What to do When Your Toddler Won’t Sleep
Between 1.5 and 3 years of age, many toddlers suddenly begin rejecting naps, stalling at bedtime, waking in the night, or seeming ready to start their day at 4:30am.
Too often parents mistakenly pull the nap or move their toddler out of their crib hoping to regain good sleep,only to have things improve temporarily before they slide back into a sleepless slump.
Often what causes this regression is your child’s natural growing awareness and persistence. At some point, (maybe when they had a cold or you went away overnight), they discovered that there are other options, options they didn’t know were on offer, options you didn’t intend to make available.
Maybe you snuggled them to sleep, maybe they skipped a nap, maybe they got to come into your bed, or maybe their was a midnight snack and now they wonder if those options might be available all the time.
Their awareness and persistence are at an all-time high and, unfortunately for us parents, this means a little blip or inconsistency can cause major sleep trouble.
Rest assured that it’s completely normal and common to go through some hiccups with sleep at this age.
Some people call this the “18 Month Sleep Regression”. I call it growing up.
In this blog, I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know about sleep for this age group.
THE 18 MONTH SLEEP REGRESSION EXPLAINED
If you haven’t noticed already, your toddler has much more independence and personality than they did as a baby.
Because of this, it’s important to know that you need to approach toddler sleep struggles differently than you would with babies.
It’s easy to start thinking that your toddler isn’t sleeping well because they have a crazy amount of energy or that they maybe don’t need that much sleep anymore.
In truth, your toddler still needs a LOT of sleep both during the day and during the night: 11 to 12 hours of night sleep with one 2 hour nap until about their third birthday.
And it’s our job as parents to help our children learn how easy and enjoyable sleep can be and to maintain healthy boundaries with sleep. Sleep will always be more “boring” than eating, playing, and snuggling for young children.
If your toddler has a history of sleeping independently, then it’s very likely the tips below will help!
However, if you’re rubbing your child’s back, giving them a pacifier, holding their hand to sleep, or offering bottles throughout the night, then I want to point you to my children’s sleep program: The Rested & Connected Effect.
This program will give you a proven plan and the support you need to help your toddler learn to love their bed and sleep independently all night, every night.
HOW TO HANDLE THE 18 MONTH SLEEP REGRESSION
If your young toddler is typically an independent sleeper but they’re currently fighting some aspect of sleep, then let’s talk about what you can do to help them through this regression.
1. connect before sleep
Just as we meet our children’s needs for nutrition and activity, we need to give them attention and connection. Your toddler’s bedtime routine should not include dimmed lights and sleepy music with diffused lavender. Instead, your toddler’s bedtime should contain elements of enjoyment and connection!
Between dinner and bedtime, or just before lunch be sure to engage in some toddler-led playtime to give them a potent does of connection. Allow your child to feel like the most important person on the planet to you during this time.
2. NO BOTTLE BEFORE BED
After 13 months old, there should definitely be no more bottles.
This is something that the American Academy of Pediatrics teaches as well as many registered dietitians and dentists.
Your toddler does not need a bottle anymore. It’s not age appropriate and it’s not developmentally appropriate for them. But more than that, sending a toddler to bed after they’ve had a big bottle of milk is not the right way to set them up for a great night of sleep.
If you are a nursing mom, you can definitely still nurse your toddler but place that nursing session at the beginning of the bedtime routine rather than the end.
Toddlers who drink milk at bedtime are more prone to become picky eaters because they know that they can fill up on milk after dinner.
If you find that your toddler is eating less at dinner time and then indulging in a big cup or bottle of milk before bedtime, then it’s time to begin offering their milk with dinner.
If you’re genuinely worried about the space between dinner and bedtime, and don’t want your toddler to go to bed hungry, then simply offer them an evening snack right before bedtime routine.
By 18 months of age, milk just can’t satisfy them anymore, and they shouldn’t fill up on it before bedtime or first thing in the morning.
3. AVOID A GAP BETWEEN LUNCH AND NAP
Now let’s take a look at something that specifically affects your toddler’s midday nap.
It’s nap time and you just placed your toddler into their crib.
Instead of soothing themselves to sleep, they are playing around and doing gymnastics in their crib!
Or maybe, they laid there for a while and are now fussing, crying, and protesting their nap.
If your child is doing either of these things, it doesn’t mean that it’s time to drop the nap.
Instead, it could be that they have “caught a second wind” from their lunch which is causing them to have a harder time winding down and falling asleep for their nap.
To remedy this, instead of giving your child 20-30 minutes between lunch and nap while you clean up and they play, I want you to immediately clean them up, change their diaper, put them in their sleep sack and and then put down for their nap.
Eliminating the gap between lunch and nap time will help your child fall asleep more easily for their nap because they’re naturally more sleepy after they eat.
We can make sleep easy for our kiddos! Their new independence and awareness does not have to derail their sleep.
If you’re struggling and want help now, let’s have a conversation. Choose a time here and we will speak really soon!
Sleep well,
Sierra
Pediatric Sleep Consultant
