10 reasons to bring your baby outside

Benefits of sunlight for infants, how long newborns can safely be outside, and how you can help a baby heal faster if they got a sunburn

Sunlight is good for babies—mamas know exactly how to time it for benefit and not harm.

Sunlight supports infant development—here are ten evidence-based reasons to bring babies outside

1. Mothers who spend more time outdoors with their babies have lower rates of postpartum depression¹

2. Sunlight supports healthy bilirubin metabolism in babies with jaundice²

3. Sunlight supports infant retinal development, and the first 6 mos of light exposure is especially important³

4. Sunlight supports infant motor development, which is especially relevant for infants of mothers with perinatal depression who have a higher tendency toward delayed motor development⁴

5. Sunlight exposure in babies reduces their risk of developing eczema and atopic dermatitis⁵

6. Sunlight exposure likely supports the second minipuberty, the process of sexual differentiation in babies where their hormones are significantly higher than they will be in childhood before teen puberty ⁶ (via sunlight’s modulation of the endocrine system⁷)

7. Sunlight-exposed babies can have better Vitamin D status than their mothers (especially after 3 months of age), possibly due to higher synthesis with less exposure and/or the prioritization in the mother’s body to increase Vitamin D levels in her milk faster than in her own blood⁸

8. My own speculation on fuzzy vellus hair, which some babies are born absolutely covered in, and the fact it actually absorbs UV light at a faster rate than normal hair⁹, suggests to me they are optimized to get the benefits more quickly

9. May reduce the risk of SIDS by facilitating more daytime wakefulness¹⁰ and age-appropriate sleep consolidation¹¹

10. If you can’t bring your baby outside, brighter indoor daylighting and darker night lighting may still help entrain baby’s circadian rhythms¹²

Please avoid sunscreen use on your baby because they are not equipped to detox it and it does permeate their skin¹³ . Just stay in the shade when it is uncomfortably intense.

How much sunlight is safe for babies?

It’s hard to find a professional recommendation for how much sun anyone, but especially a baby, *should* get.

Here’s one recommendation I was able to find from a study done in Australia (cited in footnotes).