Safe sleep: checks, equipment, and the ten-minute rule

A safe-sleep policy needs to cover prevention measures, suitable facilities, supervision, prohibited equipment, and what happens in a sleep-related emergency — and it needs to reflect current Tusla guidance specifically, since this is an area that gets updated (Tusla revised its guidance on sleep provision for children under 24 months in 2026).

The check interval matters as much as the policy: roughly every 10 minutes has been Tusla's identified minimum best-practice approach, with floor-bed arrangements needing in-room supervision rather than a periodic check — but this is exactly the kind of detail worth re-verifying against current guidance for the service's specific sleep arrangement rather than treating a remembered number as permanent.

Equipment matters too: cots, beds, mattresses, and bedding need to be safe and age-appropriate, prohibited equipment removed, and sleep areas kept clear enough that staff can actually supervise them — not just visually tidy.

Bloomffy's sleep-check flow is timed per room rather than per child, driven by whichever currently-napping child was checked longest ago, on the theory that independent per-child countdowns just drift out of sync with each other in a room with several sleeping children. When the room clock elapses, a single blocking prompt — "Everyone sleeping?" — logs a check against every currently-napping child in one action if yes, or opens a quick select-from-list if not, with a child marked awake automatically getting their nap ended rather than staying open and re-triggering the prompt for a child who isn't asleep anymore.

Two smaller additions ride alongside the check itself: which cot, mat, or bed a child is actually in for that nap, separate from how they're lying, and a clothing/overdressing flag, since overheating is a recognised risk factor distinct from posture. A flagged clothing issue surfaces as a persistent badge until the child's next clean check — alert and log, never silently cleared, the same principle a ratio breach follows.