How much sleep does your toddler need?

This page is part of a collection of short articles called Brief & simple, which together make up a quick summary of The Possums Sleep Program in plain language. For comprehensive information and support, please go to The essentials section of The Possums Sleep Program, and begin to work your way through the program's online text and videos.

It's normal to look at the clock, longing for your toddler to sleep! Often you'll hear that something is wrong and you should use sleep training if your toddler

• Is still wide awake late evening

• Doesn't want to nap during the day

• Wakes in the night.

But there is a lot of misunderstanding about toddler sleep. Just knowing how to keep your toddler's body clock and and sleep pressure healthy is often all that is required to make your toddler's sleep fit in with your own sleep needs.

Toddler sleep needs vary, like baby sleep needs. Some toddlers need as little as 8.5 hours sleep in a 24-hour period, and this is normal for them. Some toddlers also don't need daytime naps after 12 months of age.

We might get the idea that our toddler needs more sleep than they actually do. But if we try to make toddlers with low sleep take long naps during the day or go to bed early in the evening, there might soon be a lot of family stress at sleep-times, or your toddler might start waking excessively in the night. These are problems to avoid!

Acknowledgements

I'm grateful to Professor Sophie Havighurst, Ros June, and Caroline Ma at Mindful, The University of Melbourne, for their feedback on the articles in the Brief & simple section of The Possums Sleep Program. They helped me keep the language plain and the concepts as accessible as possible. For comprehensive information and support, please go to The essentials section of The Possums Sleep Program, and begin to work your way through the program's online text and videos.