Do toddlers become overtired and overstimulated?

Why The Possums Sleep Program doesn't talk about overtiredness

The concepts of 'overtiredness' or 'overstimulation' don't fit with the latest neuroscience, which is why I don't use them. I find these two terms are not only confusing, but cause families unnecessary stress and distress.

Your toddler could be dialling up for a range of reasons. But you might have heard that dialling up is a tired sign, and that at the first 'tired sign' you should put her down to sleep so that she doesn't get overtired. This way of thinking comes out of the sleep training approach to infant sleep, which originated in the 1950s and 1960s.

The idea of overtiredness can make the days (and nights) quite miserable, since toddlers usually dial up when they need either richer sensory motor experience or a feed. Bedrooms (and indeed the interiors of our homes) are low sensory environments. If his sleep pressure isn't particularly high and you're trying to put him down for a nap, he might dial up more and more.

Then you might become more and more exhausted as the days pass, because what you're doing isn't working, no matter how hard you try.

Why The Possums Sleep Program doesn't talk about overstimulation

You'll often hear that a dialled up toddler is overstimulated, and needs to go into a quiet place (or a low sensory environment) for sleep. In fact, the opposite is usually the case! Again, the concept of overstimulation is a key element of the sleep training approach, with roots even earlier, in the British Empire and industrialisation. By the beginning of the twentieth century, English-speaking doctors were warning that innovations like electric lights and motors overstimulated children's sensitive developing nervous systems, and that children should be protected from these novelties.

The Possums Sleep Program encourages you to experiment with your responses to your toddler's communications. If your small child by is uncomfortable in a particular environment, she'll let you know by dialling up. Then you'll experiment with something different, using one of your two superpowers, either a breastfeed or food (depending on where you and your little one are at with feeds), or a richer sensory motor experience.

In this way, your toddler regulates her own individual requirements for sensory motor stimulation from hour to hour and day to day. Her sensory motor needs may vary a lot from day to day, and are likely to be quite different to another toddler's.

From a biological or evolutionary perspective, our society habitually underestimates just how much rich and changing sensory motor nourishment our little ones need in order to meet their neurological needs and remain dialled down.

You can find out how to support the flourishing of your toddler's brain here, and how to best protect your toddler's motor development here.

Selected references

Matricciani LA, Olds TS, Blunden SL, Rigney G, Williams MT. Never enough sleep: a brief history of sleep recommendations for children. Pediatrics. 2012;129:548.