Your toddler and sleep: 12 to 36 months
Well, you’re there! Your baby has reached 12 months and she’s pretty much a toddler. Unfortunately, toddlers get a lot of bad media coverage – they have been described as ‘terrible’ for so long now that people believe it to be true.
Words are powerful, and when people call someone ‘terrible’, they are apt to believe it and treat them that way. It’s important to reflect on the way you think and talk about your toddler. If you unconsciously expect your toddler to be terrible, how will you treat her? And how does the way you think about her affect your approach to these important years of her life?
Understanding your toddler’s behaviour
Your toddler lives in the moment. There is no ‘just wait a minute’ for her. Every single little thing is fascinating right now. This makes your toddler very interesting and a real joy to be with when she’s exploring and sharing all her discoveries with you.
She has such enormous fun with simple activities like splashing in water, swishing her hand in dirt and poking her fingers into whatever she can find, no matter how dangerous it is. A single leaf is fascinating and probably needs to be tasted as well as handled, smelled and looked at.
Discovery and delight in the world are her business. If you join in with her, you can also rediscover splashing water, the beauty of leaves and watching ants march along the path.
There is no ‘just wait a minute’ for your toddler. Every single little thing is fascinating right now.
Your toddler is so intent on single-minded discovery that she can’t wait when you want to dress her. You’re interrupting her. She doesn’t understand about waiting because she lives for now.
So, what happens when you interrupt her to get dressed, eat her lunch or get in the car? Sadly, this is when you see the side of your toddler that everyone focuses on – her frustration and annoyance. She can’t tell you in words that she hasn’t finished exploring and investigating, so she’ll tell you with emotions and non-verbal cues.
First, she’ll give you small signals, such as ignore you, look away from you, shake her head or look down and keep playing. When you insist and go to pick her up, you’ll get the emotional eruption of pulling away, crying, kicking, back arching – the dreaded tantrum. You will always get small signals prior to a major tantrum.
However, put yourself in her place and imagine if you only lived in the moment. Even if the interruption to what you’re doing takes just 5 minutes of your time, this doesn’t mean a thing to you. What does matter is that all the fun has disappeared from this moment. Getting dressed or eating lunch would seem like forever, so you would probably get upset and angry. You would probably need someone to help you sort out your feelings and calm down.
Your toddler needs this as well, and the small signals are your warning signs. She needs some extra help with getting ready for changes when she’s involved in voyages of discovery. Your toddler has to manage mundane, everyday activities, so you have to calculate that into your flexible daily routine.
There’s no doubt that your toddler is absolutely delightful one minute and will drive you crazy the next. She can be unpredictable, disruptive and seem to repeat the same behaviour over and over again.
There was a meme travelling social media that described most toddlers beautifully: ‘Hell hath no fury like a toddler whose sandwich has been cut into squares when she wanted triangles.’
The reality of that problem is that you can’t do anything about it. Your toddler doesn’t have the ability to tell you that today is triangle day. Apart from not knowing what a triangle is, how could she? She doesn’t have the words. She may not have known that she wanted triangles until you gave her squares. That’s because she lives in the moment. It can be a confusing time for you both.
It’s tempting in this situation to argue with her, but don’t bother arguing with your toddler over things you can’t possibly win. It’s exhausting and frustrating, and you just won’t enjoy your relationship with each other. She may also have lots more tantrums because she will be frustrated as well.
What you can do
Leave her with her sandwich squares and if she has a tantrum, help her through her toddler dilemma by understanding her disappointment. Stay with her until she comes to terms with squares.
Or simply make another sandwich and cut it into triangles.
The main point about this dilemma is that the battle of wills over eating the sandwich, or any other food you have lovingly made, isn’t worth fighting about. What your toddler puts in her mouth and swallows and eliminates out of her body is completely under her control. You will never win that battle. In fact, it can become a power game that you can’t win, so don’t even try.
Use your limit-setting for important things like ensuring she’s safe, such as making sure she doesn’t touch power points or run away from you – that sort of thing.
When your toddler displays the same behaviour over and over again, it can be so annoying and infuriating. You seem to be saying ‘No!’ a hundred times a day. She’s not really being naughty, you know. She just forgets what she can’t do. There are a lot of rules to learn and her brain isn’t quite able to remember them all yet. And besides, everything is so interesting.
When she goes to touch a power point or play with the dirt in a pot plant or open the kitchen cupboard and turns to look at you, sometimes smiling before she touches it, she’s checking with you. She’s asking, ‘Remind me, did you tell me I’m not supposed to touch this or do that?’
She’s not being naughty or defiant. With your constant help, she is learning how to control her impulse to touch what you don’t want her to touch. The way you do this is to gently and firmly say ‘no’ and then pick her up, turn her around and give her something else to do. You might have to do that a hundred times. At this age, you have to distract her while you teach her to follow your instructions to not touch dangerous things.
Yes, this is irritating. But eventually, her memory of your calm and helpful instructions will start to have an impact. She’ll understand she can’t touch certain things, recognise that you mean ‘no’ and learn to control her impulses. And that will help her at day care, preschool and school. She’ll have a better learning experience when she can control her impulses and understand there are certain things that she can’t do when she’s told ‘no’.
With this type of gentle, consistent help from you, by 3 years of age she may be able to control her impulses for a minute, take a turn and share toy and, best of all, will sometimes cooperate with you and her friends.
As for her tantrums, your toddler won’t learn how to manage her big out-of-control feelings by being put into time out. She needs your help to calm down, the same as she did when she was a young baby (see Chapter 5: Why your baby cries).
Imagine what it’s like when you’re extremely upset and need comforting. You usually like someone to comfort you or at least acknowledge you’re upset. But if everyone around you totally ignores your distress and need for help, that feels awful.
Your toddler is exactly the same, except it’s even worse for her. She needs lots of help to manage her out-of-control feelings of anger, frustration and disappointment. She doesn’t even understand yet that these are the emotions she’s feeling.
If you would like to know more about managing tantrums and why time out isn’t a useful method for toddlers and young children, visit the website of the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health Inc (aaimhi.org) and read their position paper on time out.
During her second year, your toddler is rapidly developing physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially. She loves to explore and this means moving away from you more and more. But she has a dilemma because she needs to stay close to you as well, and that creates some tension because she wants to be a little independent now. This can get a bit complicated for her, because at about 18 months she may have another episode of separation anxiety. She wants to stay close to you, but she desperately wants to use her new skills of crawling and walking to get away from you and explore.
You just have to gently balance her two opposing needs: to stay close to you and have cuddles, while also gaining a little independence to explore. Once again, this can be confusing for her. She wants to get up on your lap and then pushes you away and struggles to get down; then, she may go through the whole performance again. She’s also resentful of other children and sometimes very demanding of your attention!
This is normal toddler development that’s not well understood, and it’s confusing for both of you. Your toddler isn’t being difficult, naughty or terrible – she’s just a bit hard to work out sometimes. Throughout these 12 to 36 months, your toddler is still socially and emotionally dependent on you and needs plenty of reassurance as she learns to manage a complicated social world.
Your toddler’s emotional and intellectual world
Your toddler is a very emotional person, and, at times, she’s unable to manage or control her emotions. She relies on your help.
Her emotions drive her behaviour. Your toddler has a tantrum because she’s upset, angry or frustrated. Something happened to bring her to that emotional state, so it makes sense to figure out what happened prior to the tantrum to cause the emotion, and try to prevent it from happening again, if you can.
A good example is biting or hitting. Your toddler doesn’t just bite or hit for any reason, there are always two (or more) people involved in interactions.
She may bite or hit because she’s angry, so you need to find out what happened that made her angry. A situation occurs, usually with a playmate, that causes an emotion, such as frustration or anger, and then the behaviour happens. It helps to understand if you can find out what happened between the toddlers that led to the situation that caused the bite or hit to occur. There’s always an emotion that drives your toddler’s behaviour.
Emotions drive your behaviour as well, it’s just that you know what feelings you’re having and you can usually do something about them. Your toddler can’t understand or put a name to her feelings yet, so she needs your help to figure out her feelings and for you to name them for her. She also needs you to help her control her impulses because she can’t do that either.
When you’re really unable to help her, it’s time for you to sit down, count to three and use some deep breathing exercises (see page 55). This will help you calm down before you begin to try to figure out what your toddler is up to now.
Sometimes when you’re really tired, it’s almost impossible to manage your feelings, let alone your toddler’s, and you might even wonder why on earth you thought being a parent was a good idea! Don’t worry, all parents feel like that from time to time.
As Charles Dickens wrote a long time ago, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’. He was writing about the French Revolution, but his words could just as easily be applied to parenting a toddler.
Toddler routines
During her second year, your toddler’s meals and bedtime routines fit more comfortably into the rest of the family’s. From 12 to 18 months she may still wake early in the morning, but as she gets closer to 2 years she may sleep later in the morning. At 2½ to 3 years old, she will more closely sync with your family routines. She will begin to imitate you, say some words and use a spoon to feed herself. She will still need to go to bed fairly early at night and most of her sleep will be throughout the night-time hours.
Her daytime naps will get shorter. She may still have two naps a day by the time she reaches 18 months old, one longer one and a short catnap. Between 18 months and 3 years, naps reduce to about 1 to 2 hours. But remember, your toddler is an individual and her own individual sleep rhythms determine her sleep requirements.
Sample routine for your toddler
• Your toddler usually wakes at sunrise.
• At 12 to 14 months, your toddler still has an early morning milk feed, but as she gets older she may discard it. This is purely a personal choice. Once again, this is when she may start the day or may return to sleep for a little while.
• From 18 months, your toddler may still want a milk feed from the breast, bottle or cup, or simply be ready for breakfast as soon as she gets up. This will also depend on you and when you want to wean your toddler from the breast or bottle.
• By 3 years old, most toddlers will be fitting in with the family meal times.
• Breakfast
• Playtime includes social time with you, toys and games
• Going for a walk, visiting friends, playgroup
• Morning tea (possibly fruit) and a drink of water
• She may have a morning nap of 1 to 2 hours.
• Carefully watch your toddler for when she gets drowsy and use your tired sign formula (see page 125). Remember, it’s best to put her to bed when she’s in a drowsy state.
• Lunch solids and a milk feed
• Another playtime
• She may have an afternoon nap of 1 to 2 hours. Her naps may start to change from 18 months and she may only have one nap of 2 hours each day. She may nap during the day until she is about 3 years old.
• Carefully watch your toddler for when she gets drowsy and use your tired sign formula (see page 125). Remember, it’s best to put her to bed when she’s in a drowsy state.
• Afternoon tea (possibly fruit) and a drink of water
• Another playtime
• Dinner solids and a milk feed from the breast or bottle, depending on her age
• Quiet, wind-down cuddle time
• A bath and her soothing bedtime routine
• Your toddler is ready for books with pictures. She’ll enjoy turning the pages and listening to you make animal noises. At 2½ years, her attention span is longer and she can focus more on her books and point to small, interesting details.
• Once her bedtime routine is over, settle her for the night.
• At 12 to 14 months, she may still want one milk feed overnight. After this age, she doesn’t need to feed at night.
Respond to her tired signs by reducing stimulation and adopting a calm and soothing presence.
The tired signs for a toddler
When your toddler becomes tired or overtired, the most important sign to look for is drowsiness plus one or more of the following non-verbal cues.
Toddler tired signs
• drowsiness
• heavy eyelids and glazed, dull eyes
• yawning
• still, quiet, not very alert
• irritable, restless
• clumsiness
• grizzling, fussy
• sucking her thumb or a dummy, if she uses one
• searching for her special blanket, toy or comforter.
Respond to her tired signs by reducing stimulation and adopting a calm and soothing presence. She needs you to tell her she’s tired so that she can begin to understand what it feels like to be tired, and that this feeling means she needs to go to bed and have a sleep.
Once you have noticed she’s tired and ready for a sleep, prepare your toddler for going to bed. The bedtime routine you use will depend on the time of day and her age. For example, if it’s a daytime nap you might simply put the toys away, talk to her quietly, pick her up and give her a cuddle, then move on to a short, quiet, calming and predictable bedtime routine to help her wind down and get ready to lie down in her cot or bed, depending on her age. If it’s night time, close the curtains in her room and turn off the lights (see Chapter 1: How sleep works).
For her first 12 months, you may have had a familiar, predictable bedtime routine for your baby. Now that your toddler’s day fits more closely to the family’s routines, she will definitely need a comforting routine each evening that signals that it’s the end of the day and time for her long night-time sleep. This will give her time to wind down, relax with you and get ready for bed and sleep. The same, familiar, calming bedtime routine will usually result in her falling asleep more quickly and may also reduce any anxiety or disruptive behaviours at this time.
Night-time routines usually include a bath. Even though baths are fun, they are always warm and relaxing; you know yourself how a bath feels. Routines include a nappy change, teeth cleaning, cuddles and a quiet story together, and tucking in or placing her in a sleeping bag, depending on her age. Some parents and toddlers have a favourite quiet song they like to sing at bedtime.
These quiet wind-down routines are always followed by moving your toddler into her cot or bed and an affectionate kiss goodnight. Your toddler thrives on your affection. Her brain grows stronger and healthy neural connections are made every time you touch her, gently kiss her and tell her you love her.
If your toddler has chosen a special blanket, toy or comforter, she will need this as part of her bedtime routine. At around or after the stage when your baby experiences separation anxiety, she will choose the blanket or toy that will become her special comforter. It’s thought that the special object your baby chooses provides her with comfort and security in your absence. That’s why this object is so important to her when she separates from you to go to bed and to help her calm down when she gets upset. No one can choose this object for her, this is something she has to choose for herself.
Once you have finished your routine and your toddler is drowsy and ready for sleep, put her into her cot or bed awake, kiss her goodnight and leave her to fall asleep.
Always ensure that the cot sides are up and securely in place.
When your toddler won’t settle
Here are some Tresillian settling strategies to try if your toddler still has difficulties going to sleep on her own and wakes through the night.
Toddler settling strategies
• If you have tried putting your toddler to bed and she continues to be distressed or she’s crying, pick her up and cuddle her until she’s calm. And check her nappy. You can then attempt to resettle her.
• Speak gently and quietly to reassure her, such as telling her, ‘It’s time for sleep’. You want to encourage a state of calm. Once she’s calm again, position her comfortably on her back in her cot or bed while she’s still awake.
• If she still doesn’t respond and she cries, pick her up again and cuddle her until she’s calm.
• You could try giving her a drink of water but nothing else.
• If she’s very upset, then try staying in the room until she falls asleep. You could sit on a chair quietly. The length of time it takes to calm your toddler will decrease as she begins to calm herself and self-settles to sleep.
• If you find your toddler needs you to stay in the room while she falls asleep, try sitting on a chair beside her cot or her bed, and then, over time, gradually move your chair a little further away as she gains more confidence in her ability to fall asleep without you being quite so close. Eventually, move your chair until you are sitting near or just outside the door, responding to her with your gentle voice if she checks that you’re still there. You might like to try the parental presence settling technique in Chapter 8 (see page 172) if your toddler is anxious about separating from you at sleep time.
Transitioning from cot to regular bed
If your toddler is starting to climb out of her cot or onto the cot sides, it’s time to transition from a cot to a regular bed. Moving into a bed is an exciting step in your child’s life and some of these points may help to smooth out any problems the move may make.
Transitioning to a regular bed
1. Start by encouraging her to climb into her bed unaided.
2. Give your toddler verbal reassurances and tell her what’s going to happen next, such as ‘It’s bedtime now’. In a calm, firm voice give positive instructions like, ‘It’s time to go to sleep’, to discourage her from climbing out of bed.
3. In the early days, keep a familiar blanket or toy your toddler chooses from her cot to help make her feel more secure in her new bed. If she has a special blanket or toy, she’ll take that with her. Remember to check that any comfort object she takes to bed with her is safe, with nothing that she could swallow or choke on.
4. Praise your toddler if she manages to stay in her ‘big bed’!
5. If she does get out of bed, gently and firmly walk her back to bed, tuck her in again and say goodnight. Sometimes you have to do that a few times and, as annoying as it is, it’s best to stay as calm as possible until she gets the idea.
6. If need be, use the settling techniques we have looked at, such as sitting beside the bed and over time moving your chair gradually further away, until your toddler gets used to going to sleep in her new bed.
Your toddler is a delightful little person most of the time. The more you watch her, figure out her non-verbal cues and understand that she lives in the moment, the more her behaviour will make sense to you.
When you’re stuck trying to figure out what your toddler is doing, put yourself in her place and ask, ‘What would that be like for me?’
Imagine having:
• a very limited alibility to speak or understand your language
• no experience of crawling or walking
• just the beginnings of the ability to manage or even know what emotions you’re feeling
• strong emotions that are so out of control they scare you
• no sense of time
• difficulty in understanding that other people have needs or feelings different to yours
• the urge to explore and discover everything but someone always seems to stop you
• very little control over anything in your world
• so much excitement you want to share with your favourite people right this minute – everything else can wait.
Your toddler must have a strange, wonderful but, very often, frustrating life. From your point of view, she is light and dark! One moment she’s a total delight and then exhausting and frustrating the next. But she’s never terrible. That’s just bad media coverage that toddlers have been getting for too long.
Your toddler will need a lot of help in managing her world. When you figure out what’s bothering her and help her sort it out, your life becomes much more peaceful – well, most of the time.
Mia’s story (mother of William, 2½ years, and Anna, 3 months)
William was 14 months old when we went to Tresillian Residential. At the time, he was still waking at least three or four times a night. I was really struggling to break some of his habits, like still having night-time bottles.
There were a few reasons why it had become so bad. He was still sleeping in our room at that stage because we had the only air-conditioning unit in the house. When we tried to put him in his own room, he had a habit of getting hysterical and vomiting. As he was over 12 months, he had become so much more aware and dependent on us being there. Some of the habits he’d formed were really hard to break.
At Tresillian, we learned how to reset the rules. First of all, we found out that he needed to eat more food during the day in order to sustain him overnight. We were giving him meals but the portions were probably too small and we hadn’t been giving him snacks, so we started to increase all the sizes and add more variety.
Next, we had to teach him that being in a cot in his own room was okay. My husband and I had really different ideas of how to settle him, so it was really helpful being given consistent support from the nurses on the best way to do it. When William woke, the nurses would sit with us as we listened to his cries. If he vomited, we would go in and change him, then calm him down before putting him back in his cot. We would shush him a bit, then leave the room. We kept doing that, leaving the room to give him an opportunity to build confidence in settling himself, and returning to comfort him, until, eventually, he went to sleep.
After that first night, we saw an 80 per cent improvement and, by the end of the week, he was sleeping through the night. It was just incredible! I’m so thankful for the nurses and I’m really proud of William for breaking the cycle.
It’s more than a year later now, and he’s still sleeping through the night almost every night. I’ve recently had a new baby and I’m determined not to repeat any of those mistakes with this one. I’ve already been putting her down awake, but calm, to help her learn to self-settle and so far it’s working well.
The main thing I’ve learned is that it’s okay for them to grizzle a little for the greater outcome of getting them to self-settle. I just wish I’d received some help earlier. I think anyone who is struggling should just go and get help rather than trying to do it themselves.
Key message
• Your toddler has to manage mundane, everyday activities, so you have to calculate that into your flexible daily routine. Use your limit-setting for important things like ensuring she’s safe, such as making sure she doesn’t touch power points or run away from you.
• During her second and third years, your toddler’s meals and bedtime routines fit more comfortably into the rest of the family’s.
• Once your toddler starts to climb out of her cot, it’s time for her to transition to a ‘big bed’. This is an exciting experience for her, but it may take time and encouragement to keep her in her new big bed at night. This means you’ll need to remain calm and reassuring as well as use settling techniques to help her settle to sleep.