Two plasters for this subject exist, one in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the other in the artist's Estate. Buckle suggests a date of 1902-04, 'two small works survive from the formative period in Paris. There came to his studio door, one day, a girl model with a new born baby. Epstein modelled the baby's head. The tiny portrait 'Sleeping Baby' with its closed eyes pursued mouth, so simple and serene, resembles one of those objects the Chinese made to be fondled by an idle hand: this little skull holding the promise of such great things to come. He went on to model 'Baby Awake', larger and in a bolder style' (R. Buckle, op. cit., pp. 18-9)

Evelyn Silber (op. cit., p.119) points out that a cast entitled 'A Babe's Head' was exhibited at the Twenty-One Gallery, London as no.4 with a date of 1907, two years after the artist's arrival in London