Magistrate David Day convicted Tehana Doyle, 26, formerly of Matthews Avenue, of stealing the credit card and $3.13 in change, including a note from New Caledonia. He also sentenced her for driving offences.

The items were in a handbag a mother had left in a change room at the Summer Street dance studio Central West Performing Arts, on July 5, 2018.

While the class was running, Doyle left and used the card to buy a mobile phone and cigarettes worth $112.45 from Woolworths before returning to the dance centre to collect a child.

She then used the card to buy two ice creams for $7, she bought $110 worth of clothing from SportsPower, $226 on cigarettes at Perry Oval Pantry in Clinton Street as well as $36.55 on taxi fares to the Robin Hood Hotel where she purchased cigarettes and alcohol.

Solicitor Andrew Abraham said Doyle lived in Orange but since moved to O'Donnell Street, Dubbo.

"It is one frenzied sequence of spending on the day, $750, it was unsophisticated, spur-of-the-moment," Mr Abraham said.

"At the time of the offending there were some significant influences in her life." However, he said two of those influences, her partner and her father, were now in jail.

Mr Abraham said Doyle completed a university degree to be a Registered Nurse and had applied for a job.

"With her criminal record, which includes dishonesty, wouldn't she have trouble getting employment?" Mr Day asked.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Beau Riley also said Doyle had previously served time in custody for a dishonesty offence. "The goods obtained were not bread and milk, they were luxury items," he said.

Although Doyle was warned not to bring children to court at an earlier court date she brought them on Wednesday. However, they were not present in the court room when Mr Day gave her an eight-month jail sentence with six-month non-parole period for the spending spree.

Doyle was led away into custody but was granted bail on the same day - pending a severity appeal in Orange District Court.

"It may be that Ms Doyle would serve the bulk of her non-parole period in custody thereby rendering her appeal mootable," Mr Day said.

Doyle was also given a 12-month supervised intensive correction order and 12-month driving disqualification for driving while disqualified on January 22.

She was stopped by police for a random breath test and said the owner of the car had been drinking but she needed to take a child to the hospital.

Police then discovered a child in the backseat under the age of four, which was not in a child restraint and only had the car's seatbelt on. Doyle was convicted without further punishment for not having the child properly restrained.

However, Mr Day said she had been convicted previously of having an unrestrained child in the car and it was her eighth unauthorised driving incident, and she'd previously been to jail for unauthorised driving before the sentencing requirements were halved last year.