Baby Routine for Childcare: What Your Baby's Educators Need to Know (With a Template)

Your baby routine for childcare fits on one page: usual feed times and amounts, naps and how your baby falls asleep, comfort items, the words you use at home, nappy and skin notes, allergies or health plans, and who collects. Give it to the educators at or before the orientation visit, and update it as the routine changes.

Centres ask for some of this on the enrolment form, and some add a page about your child, often called an "All About Me" form. The detail that helps a baby settle, like how your baby shows they're tired or which song works at nap time, is the easiest part to leave out.

This guide covers what to write, gives you a template to copy, and shows a filled-in example.

What do educators need to know about your baby's routine?

Educators need your baby's usual pattern for feeds, sleep and settling, plus anything that affects safety. This list combines what the Raising Children Network and ACECQA's Starting Blocks site ask parents to share, with the detail a baby room needs:

• Feeds: breast, expressed milk or formula, usual times, rough amounts, and how your baby takes a bottle or cup.
• Sleep: how many naps, roughly when, how long, and how your baby falls asleep.
• Tired signs: what your baby does when they need a sleep, such as rubbing eyes, turning away or grizzling.
• Comfort: a dummy, a special toy or blanket, a song, and the words you use for them.
• Nappies and skin: creams you use, sensitive skin, and anything that is normal for your baby.
• Food: if your baby has started solids, what they eat and what they have tried so far.
• Health: allergies, action plans, medicines, and any recent illness.
• Family details: who drops off and picks up, and any custody arrangements.
• Interests: favourite toys, games and activities.

Educators will use this to shape your baby's day. Raising Children's guidance for services:

Raising Children Network · Starting child care

Services should follow babies' personal routines.

Starting Blocks adds that your baby will be part of a group. Staff give individual attention, but it may not look the same as at home. A clear routine sheet helps educators get close to your baby's pattern from the first day.

How to fill in the centre's "All About Me" form for a baby

Write what an educator can act on in the room: times as rough windows, cues they can see, and steps they can copy. Four habits make the form more useful.

Write times as windows, not a timetable

"Morning nap around 9:30, usually 45 to 60 minutes" gives an educator something to work with. "Nap at 9:30" sets them up to fail on the day your baby wakes at 5am. If the routine is still shifting, say so.

Describe how your baby falls asleep

Starting Blocks advises telling staff about the settling techniques you use at home and any comfort item. Be specific: patted on the back in the cot, sung to, or fed then put down awake. Say whether your baby is wrapped or in a sleeping bag, and whether they have started rolling.

Include the words and cues you use at home

Starting Blocks suggests telling staff about particular words, phrases or visual cues you use for routines such as feeding. If your family speaks another language at home, the Raising Children Network suggests sharing basic words for sleep, eat, hello and goodbye, plus the words you use for the dummy or blanket.

Describe what's normal for your baby

When you enrol, educators note your child's general health and behaviour so they know what your child's "normal" looks like. A baby who always has a grizzly half hour before the afternoon nap, or who naturally has runny poos, is worth describing. That way a normal day doesn't get mistaken for an unwell one.

Put health details where the centre asks for them. Starting Blocks notes that the enrolment form has a space for health requirements, and that you can ask for a meeting with the director to talk your baby's needs through in more detail.

A copyable routine handover template

Copy this into a note or a page, fill in what applies, and leave out what doesn't. One page is plenty.

About your baby

• Name and what we call them:
• Age and date of birth:
• Who drops off and picks up:
• Anyone who is not allowed to collect:

Feeds

• Milk: breastmilk / expressed breastmilk / formula (brand)
• Usual feed times:
• Usual amount per bottle:
• How they drink: bottle / cup / breastfeed at the centre
• Hunger signs:

Sleep and settling

• Naps a day and rough times:
• Usual nap length:
• Tired signs:
• How they fall asleep:
• Wrapped or sleeping bag, and rolling yet?
• Comfort items and songs:

Nappies and skin

• Creams or wipes we use:
• What's normal for our baby:

Food (if started)

• Foods they eat now:
• Foods not yet tried:
• Texture: smooth / mashed / finger food

Health

• Allergies and action plan:
• Medicines and written instructions:
• Recent illness or immunisations:

Words, likes and changes

• Words we use for milk, sleep, dummy:
• Favourite toys and games:
• Anything changing at the moment:

A filled-in example

Here is the template filled in for an invented baby, Mia, who is 8 months old and starting three days a week.

• Feeds: Formula. Bottles at about 7am at home, then around 10:30am and 2:30pm at care, roughly 180 ml each. Drinks from her own bottle, held semi-upright. Gets restless and sucks her fingers when hungry.
• Solids: Lunch around 11:30am and a small afternoon snack. Eats mashed vegetables, fruit, porridge and soft finger food. Has had egg and peanut at home with no reaction.
• Sleep: Two naps. Morning nap around 9 to 9:30am for about an hour. Afternoon nap around 1 to 1:30pm for 1 to 1.5 hours. Rubs her eyes and pulls her ears when tired.
• Settling: Sleeping bag, on her back. Settles with back patting and "shh" in the cot. Has her dummy for sleep only. We call it her "dee".
• Nappies: Barrier cream at every change. A pink mark from the nappy tabs is normal for her.
• Health: No known allergies. Immunisations up to date (6 month vaccines done).
• Likes: Stacking cups, the "Open Shut Them" song and watching older kids.
• Changing now: Starting to pull up on furniture. The afternoon nap has been shorter this fortnight.

Notice what makes this useful: rough windows instead of exact times, cues an educator can see, and the one thing that's changing. For more on first foods, see our guide to starting solids in Australia.

Expressed milk and formula at childcare: labelling and storage

Label every bottle with your baby's name and the date, carry it cold, and put it in the centre's fridge as soon as you arrive. Starting Blocks says many services support families to keep giving breastmilk. You can ask about their policies for storing, warming and giving expressed milk, and whether you can come in to breastfeed during the day.

The NHMRC's Staying healthy guidelines, the best-practice resource for childcare services, set these rules for bottles:

• Labels: every bottle carries the child's name and the date it was prepared or brought in.
• Fridge: bottles of breastmilk or formula are kept at 5°C or below, at the back of the fridge. Breastmilk keeps for 72 hours in the fridge.
• Thawing: frozen breastmilk thawed in the fridge is used within 24 hours and never refrozen.
• Warming: bottles are warmed once only, in warm water, never in the microwave. Warmed milk that isn't used is thrown out.
• Formula: made up fresh where possible. Leftover formula from a bottle your baby has drunk from is thrown away, and made-up formula is discarded at the end of the day.

To get milk there, the Raising Children Network suggests an esky or cooler bag with a freezer brick. Milk that thaws on the way is used within 4 hours and never refrozen. Packing smaller portions means less is thrown away, because leftovers can't be kept.

Our breast milk storage guide has the full fridge and freezer times.

If your baby has only fed from the breast, the Raising Children Network suggests starting to express a few weeks before you go back. You can also have the carer give a bottle or cup of expressed milk before your first day. The Australian Breastfeeding Association's National Breastfeeding Helpline is 1800 686 268.

For how many sessions to plan at work, see our pumping schedule for working mums.

The first two weeks: orientation days and a changing routine

Start slowly, stay with your baby at first, and expect the routine to wobble for a while. Both the Raising Children Network and Starting Blocks recommend easing in:

• Book an orientation visit. Use it to talk through your baby's routines and hand over your routine sheet.
• Start with shorter or fewer days if you can, then build up to full days.
• Stay for a while on the first visits, then leave for short periods, then longer.
• Say goodbye and leave promptly. Tell your baby you're going, give them a cuddle, say goodbye to the educator and go. Starting Blocks notes that children who are very upset at drop-off often settle quickly once the separation is over.
• Ring later if you're worried. Starting Blocks suggests calling the educators to hear how your baby settled.

Childcare is busy and stimulating, so your baby may come home more tired than usual. The Raising Children Network suggests an earlier bedtime or longer naps at home, and says a breastfeed or bottle before and after care is a good way to reconnect.

Educators should share how your baby's day went. For younger children, Starting Blocks lists sleep, meals and feeding, and toileting (for a baby, nappies) as the details staff should pass on to you. Ask how they'll do it: a daily sheet, a chat at pick-up, or the centre's family app.

Update your routine sheet when something shifts, such as dropping a nap or starting a new food. A baby who is eating and sleeping in their usual ways is one sign, from the Raising Children Network, that they've settled.

Allergies, medicines and safe sleep in care

Give the centre your baby's written health plans before the first day, and expect sleep practices to follow Australian safe sleep guidance.

Allergies

The National Allergy Council's Allergy Aware guidance for families says to:

• Tell the service at enrolment about your baby's allergies.
• Give them a copy of your baby's ASCIA Action Plan before your baby starts, completed by your baby's doctor or nurse practitioner.
• Hand over an in-date adrenaline device if one is prescribed, plus any other medicine on the plan.
• Update the service with a new plan whenever your baby's allergies change.
• Meet the food service staff if your baby has a food allergy, to agree how the right food reaches your baby.

ASCIA's red Action Plan for Anaphylaxis is the emergency response plan for severe allergic reactions, completed and signed by your baby's doctor or other prescriber. ASCIA's green plan is for allergies where no adrenaline device is prescribed.

Medicines

Ask to see the centre's medication policy before you need it. Starting Blocks notes that many services won't give over-the-counter medicines such as paracetamol without a doctor's instructions. Your baby shouldn't attend with an infectious illness.

If you're unsure whether your baby is well enough, talk to your GP or child health nurse, or use the healthdirect Symptom Checker. If your baby is struggling to breathe or you think it's an emergency, call 000.

Safe sleep

ACECQA's sleep and rest information sheet says centres must consider families' requests about a child's sleep. Their practices must also stay consistent with current health guidelines from authorities such as Red Nose. So a centre won't follow a sleep request that goes against safe sleep guidance, such as tummy sleeping or a nap in the pram.

• On the back, face uncovered, in a safe cot. Starting Blocks sets out Red Nose's recommendations, including sleeping babies on their back with their head and face uncovered.
• No bassinets. Bassinets aren't allowed on centre premises while children are in care.
• No pram sleep. Best practice guidance doesn't treat a pram or stroller as a safe sleep surface.
• Wrapping and rolling. Red Nose recommends a safe sleeping bag once a baby shows signs of rolling. Tell educators if your baby has started rolling.

If your baby usually sleeps in the pram, in a carrier or on you, say so on the form. Educators can then plan how to help your baby settle in a cot.

The "already filled in" version: a routine report from your log

If you log feeds, sleeps and nappies, the times on the form are already on record.

In BabyLog, a checkup report can be prepared for childcare. That version is framed as a routine summary. It shows when feeds and sleeps usually happen across the day, with the usual time for each part of the day and how many days each one was seen.

It also includes a chart of the last seven days, daytime and night feeds, the usual number of naps, routine medicines and, if you log play, your baby's main play interests.

Any suspected food reaction you've logged appears at the top, marked as a caregiver observation rather than a confirmed allergy.

You share the report with the centre as a private link with a 6-digit code, or as a PDF, and you can revoke the link at any time. A report covers at least 7 days, so it works best after a week or two of logging. Reports are part of BabyLog Pro.

The report sits alongside the centre's own paperwork. It doesn't replace the enrolment form or an ASCIA Action Plan, and it doesn't connect to the centre's family app.

If a grandparent or nanny covers the days your baby isn't at care, they can log in the same shared log from their own phone, so the pattern you hand over includes their days too. Sharing is free: start free, then invite them as an editor to log, or as a viewer to read.

Our nanny log guide covers how a household with several carers keeps one record.

Common questions