How do you lift and carry toddlers safely?
Get down to the child, tell them what is about to happen, bring them in against your chest, and stand up through your legs with your back long and your feet apart — then carry them close, in front of you, and swap sides if you must use a hip. That is the technique, and it matters. But a toddler room can involve dozens of lifts a day, and technique alone does not make forty lifts of a wriggling twelve-kilogram child safe. The real answer is to lift less: let children who can walk, walk, let them climb steps to the change table and into the pram, and keep lifting for when it is actually needed.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Applies to the Manual Handling Training for Childcare and Early Childhood Educators course.
Why a toddler is not a box
Manual handling advice was written for loads that stay still. A toddler does not. They arch, twist, go rigid or go limp, reach back for the toy they were playing with and change their mind halfway up. A twelve-kilogram child who suddenly throws their weight sideways can put far more force through your spine than twelve kilograms of groceries ever would, and you cannot put a child down quickly the way you can drop a box. Sudden or unexpected force is one of the recognised risk factors that make a manual task hazardous, and it is the defining feature of lifting toddlers.
The second difference is frequency. No single lift of a small child looks dangerous, which is exactly why the risk is underestimated. A toddler educator may lift children onto and off change tables, into and out of high chairs and cots, up from the floor and into prams many times over a shift. Repetitive force across a day and across a career, rather than one heavy lift, is what wears out backs and shoulders in this sector.
The third is posture. Children are on the floor, in cots, in low chairs. Nearly every lift starts below your knees and often involves reaching forward over a rail, a tray or a table edge. The combination of a moving load, high frequency and a stooped starting position is what Module 3 of the course, Identifying Hazardous Manual Tasks in Early Childhood Settings, teaches you to recognise.
The technique, when you do lift
When a lift is genuinely needed, the principles are the same ones that apply to any load, adapted to a load that can help you or fight you.
For a distressed, arching child, wait if you safely can. A child mid-tantrum is at their most unpredictable; kneel beside them, keep them and the other children safe and give them a moment before you lift. Settling on the floor or in an adult chair is usually kinder and safer than picking them up, and your service's behaviour guidance approach comes first.
- Get the child ready: tell them you are picking them up, wait for them to face you and, where they can, to reach up. A child who is participating is a lighter and steadier load than one who is surprised.
- Get close. Kneel or squat rather than bending from the waist, and bring the child in against your chest before you take their weight.
- Feet apart, one slightly forward, back long rather than rounded. Stand up through your legs and hips.
- Do not twist while holding the child. Turn your feet to face where you are going.
- Carry the child in front, high and close. Two arms are better than one.
- Lower the same way you lifted: get close to the surface, bend at the knees and hips, and keep the child against you until the last moment.
One-hip carries and two children at once
The one-hip carry is universal because it frees a hand. It also shifts the load to one side, tilts your pelvis and asks your spine to bend sideways and hold it there. For a short distance it is acceptable; for a whole walk to the gate it is not. Swap sides, and where you can, use two arms and hold the child in front. Notice whether you always use the same hip — most people do, and that is the side that ends up hurting.
Two children at once — one on each hip, or one on the hip and one in the arms — is a high-force lift of an unbalanced, moving load with no free hand to steady yourself or open a door. It happens most when two children are upset together. Pick up one, kneel to comfort the other, and call a colleague. If your service permits a double carry in any circumstance, it should be a written exception to the procedure, not the everyday habit.
Lifting less: independence, steps and equipment
The top of the hierarchy of controls is elimination, and in a toddler room elimination usually means letting the child do it. A two-year-old who can walk to the change room and climb built-in steps does not need to be lifted. A child who can climb into a low pram or onto a sleep mat, hold your hand up a kerb or step up to a high chair from a stool is developing independence, which is what the approved learning framework asks of you anyway. Module 4, Risk Assessment and the Hierarchy of Controls, covers this reasoning and Module 7, Equipment, Aids and Room Design in Education and Care, the equipment that supports it.
There are also times when you should not lift at all: when you are injured or in pain, when you are pregnant and have been advised to limit lifting, when a loaded buggy has to go up steps, or when a child is heavier than you can control. Module 5, Safe Movement Principles, covers team lifts and knowing when not to lift; Module 6, Lifting, Carrying and Working with Children, applies all of this to cots, change tables, high chairs, buggies and settling. Your service still has to show you its own equipment and set the routines that make lifting less possible — that is the approved provider's duty, not something a course can do for you.
- Change tables with built-in steps, with the educator beside the child at all times
- Cot bases set for the child's stage — higher for infants who cannot sit up, lowered once they can pull to stand
- Cots with a side that lowers, or a stable step stool beside a deep cot
- Low prams and buggies that children can climb into under supervision
- Adult chairs for settling, so a distressed child is held seated rather than rocked standing
Common questions
Sources
- Safe Work Australia — Model Code of Practice: Hazardous manual tasks — The national code the state and territory regulators adopt or mirror.
- Safe Work Australia — Lifting, pushing and pulling (manual tasks)
- ACECQA — National Quality Framework — Education and Care Services National Law and Regulations.
General information about Australian work health and safety duties, not legal advice. Your employer’s procedures and the regulator in your state take precedence.
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