What is sensory motor nourishment and why does it help with toddler sleep?

Dr Pamela Douglas16th of Sep 202311th of Aug 2024

toddler climbing out of sand pit

What are your toddler's sensory motor needs?

“Play is the work of the child” Maria Montessori

The Possums Toddler Sleep Program is for families with little people who are from 12 months to three years of age. They have taken that great developmental leap of Homo sapiens, and are walking upright on two legs (or will be soon enough!) with hands free to explore.

Your toddler's brain requires complex multisensory stimulation, and experimentation with movements. Movement is at the very foundations of healthy sensory and social development. Movement, sensory experience, and the development of social skills are inextricably entwined.

Your child's brain pathways are being laid down for life, in direct response to the input that she receives through her senses. These neural templates develop best if she experiences

Rich and variable stimulation of her senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch
Rich and variable pressure on her skin and joints (proprioceptive stimulation)
Highly variable positions relative to gravity (vestibular stimulation), or experiences of external motion applied to her, which give her many opportunities to adjust her posture and practice movements in response
Complex terrains to walk or run through and physically explore as her motor coordination and strength develop
Self-directed imaginative play, alone and with other children and adults.

Needless to say, your toddler also needs rich and enjoyable interactions with his parents, siblings and loving people, which we discuss elsewhere. Two-way communication with others builds on, and further develops, our little one's many neural pathways of sensory input and motor output.

Because of the rich sensory environments in which humans evolved over the course of our long evolutionary history, toddlers' hunger for lots of sensory and motor experience is a hardwired and powerful biological drive. There is growing awareness of the importance of meeting a small child's sensory motor needs, which I have called 'rich sensory experience', or 'sensory nourishment', or 'sensory motor nourishment'.

How can you know if your toddler is receiving enough sensory nourishment?

One way toddlers tell us when they need more sensory stimulation is by dialling up, that is, by grizzling and crying! If your toddler's hunger for sensory nourishment isn't met, he'll dial up in the same way as he dials up from a hunger for food or with thirst. This is why sensory motor nourishment is your superpower for keeping a toddler dialled down during the day.
Another way toddlers tell us they need more sensory motor stimulation is by becoming extremely physically (or sometimes verbally) active. Sometimes you might think of this as 'hyperactive', or 'bouncing off the walls'. If this is a repeated pattern of behaviour for your child, we could say that the dial on his sympathetic nervous system has become rather stuck on the high settings. Often you might hear that this little one is overstimulated, but to my mind this missunderstands the power of a small child's drive for complex, multi-sensory, physical, movement-intensive experiences in rich and complex social and physical environments.

A little one will try to meet these biologically driven sensory motor needs himself in a low sensory environment, and develop a pattern of movements and behaviours which tend to be more jumpy, rapid, less co-ordinated, less focussed, verbally loud, and perhaps intrusive for other children.

Have you noticed that a toddler who was complaining and grizzling when alone with you inside the house, is suddenly absorbed and dialled down when placed in the middle of a bunch of other children in the backyard or the park? Suddenly her sensory needs are met. She will watch and play and interact and toddle or run around happily, coming back to you sometimes for a cuddle and reassurance, before launching out into the world of other kids again.

You might find it hard to believe that the inside of your home is a low sensory environment. Perhaps your home is full of light and colour. Perhaps you have set up play gyms and mobiles and interesting toys. I hate to say it, but no matter how hard we've tried to liven it up, the inside of our homes remain low in sensory adventure for small children, compared to the outside world. It's easiest to let the world do the work of keeping your toddler dialled down!

Sometimes a child who seems physically active a lot of the time might seem to push away your offers of physical contact and cuddles. My opinion (and one day hopefully teams will start to research these theories) is that this is the child who needs even more physical contact from you, whether as strong, (sensibly) rough-and-tumble physical play and laughter, or multiple opportunities for hugs, no matter how briefly before the child wriggles out of your arms or away from you. Often, parents who wish to be respectful keep their distance, but I worry that this may backfire in the long run. I think we need to assume that the extra busy, highly wriggley toddler also has a powerful biological need for abundant, complex, loving physical contact, to optimise development.

This child might also benefit from the constant motion and postural adjustment required by being carried, either facing out at the front or in a light carrier frame on your back. You can find out more here.

Why does rich sensory experience help with toddler sleep?

Toddlers often dial up inside the house because they need a richer sensory experience than the interior of the home can offer. Parents might worry that this dialling up is a sign their toddler is tired. But the little one dialls up even more as the parents try to put him down to sleep, because his sleep pressure isn't particularly high. This little one needs richer sensory motor stimulation, instead.

This is why I recommend that you take off the sleep lens, and put on the sensory lens instead as you go through the day. When your toddler dials up, don't think sleep, just think sensory! Experiment with a new sensory adventure, keeping your child dialled down while his sleep pressure builds. This way, sleep pressure rises so high that your little one eventually drops off to sleep easily (perhaps with a feed, or just in the carrier or stroller or car seat whilst you are underway with your day).

You can trust that your toddler's sleep will look after itself, if you experiment between keeping your little one satiated or offering the breast if you are breastfeeding whenever you think it will help, and sensory motor nourishment, aiming to keep your small child as dialled down as you sensibly can through your days together.