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Toddler Sleep (12-36 months) icon

Toddler Sleep (12-36 months)


  • How to make the days work when you have a low sleep need toddler?
  • Do toddlers become overtired and overstimulated?
  • What to do if your toddler only sleeps in the carrier or when being held?
  • Will 'capping' naps help with sleep problems when you have a toddler?
  • Why won't your toddler go down to sleep during the day?
  • Is it best to sleep your toddler in a cot during the day?
  • What to do about toddler sleep when you have an older child or other children who need your attention?
  • How can you get the best out of mothers' groups or parents' groups when you have toddler sleep problems?
  • What to do about naps when your toddler is in childcare?
  • What to do about daytime sleeps when you're weaning your toddler from the breast?

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  • Toddler Sleep (12-36 months)
  • S2: Daytimes
  • CH 3: FAQs

Is it best to sleep your toddler in a cot during the day?

Dr Pamela Douglas11th of Jul 202323rd of May 2024

toddler awake in cot

If your toddler is happy to go down for a nap in a cot during the day, then we don't need to make any changes! But many or even most families find their toddler doesn't like the cot.

Because your toddler has a powerful biological drive for rich and diverse sensory motor exploration, she will often dial up in response to the restraints imposed by a cot. This is not a sign that she is overtired or overstimulated, though you might hear that said. You can find out more here.

Many parents have heard that their small child needs to sleep in the cot to develop good sleep habits, which isn't true. They may have been told to put him in the cot drowsy but awake. These recommendations come out of sleep training approaches. You can find out more here.

Worse, it's quite common for our little ones, who learn so quickly, to develop a conditioned dialling up with the cot. That is, they learn that the cot is a place of low sensory motor input, and cry as soon as you go into the bedroom or they see the cot. No matter how many interesting pictures you put on the wall, or comforters or soft toys you give her, or mobiles you dangle above the cot, she knows it is a low motor sensory environment, and has associated it with being miserable.

Since being dialled up interferes with easy sleep, use of the cot often results in terrible sleep battles between mothers or primary carers and their little one, which distresses and exhausts everybody.

So the answer is, no, it's not best to sleep your toddler in a cot during the day - although if it works for you and your little one then there's no reason to change! Your toddler will take sleep wherever you are, as long as the sleep pressure is high enough. We can let toddler sleep be easy!

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What to do about toddler sleep when you have an older child or other children who need your attention?

two young brown skinned girls walk with their younger sister

The days and evenings are easiest if you simply expect your toddler to fit in around ordinary daily life with an older sibling or siblings.

The toddler's naps occur on the go during the day, as you meet your older child or children's needs (doing kindy or school drop-offs or taking the older child to music class or soccer practice or play dates or birthday parties), and then plan days you will enjoy as you parent, rich in social connection, walks, and meaningful tasks outside the home.

This…

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