A Gold Coast father who smothered his baby daughter to death could be released from prison as early as next year.

Shayne Robert Quinn, 29, violently shook four-month-old Courtney Quinn and placed his hand over her face while she was sucking on a dummy in September 2013.

Quinn told triple zero he had woken to find his daughter had stopped breathing, but she was already cold and blue by the time he took her to hospital.

Pathologists found the child also had dozens of old injuries, including 34 rib fractures consistent with being "squeezed", a broken arm and a fractured leg.

Quinn was originally charged with murder but pleaded guilty earlier this year to a reduced charge of manslaughter.

He was sentenced in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Friday to eight years in jail but with time already spent in custody, he will be eligible for parole in March 2017.

The court heard Quinn's then-partner and the child's mother Jasmin Harris was sentenced in June to two years and six months jail for child cruelty.

In the week prior to her death, Harris failed to take the baby to the hospital after a GP noticed the child had a broken arm, which Quinn admitted causing.

The court heard Quinn was struggling to cope with caring for the baby while he was unemployed and Harris was working as an escort.

"This was not some momentary lack of judgment, it was a deliberate act," Chief Justice Catherine Holmes said on Friday.

Justice Holmes told Quinn he had done a terrible thing but there was nothing in his life to indicate he would do something similar again.

"You can remake your life," she said.