During the critical period for development of sensorimotor function, sleep is a predominant state, and behavior is dominated by spontaneous muscle twitches, short contractions in atonic muscles. Twitches participate in activity-dependent formation of spinal cord circuits and trigger oscillatory patterns in the developing somatosensory cortex, delta-brushes in human fetuses and neonates, as well as spindle-bursts and early gamma oscillations in neonatal rats. It has thus been proposed that twitches originate sensory feedback, but this hypothesis has not been directly tested. By simultaneously recording neuronal activity at the population level across all spinal cord laminae and limb twitches and movements of neonatal rats, we demonstrate the following network dynamics: activity bursts in the ventral horn (motor) → twitching → dorsal horn activity (sensory). This phenomenon is disrupted following transection of sensory afferents: while bursts at the level of the ventral horn precede twitches and twitching frequency remains unaltered, activity at the level of the spinal dorsal horn is abolished. Our results provide direct evidence for twitches-triggered sensory feedback in activation of spinal dorsal neurons.