physical attributes:

• Physical appearance: It is important to talk about physical appearances with children in a positive way that celebrates our similarities and differences. For example:
  • What colour hair do we have?
  • What is the texture or length?
  • What is our smile like, big or small?
• Beyond the physical: Ensure you encourage children to focus on attributes of people that do not involve the physical self, such as respect, kindness, smart, talented and funny.
• Positive attributes: Practise stating the positive attributes the children have and what they are capable of doing or becoming.
• Self-talk: Ensure you encourage children to have positive self-talk. Role model positive self-talk to children, and use praise and encouragement to let them recognise and see their success as a person, for example: 
  • ‘It’s great to see you smile—that’s how I know you are happy.’ 
  • ‘I just finished making the beds for sleep time. I’m very happy with hard work.’

A balanced, healthy lifestyle Part of helping children to learn positive body image and health is including lessons about what it means to have a balanced, healthy lifestyle in terms of eating and physical habits. Note Part of a child's growing sense of wellbeing comes from learning to name and work with their emotions in a healthy way.

You can incorporate these messages into daily routines through:

• Incorporating messages into play:Use songs and books with messages and stories that teach about a balanced, healthy lifestyle.
• Eating with children: Eat with children and show your own good habits around healthy eating.
• Discussing whole versus processed foods: Teach children to be able to identify whole and processed foods. It is important to remain sensitive to a child's home environment. Simply teaching them to identify both will help them grow awareness.
• Using recipe play: Use play time to create imaginary healthy recipes.
• Discussing elements of the food pyramid with children and the concept of sometimes foods: During spontaneous conversations, group times or at mealtimes distinguishing between what is healthy foods and ‘sometimes foods’ allows children to understand how to have a balanced healthy diet and only have ‘sometimes foods’ as a treat.

Discussing emotions

Use these tips to talk with toddlers and young children about emotions:

• Help children learn what emotions are, why they happen and to help them identify what they are feeling;
  • “Today you are feeling happy because we are playing your favourite game!”
• Help children recognise how different emotions make them act, and help them express their emotions in a healthy way:
  • Through storytelling and drawing
  • By slowing down their breathing and blowing bubbles
  • By listening to music to calm down
  • By doing some stretching or other activity
• One way to help children identify their emotions is through example:
  • Acknowledge how you feel and name the feeling: “I am sad because I lost my jacket.”
• Talk with children about how emotions make them feel in their body:
  • Being sad can feel tiring.
  • Being excited can feel like butterflies in your stomach.
  • Being sad can feel tiring.
  • Being excited can feel like butterflies in your stomach.

The main way children develop understanding of their emotions, self-regulation and emotional competence is by feeling their emotions. Acknowledging children’s outbursts and experiencing of their big emotions is part of their learning will allow you to support them to find strategies to understand their emotions and regulate them.

Check your understanding

Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS as it is commonly known, is when a child dies of an unexplained death during sleep. In most cases, the child is not known to be unwell or have any other health concerns. The causes of SIDS are still not known. The age group for SIDS is children under the age of one year old.

Early childhood services have a responsibly to ensure they are engaging in safe sleep practices at all times. Engaging in safe sleep practices ensures the reduction in sleep-related accidents.

Safe sleeping environments

A safe sleeping environment for children requires the service to have a designated safe sleep area that is set up with suitable and approved equipment, and to use safe sleeping practices.

A safe sleeping environment for babies and children will include:

• A quiet space that has good ventilation
• Constant supervision of the children
• Cots or mattresses approved by the Australian Standard
• Safe placement of cots and mattresses, away from cords, blinds, curtains and heaters
• The use of safe sleeping practices.

Safe sleeping practices

Supplying a safe sleeping environment is the first step to reducing sleep-related accidents and risk.

When educators are supporting children’s sleep routines, they need to ensure they implement the following safe sleeping practices as guided by research from Red Nose Australia:

• Cots need to meet the Australian Standard AS/NZS2172.
• Mattresses should be flat and firm and fit inside the cot correctly.
• Babies should always sleep on their backs.
• Babies’ faces should remain uncovered.
• Babies should be positioned at the bottom of the cot.
• An appropriately fitted sleeping bag should be used, or a thin blanket should be placed under the baby's arms, tucking them in.
• Remove clothes with hoods, drawstrings or ties, as they can become wrapped around an infant or young child's neck.
• It is not recommended that a baby/child has anything around their neck for sleeping, for example, a necklace or amber beads, which could tighten during sleep and make breathing difficult.

Red Nose Australia advises to:

• Breastfeed the baby
• Maintain a smoke-free environment
• Use safe sleeping practices every sleep time

Red Nose Australia advises against:

• Pillows, doonas, soft toys, cot bumpers or lambswool should not be placed in the cot.
• Never allow a baby to sleep in a beanbag or waterbed.

Implement these practices to ensure safe sleeping:

• If a baby needs a comforter, such as a blanket or dummy, to fall asleep, provide this and remove it if possible once the child is asleep.
• If a baby naturally sleeps on their side or stomach, monitor them closely and move them onto their back once they have fallen asleep.
• If you are not able to move the child onto their back, ensure the child’s face and mouth are uncovered and you monitor them closely.
• Services can use baby monitors as an extra layer of supervision, but they should also use active direct supervision.

Red Nose Australia is a reliable and up-to-date resource for safe sleep information. Save the following safe sleep information for future reference:

It is important that babies, toddlers and children get sufficient rest and sleep during the day. Babies in particular need a lot of sleep to grow and develop during their first year.

From baby to toddler and pre-kinder years, sleep patterns can change quite a bit every few months. Many children have differing sleep patterns even at the same age.

Studies have shown that children who regularly get an adequate amount of sleep have improved attention, behaviour, learning, memory, and overall mental and physical health. Not getting enough sleep can lead to high blood pressure, obesity and even depression.

How much sleep?

The Australian 24-hour Movement Guide recommends the following for sufficient sleep:

First year sleep pattern changes

Babies change their sleep patterns frequently during the first year.

The different ages and their typical sleep patterns are as follows:

Cues for sleep readiness

Educators will need to observe and read the cues of children to identify signs of being tired and needing rest or sleep. This will ensure the children are able to rest their bodies before getting over tired.

The typical signs include:

• Yawning frequently
• Rubbing eyes
• Having a glazed look or closing eyes frequently
• Making slower movements and exhibiting quiet behaviour
• Mouthing hands or items
• Falling asleep and waking up with a jerk.

WATCH

Watch the following 1-minute video to learn more about the signs of tiredness in a baby:

Caring for multiple babies

Caring for a baby can be daunting as we need to constantly watch and interpret the cues to be able to cater for the baby’s needs. In childcare settings, when we need to care for multiple babies with different eating and sleeping habits and routines, this can be a challenging task.

Child care providers have a role in providing a sleep environment that is comfortable and safe for the children in their care. Ensuring children have enough sleep is as important as feeding them healthy food and ensuring they receive plenty of fresh air and exercise. In order to comfort the child and support families, educators also need to acknowledge and embed family routines and preferences in their daily activity. This can make caring for multiple babies even more challenging and daunting.

Here are some tips to make caring for multiple babies less challenging and help children feel more at home ⁸:

• Try and think of sleep and nap routines as part of a child's individual curriculum. All children have individual sleep requirements, and you will have the most success if you try and work within those parameters.
• Childcare providers should discuss an infant's or toddler's sleep patterns with a parent before they start care. When you understand how and when a child sleeps at home, you can use that information to plan when they will sleep in care.
• Brainstorm ways to adapt your rooms to help children feel at home during nap times. A baby used to a noisy sleep environment might sleep better in a bustling classroom setting while busy toddlers will benefit from a peaceful quiet environment free from noise and stimulation.
• Encourage families to provide a familiar item from home if it assists the child to sleep. Special blankets of soft toys may help young babies and toddlers feel connected with home and more peaceful. Toys should only be used for babies 12 months and older.
• Share sleep information with families during drop-off times. Parents will benefit from the information you give them, and you may benefit from their experience at home. Sleep charts can help share the information easier.
• Create transparent communication tools, such as charts or diaries, for staff and families to share important information about the child. It is important for staff to know if a child didn’t sleep well during the night, and this applies to families as well: a child who refused the regular sleep(s) during the day at daycare may need an earlier bedtime at home. Also, staff working in different shifts also need to communicate child-related information to be able to cater for the child’s needs: educators working in early shifts should inform educators working a later shift about the child’s sleep, behaviour and meals.
• Having multiple babies with different routines requires a sufficient number of educators, often above ratio and a well-planned daily routine for the room to cater for all children’s and educators’ needs.

For further considerations, you can consult ACECQA’s information sheet regarding children’s sleep and rest.

Here are some examples of sleep checklists:

• Infant sleep chart. The purpose of this checklist is for staff to physically check infants every 15 minutes, recording the infant’s sleep position. The checklist also contains reminders of safe sleeping practices.
• Rest/sleeping supervision checklist. This checklist is similar to the infant sleep chart; however, it captures information for more children, and it is less detailed.

Toddlers and sleep

Toddlers also need different amounts of sleep at various ages, although the rate of change tends to be slower. It is not uncommon for toddlers to have settling and sleep problems.

• At 12 months, toddlers may sleep about 14 hours per day, partly during morning and afternoon naps.
• Between 12 and 18 months, children grow out of the morning nap, which is replaced with one longer afternoon nap.

Signs of being tired are somewhat different for toddlers to those of babies. For a toddler, look for:

• Clumsiness
• Clinginess
• Grizzling or crying
• Demands for attention
• Boredom with toys
• Fussiness with food.

Practices to help a child get to sleep:

• Dimming the lights
• Playing calm music
• Gently patting or rocking the child

Collaborating with parents and families

Sleep routines occur over a 24-hour period and include practices at home and at care. It is vital that educators have a collaborative relationship with parents and families to ensure that sleep routines and practices are consistent and supportive of all three parties.

Educators should collaborate with families via verbal communication, phone calls or communication books, which are usually notebooks that educators write in and send home with the child for the parents to read and write in if needed.

Discussions with parents and families should include the following:

• The child’s sleep needs at the service and at home: Toddlers need about 11–14 hours of sleep every 24 hours. That is usually 10–12 hours at night and 1–2 hours during the day.
• Sleeping practices: Discuss the sleeping practices that will be used, such as self-settling, rocking the child or reading a book.
• Parent/family expectations: Discuss what expectations the family has of the sleep routine. Parents may request the child be woken up, in which case you would need to discuss the importance of allowing the child to sleep as required. You might discuss encouraging the child to have an earlier sleep routine or to drop a daytime nap.
• Common challenges: Common toddler sleep problems include having trouble settling and not wanting to stay in bed at bedtime. Plan calming activities prior to nap times.
• Being consistent: One of the main differences between small babies and toddlers is the need for a consistent nap routine. Work with families to define a clear and consistent sleep routine that can be provided at home and at care.
• Information sheets: Guide families to additional information around sleep, for example, websites, brochures or fact sheets.

Check your understanding

Use the following questions to check your knowledge. You can check the correct answer by clicking on the 'Answer' button:

1. How many minutes of physical activity is recommended for children in the following age ranges?

   • Birth to one year (0-1)
   • One to two tears (1-2)
   • Three to five years (3-5)
   Answer

   • Birth to one year: At least twice a day with 30 minutes of tummy time
   • One to two years: At least 180 min a day in a variety of activities, including 60 minutes of energetic play
   • Three to five years: At least 180 min a day in a variety of activities, including energetic play

2. Describe the three areas of physical development, and for each, give two examples of related movements/actions.

   Answer

   • Gross motor development: larger muscles – running and jumping
   • Fine motor skills: smaller muscles writing and pinching
   • Perceptual motor: balance and coordination kicking a ball and walking on a balance beam

3. Name one way you can teach children about their emotions.

   Answer

   • Naming emotions during activities:
     • “I can see you are sad”
     • “I feel happy/ tired. How do you feel?”
   • Flashcards with emotions for children to act out or to select the relevant flashcard/emotion during group time
   • Leading books about emotions and having follow-up conversations

4. When placing a child to sleep in a cot, what are six safe sleeping practices you will need to ensure?

   Answer

   • Use a safe cot that meets the current Australian Standard AS2172
   • Use a safe mattress: firm, clean, flat (not tilted or elevated), right size for the cot
   • Sleep baby on the back
   • Keep head and face uncovered
   • Position baby’s feet at the bottom of the cot
   • Tuck blankets in firmly or use a safe baby sleeping bag
   • Breastfeed baby
   • Keep baby smoke free
   • Safe sleeping environment night and day

   Do NOT use pillows, doonas, soft toys, cat bumpers, or lambswools anywhere in the cot

   DO NOT put your baby to sleep on a waterbed or bean bag

5. List two (2) techniques you may use to assist a child to sleep.

   Answer

   • Patting
   • Gentle rocking
   • Lights off
   • Calming music
   • Comforters

6. What information could you obtain from parents to assist you with a child’s sleep routine?

   Answer

   • Child’s sleeping time and routine
   • How often the child wakes up
   • How the child is settled to sleep
   • What comforters does the child have
   • Techniques and challenges families face at sleep time.

7. What is the sleeping recommendation for children from birth to 5 years?

   Answer

   Age Range	Sleep Recommendation
   Babies (0-1 year)	14–17 hours (for those aged birth to three months) and 12–16 hours (for those aged four to eleven months) of good quality sleep, including naps
   Toddlers (1-2 years)	11–14 hours of good quality sleep, including naps, with consistent sleep and wake-up times
   Preschoolers (3-5 years)	10–13 hours of good quality sleep, including overnight sleeps and naps