Toddler Sleep Challenges
Gone are the simple days of “cry it out” solving your child’s sleep woes. You’re now in the realm of elaborate bedtime rituals, procrastination tactics, and more complex emotions, especially fears. Sleep challenges at this age can be very idiosyncratic, but hopefully some of the below tactics are helpful for your child’s situation.
Lengthy bedtime routines, stalling
Kids crave routine and it’s a normal and healthy thing to have a bedtime routine
However, as they get older and sneakier, more and more elements can creep into this routine and suddenly it’s a 45 minute rigamarole
Furthermore, what starts off as an innocent part of the routine can soon become a lever for procrastination, or a sleep association they also need to fall back asleep throughout the night
With my first kid, I absolutely fell prey to this - here are just a few personal examples:
Wanted the door cracked open a little bit, but would then insist she wanted it closed, or it needed to be open more; same with how much the light was on or off
Would claim to need to use the bathroom just as she was finally settled into bed (and would actually go sometimes, which kept me falling for it)
Would cry “I’m hungry” until we gave her a late night snack (a lot of parents struggle to ignore this one, because you want them to sleep with a full tummy)
Asked for us to “check on her” which turned into many check-ins that ate into our grownup time in the evenings
Full back-and-forth conversations through the baby monitor answering her various questions
I started singing “Twinkle Twinkle” to her every night before bed, and then she would demand it whenever she woke during the night (same happened with “shushhing”)
There’s an infinite number of possible ways you can become trapped by bedtime demands, but solving it almost always comes down to balancing the same two truths:
Kids crave closeness and control
You are the parent and make the rules
Kids crave closeness and control:
Many of these stalling tactics are attempts to get you back in the room, paying attention to them, so try to be extremely present and attentive during the bedtime routine, especially if you’ve had limited time with them during the day
This alone is unlikely to solve your issues, but is an important foundational step
Offer kids choices within a very limited set of options: which of two sets of PJs? Brush teeth first and then book, or the other way around?
When a strong-willed kid wants something that goes against the rules, avoid straight-out saying “no” and instead offer an alternative “yes”. This allows them to “save face” and feel like they still got something, but you don’t lose all credibility by caving to their original demands. Some examples:
Kid is demanding you read a certain book, but you’ve already hit your book allotment for the evening, so you respond with “That’s such a great book, let’s put it right here so we remember to read it tomorrow” and move on
Kid wants to snuggle on the couch downstairs instead of the chair in their room (as a way to delay), so you respond with “Oooh how about tonight we do something special and bring all your stuffed animals into the snuggle, we’ve never done that before!”
You make the rules:
We want our little humans to feel seen and heard, but ultimately we should be in charge, not the other way around
Explain the bedtime plan clearly, preempting their objections, for instance:
“We’ll do just one potty stop and if you have to go later, you can go in your diaper and tell me, and I’ll come change it”
Do just one check-in, during which you say “this is your chance to ask any questions; after this, I’ll watch you on the monitor but I’m not going to come in again”
Turn a procrastination tactic into a built-in part of the routine: while this may sound counterintuitive, it’s better to have a potty stop or a late night-snack as part of the expected, parent-controlled routine, rather than a way your child tries to call you back up to their room
For the late night snack, we limit choices to the same two items (banana or cottage cheese) so it’s not a whole negotiation
Follow through, even when it’s tough: it will take time for your child to adjust to new expectations, especially if you’d fallen into child-driven habits. There’s a way to lovingly acknowledge their feelings without yielding to them:
“I know you wish mommy would stay in the room longer like I used to, but I’ll be right downstairs, cleaning up from dinner”
Nightmares/Fears
Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to fully prevent your child from having nightmares - in fact, I think it’s important to normalize for your child that everyone has scary dreams sometimes, even grownups
The key message to convey is that dreams aren’t real and your child is safe to go back to sleep (ideally without your help)
It’s nice to have a “go-to phrase” that you repeat whenever fears about nightmares arise - we say “when you wake up, you can tell yourself ‘it’s just a dream!’”
Measures to minimize frequency of nightmares:
Discuss specific fears, reassuring them about things are just pretend or don’t pose a threat at home (e.g. lions don’t live here in San Francisco!)
It’s important to keep these convos fairly quick and move on, because overdoing it can cause them to only ruminate further
Limit any scary content they are consuming from books or TV/movies - even Disney movies we might not think of as scary have scenes that can frighten young children, like storms
Avoid technology before bed, which is a good sleep practice anyway
Use a small nightlight - red/amber is best, blue is worst, and make sure it isn’t too bright
Add a ritual to your bedtime routine that eases their fear about nightmares - we had a phase of putting on “good dream cream” (i.e. lotion)
Just know that this will may now become a required step that your child will freak out about if skipped
Similarly, you can hang a pretty dreamcatcher, just make sure you travel with it because kids develop psychological dependencies quick!
Some kids are really comforted by their specific stuffed animal/lovey - if possible, I’d buy an extra (or two!) of the same animal to keep stored away in case the original gets lost
Dealing with nightmares in the moment:
Definitely go to their bed to reassure them with soothing words and touch, but don’t bring them into your bed as that’s a dangerous habit to start!
Let them tell you about their dream since verbalizing can help release the grip it has, but then don’t dwell on it - say something like “wow that does sounds scary, I’m so glad it’s not real - you’re safe at home, now let me help you get cozy in your bed again”
It can be very disturbing to hear your child screaming in the middle of the night, so you may have trouble getting back to sleep yourself - avoid going on your phone
Night terrors are a distinct phenomenon from nightmares, and far less common:
They typically happen earlier in the night and involve intense thrashing and screaming
The child remains asleep during the episode and has no recollection in the morning
All you can do as a parent is keep your child physically safe (i.e. prevent falls) and wait until the episode passes - avoid waking them
Separation anxiety
Some toddlers experience a regression where they really struggle to fall or stay asleep on their own, and crying it out doesn’t work like it did when they were little
This age can also be more emotionally challenging for the parents now that your child can yell “don’t leave me alone mama!” compared to when it was just generic crying
They may temporarily need you to come visit their room until they feel comfortable on their own again
It can be helpful to have a go-to-phrase you always say when you come visit, since part of the stress with managing kid’s wakeups is figuring out how to respond
One I like is “The whole house is sleeping, mama is sleeping, dada is sleeping, *insert stuffed animal’s name* is sleeping, time for *child’s name* to sleep”
If the situation is especially acute, you may want to try a form of sleep training called the “Mattress Method” - it’s rough week or so, but will likely solve the issue in the long run (it did for us)
Start by spending the night on a mattress right to their bed, verbally soothing them during any wakeups
After a few (~3) days in this position, move the mattress so it’s halfway to the door
A few days later, move to the doorway itself, and later to the hallway so your child can see you, and finally to the hallway out of view but within earshot
With this gradual release of your presence, they hopefully regain the confidence to sleep independently (and you can sleep in your normal bed again!)
Early Rising
This is one of the trickiest issues to solve, because by morning their “sleep pressure” is quite low since they’ve already had a good chunk of sleep
I’d consider anything before 6am “early rising” (we struggled for months with rising between 4:30 - 5:30am)
Confusingly, sleep consultants say early rising can be improved by earlier bedtime or later bedtime (!?)
The theory is in some cases they are going to sleep overtired, so earlier bedtime will actually result in better quality and longer sleep
But in other cases, they can actually handle staying up later, and then the same total sleep will bring you to a more reasonable wake hour
You might have a hunch which applies to your child, so try that for at least a week and see if it helps
The other lever to play with is the amount of daytime sleep - again, the experts say both too much daytime sleep can eat into night sleep (which is intuitive) but that sometimes the reverse can also be true, with a too short nap causing overtiredness
Between ages 2 and 3, your child may be mature enough to understand a “stoplight” alarm clock - this uses color to signal when it’s time to go back to sleep or chill quietly in bed (red) vs when it’s okay to call out for parents (green), since kids can’t tell on their own
You can buy a stoplight like this one, or program the Hatch if you already have that
I’d push the wake time back incrementally so you build their tolerance for waiting - so start by having it turn green just 15 minutes after they’ve typically called out for you, and then push it later and later from there
What not to do in the wee early hours: give them milk or bring them into your bed
I made both these mistakes, and it only cemented the early rising because she learned she got these rewards
Keep in mind that some kids are just never going to be 12-hour sleepers, and may max out as low as 10 hours. So you may need to practice some acceptance and decide whether to embrace early rising, or try to shift bedtime later (and thus give up some adult evening time)
