These pictures are to help you recognize the states of baby’s consciousness by just looking. Most of these are very obvious, but others may take more attention to discern.

See if you identified them correctly by clicking on the picture and then clicking on the white “i” that appears under the picture. You may look at the descriptions below to help you see the difference in these states of awake or asleep. Observe your baby and see what these states look like on your baby.

Active Alert is when your baby is enjoying what is happening. He/she is alert and ready to play or interact with people.

Quiet Alert is when your baby is content to observe what is going on around and not necessarily wanting to be part of the activity.

Crying. We all recognize baby wants attention and help with something. You do not spoil a baby by answering his cries. You are teaching him that he can depend on you to meet his needs.

Quiet Sleep is the time to do some other things you would like to do. Why not spend some of this time letting your spouse know how important they are to you?

Active Sleep is the one that fools many parents and caregivers. Like everyone else, baby cycles through different levels of sleep. In this stage, she is asleep, but wiggling and maybe even whimpering. Left undisturbed, she will slip back into deeper sleep. When you see your baby in this stage, wait, don’t rush in and pat or pick up and cuddle. If she really is done sleeping, you will know it soon enough.

Drowsy is the time to get baby settled down for sleep. This is not the time for feeding or play. Turn down the lights, make the room quieter, and let baby self-soothe as much as possible.  If you miss this window of opportunity to get baby to sleep, you may have a very cranky baby fighting sleep for some time ahead.

Baby Emotions is a page similar to this one to help you identify what your baby is feeling. We sometimes have difficulty differentiating emotions just by looking. Try this page and see how well you do.