Last week I invited you into my brain and walked you through my thought process when a parent asks why their baby is still waking up at night – or why they’re all of a sudden waking again.
We’re continuing that conversation this week with toddlers. Why is your toddler still waking at night? Or why is your toddler suddenly waking in the night again??
For the sake of clarity, I’m talking toddlers and older kids ages 18 months and up – at Via Graces we work with kiddos until the age of 8!
So as a baby and toddler sleep consultant, here’s where my mind goes when address toddler night wakings, and in this order…
Question one: Has your toddler been sleep trained?
Just like with babies, my first question is always, are they sleep trained? Because if not, that’s very likely what’s going on.
There may be other tweaks and changes that can be made, as well, but if your little one doesn’t know how to fall asleep independently at bedtime, when they experience natural night wakings (like we all do!), they don’t know how to fall back asleep on their own. They need the same help they needed at bedtime, which, for toddlers and big kids, might be rocking, you lying on their floor, holding their hand, or lying in bed with them. Or some toddlers might still be nursing or drinking their bottle to sleep.
Or you might not be staying in there until they’re fully asleep, but if you stay and rub your child’s back for 5-10 minutes before leaving, or you lay on their floor for a few minutes after lights out, there’s a good chance they’re getting drowsy and on the way to sleep while you’re in there. And while they might not be conked out by the time you leave, that drowsiness isn’t fully independent sleep.
So when I say sleep trained, I’m also talking no drowsiness!
Now, some people think you can’t sleep train toddlers or older kids, but you absolutely can! We work with families like yours all the time. So if you’re curious about the different sleep training methods you can use with toddlers, read here.
Sub-question: Does your toddler need a pacifier to sleep?
Along with the sleep training question and making sure there’s no drowsiness, this might hurt for some of you, but pacifiers need to be part of this conversation.
I’ve certainly met toddlers who sleep really well with the paci, but when we work with families at Via Graces, we drop it! I’ve had too many families come to me where everything else is seemingly “perfect,” but their toddler still needs a pacifier. And by taking it away (which I know, is scary and not always easy), does the trick!
So even if you’ve sleep trained, if your toddler still needs a pacifier to sleep, I’d argue that they’re not a fully independent sleeper and again, you might make every other fix I’m about to talk about, but if they keep the pacifier, I’m not confident they’ll sleep through. I talk all about pacifier usage here, if you want to learn more – it’s a hot topic!
Sub-question: Does your toddler still have milk at bedtime?
I also need to add to this part of the conversation milk! After about 12 months old, we no longer want milk in your little one’s bedtime routine.
So by 18 months and older, milk should absolutely be done with dinner. All milk should also be consumed in a straw cup or open cup at this point. Bottles should be all done. I talk all about weaning from the bottle here if you’re realizing it’s time to drop the bottle but you’re not sure how!
And if you’re a nursing mom, you might be wondering about milk in the bedtime routine. I still recommend milk be totally out of the bedtime routine.
At this age, any kind of milk, from the breast or whole milk, is a great added bonus, but we want solids to be the main source of nutrients. So ideally even breastfeeding should be done by dinner time. There’s a little wiggle room here where you can nurse after dinner, but it should be completely away from bedtime.
Question two: Does your toddler’s sleep schedule need to be adjusted?
Okay, so if your toddler IS sleep trained, they don’t sleep with a paci, and milk is long gone from bedtime, the next category my mind goes to is their schedule.
And for toddlers and older kids who have been sleeping through the night for a while and are suddenly waking again, schedule jumps to the front for me.
Because if they are independent sleepers, their schedule might be off! Are they overtired, causing cortisol to run through their little system and just make sleep harder?
Are they overtired?
Maybe bedtime is just way too late compared to their nap time. If your young 2 year old naps from 12-1:30 and bedtime is 8 pm, they might just be too tired, causing night wakings.
Or maybe your toddler recently transitioned to one nap and it hasn’t lengthened yet. Or they recently started going to daycare and their nap is still short, but bedtime is still 7/7:30.
Or your 5 year old wakes up around 6:30/7 am, and they’ve been going to bed at 8:30 pm. That bedtime might just be too late for them!
In each of these scenarios, overtiredness might be disrupting your little one’s overnight sleep!
Are they undertired?
OR are they undertired, not giving them enough sleep pressure to actually be tired enough to not just fall asleep, but actually stay asleep? Maybe bedtime is too early! By the age of 2 or so, most toddlers need a solid 5 hours between their nap and bedtime, and some need even more! I speak with a lot of families who have this exact issue.
So if your 2 year old naps from 12:30-2:30 and their bedtime is still at 7 pm, they’re night wakings might be due to undertiredness! Start by trying a 7:30 bedtime.
Or if your 2.5 or 3 year old still naps 12:30-2:30 and goes to bed at 7:30, they may actually need closer to an 8 pm bedtime! Or if 8 pm feels too late, then it might be time to cap their nap at 2 pm to make 7:30 still work for them.
Or your 3 or 4 year old might still be napping from 1-2:30, and despite their 8 or 8:30 bedtime, they’re still waking in the night. We can certainly start by capping their nap at 2 pm, but it might actually be time to drop their nap altogether! I talk all about dropping the final nap here, if you think this might be you.
And just a bit of a side note: your toddler might be sleeping through the night but bedtime has become a struggle and/or early mornings are creeping in – undertiredness is often the culprit there, so again, think about their nap length and bedtime!
OR for our older kids who no longer nap, they might also need a change in bedtime! If your 5 year old wakes up around 6:30 or 7 every morning, and bedtime has been at 7 pm for a while but now night wakings are becoming an issue…they might benefit from a 7:30 bedtime now, to build up that sleep pressure!
Is their schedule consistent day-to-day?
On the same schedule front, we want to think about consistency in their schedule.
When your toddler is on a one-nap schedule, we want their nap time and bedtime being around the same time every day.
When I hear parents talking about awake windows at this age, we need to talk!I know your toddler’s morning wake time might vary – what we DON’T want to do is adjust their nap time every day accordingly.
Set their nap time, maybe at 12:30, and even if they wake up at 6:15 that morning, aim for 12:30. You could put them down at 12:15 if they’re just so tired, but we want to keep their nap time pretty consistent.
Same with bedtime – if a toddler parent tells me their toddler’s bedtime is 5 hours after they wake up each day, we’re going to adjust that! Keeping in mind that most toddlers need at least 5 hours of awake time between nap and bedtime is good, but we don’t want to be truly adjusting bedtime each day.
If your toddler naps from about 12:30-2:30 each day and goes to bed at 7:30, but sometimes wakes at 1:30 or 2, we still want to stick close to that 7:30 bedtime. If they sleep longer, until 3 pm, we’re going to push bedtime closer to 8 pm, because again, undertiredness is an issue.
But bottom line, we should not be adjusting our toddler’s nap or bedtime every day based on their morning wake time or nap wake time – keep it consistent!
And I’m not talking off days – Sundays are always off days for us. Or sometimes we have birthday parties, a sibling’s soccer game, or dinner at a friend’s house. That’s real life! But in general, the majority of the week, we really want nap and bedtime to be around the same time every day.
Because for some kids, the difference in schedule day to day really can cause confusion for their little body clocks, and that can come out overnight!
Okay, so your toddler is waking up at night, and we know they’re sleep trained, and truly an independent sleeper. And we feel good about their schedule…
Question three: Has your toddler recently gone through a language burst? Could this be a sleep regression?
My next thought, or maybe simultaneous thought is a potential sleep regression. Especially if your toddler has been sleeping through the night for a long time and now they’re suddenly waking in the night again – and especially especially for those toddlers between 18 months and 2.5 or so – a sleep regression is also really high on my list.
While your little one has already surpassed their physical milestones, toddlers’ language just bursts. Between 18ish months and 2.5, maybe even 3, the amount of language our kids acquire is insane. They’re little minds are just on overdrive learning new language skills! And this developmental milestone can absolutely cause a sleep regression. I dig into toddler sleep regressions here, if you think this might be what’s going on.
But in general, if we think the sleep regression could be connected to language, try to remain consistent for about two weeks before changing things up, like their schedule! Because their sleep might go right back to normal, too.
And if it doesn’t, it either wasn’t a regression and we might need to adjust their schedule, or it was a regression but we went back to helping them with their sleep a bit too much out of survival mode/just not knowing what the heck to do, so now we might need to use some sort of leave and check to get back to that truly independent sleep.
Question four: Is your child getting some sort of “reward” for waking in the night?
There’s one more big possibility when it comes to toddlers and older kids for why they’re waking in the night, and that is, they’re getting some sort of “reward” for waking in the night.
That probably sounds strange, so stick with me…
Think about that 2-year-old who’s starting to talk way more, and in the middle of the night they start saying, “Mama, kiss! Mama, hug! Water, please!” And because your sweet two-year-old is asking for kisses, or hugs, or some water, even though they’ve never woken in the night needing those things, we’re jumping in to give it to them!
And because they’re getting more kisses and hugs at 2 am when they ask for it, why would they not keep waking at 2 am asking for kisses and hugs? In one sense, those kisses and hugs are acting like a “reward”.
Or think about your 6-year-old coming to your room every night at midnight. What happens when they come to your room? Are they crawling into bed with you? That sounds pretty darn nice, why would they stop waking at midnight if they know they can crawl into your bed?
Or maybe your 6-year-old comes to your room every night at midnight and there’s no way you’re letting them in your bed, because boundaries – so you scoop them up, carry them back to their room, tuck them in, and kiss them goodnight again.
This sounds strange, but do you hear a reward there? It’s not as obvious. But think about it…even if it’s connected to a, “Ugh, baby it’s midnight, you have to stay in your room. Mommy and daddy need to sleep! Come on, let’s go…”
For some kids, the fact that mommy scoops them up, walks them back, tucks them in again, and gives them a kiss is reward enough! Why wouldn’t they keep waking up, they get 2 minutes of extra mommy time?!
For toddlers in a crib, that might even be you coming all the way to the crib to do a check-in in the middle of the night. You lay them back down and tuck them back in before leaving for another 10 minutes.
So we need to think about what kind of “reward” our child is getting by waking in the night. Sometimes coming all the way to the crib is too much “reward,” so we need to just pop in at the door to remind them it’s time to sleep.
We definitely don’t want to let them crawl into bed with us, if the goal is sleeping in their own bed all night.
That might even mean you make them walk back to their room and tuck themselves back in, you just follow them and stand at the door to make sure they actually get back into bed!
Sometimes it’s making dad respond to the night waking because they want mom, or vice versa!
So think about what “reward” your child might be getting with the night waking, and take that reward away. Sometimes we even need to think about a consequence if simply not giving the “reward” isn’t enough.
If this all sounds foreign to you and you’re wondering where to even begin, we have a free resource for you! It’s our bedtime routine and boundary cards printable – the boundary cards, especially, are helpful not just for bedtime but for knowing what boundary lines to draw in the middle of the night and what rewards or consequences might look like.
Othe Reasons Toddlers Wake in the Night
So those four thoughts are what come to mind pretty instantly with toddlers and older kids who are waking in the night:
- Are they sleep trained?
- Do they need a schedule adjustment?
- Could this be a sleep regression due to a language burst?
- What happens when they wake up? What reward are they getting?
I’ll say the same made up percentage as last week, but I’d say 90-95% of the time, one of those four reasons are what’s going on!
BUT, if we’ve truly checked all of those off and your toddler is still waking up, there are some other less common reasons…
First, let’s talk about hunger…
Before we get to those reasons, I’m going to share a non-reason...
Because some of you might be wondering, could hunger be the reason your toddler is still waking up at night?
My answer for you is no. Unless there’s a medical challenge or big weight gain issue and your pediatrician has said they need a night feed – but toddlers and older kiddos don’t wake up hungry!
Now for some other reasons that could actually cause your toddler to wake at night…
Sickness
Your child could be sick! Maybe they have an ear infection or congestion that’s waking them up. That’s not why they’ve been waking up for weeks or months, but maybe why they’re suddenly waking more? I talk about sickness here.
Teething
Maybe it’s a molar coming through – again, that’s not why their sleep has been off for weeks, but maybe a couple days. I talk about teething here.
Environmental Disruptions
Or could it be something environmental? Are they too hot, too cold, is some weird sound happening, or some street light shining through the window? These are never my first thoughts, but maybe something’s happening there!
Or does your child’s sound machine time out at some point? Because we want that white noise running all night long so their environment feels the same no matter what time of night they stir. And note that I said white noise, not music!
Do they know what’s considered morning time?
Are they waking up because they just don’t know when it’s morning time? If that’s the case, make sure you introduce some sort of toddler clock! I talk all about how to introduce one here. And remember those free boundary card printables I mentioned? Staying in bed until their light changes is part of that, too!
Dirty Diaper or Need to Use the Restroom?
Is your toddler or older child waking up because they have to go to the bathroom? If they still need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night most nights, put them in a pull-up! Certainly limit liquids before bedtime, but if they’re not ready to sleep through and still waking up wet, use a pull-up!
Or if they randomly have to poop overnight? Sometimes little ones going through growth spurts have a strange spike in overnight poops – if that’s the case, try to hang tight for two-ish weeks to see if dirty diapers stop again.
You can also certainly look into what foods they’re eating at what times of day to see if you can adjust something there.
Food
Speaking of food, could they be eating something too close to bedtime that’s causing them to wake? For some, even the natural good sugars in milk can cause night wakings, so again, end milk with dinner! For some, having fresh fruit too close to bedtime can cause them to wake at night. Of course dessert too close to bed can cause challenges for some.
There was a season where one of my kids couldn’t have berries too close to bed or she’d struggle falling asleep, while the other couldn’t have chocolate after about 4 pm or she’d wake in the night!
Nightmares and Night Terrors
Or, are they waking due to nightmares or night terrors? Because those are real, but also sometimes we can make adjustments to try to minimize them. I talk all about nightmares and night terrors here.
Anxiety
Could it be anxiety? I find fears and anxiety cause more challenges at bedtime than overnight, but every child is different! I talk more strategies for bedtime anxieties here.
Medical Challenges
And finally, does your child have any medical challenges that could be causing sleep issues? Might they have low iron? Do they sleep with their mouth open? Grind their teeth? Snore?
If a family tells me their child snores, or is a mouth breather, or grinds their teeth at night, that’s a red flag to me. It doesn’t mean I won’t work with the family, but I’ll first make sure they’ve talked with their pediatrician, dentist, or an ENT.
This was probably about four years ago now, but I once worked with a family of a 4 or 5-year-old little boy who was really struggling to sleep. He made huge progress and the parents were so thankful he was finally sleeping independently and not waking up throughout the night. BUT he was stuck with a 4 or 5 am wake up, and it was so frustrating.
For toddlers and older kids, we have a three week plan, but I tagged on an extra week to really try to solve these early mornings. Then we tagged on another week, and another, and I think we got to 6 or 7 weeks. This family was trying EVERYTHING! I really felt for them.
Around week three I started talking about checking with the pediatrician to make sure everything checked out, and they even went to the pediatrician and did some lab work. But the pediatrician said his iron was fine.
After 6 or 7 weeks of truly doing all the things and just being stuck, the family went to another doctor and this doctor tested for ferritin – my understanding is that your ferritin levels are your iron stores and ferritin is very connected to sleep!
Well, this sweet boy’s ferritin levels were SO low that they started him on iron supplements right away. I think they also did some sort of sleep study or something and said he had a terrible case of restless leg syndrome – or maybe that was connected to the low ferritin, too. Regardless, it explained everything!
He wasn’t mouth breathing, there were not in-our-face signs, but the fact that these parents were truly sticking to the plan and making any adjustments I recommended, yet still so stuck with these early mornings, pointed to something more going on. And they even had to go to a few different doctors, but finally found it was crazy low ferritin!
Now don’t hear me say if your toddler isn’t sleeping through the night they have a medical challenge. This is a very small percentage of the kiddos we work with! There is so much we can likely do to solve those tough nights, but it is a thing, so very worth bringing up.
Conclusion
Welcome to the inner dialogue and line of questioning in a sleep consultant’s brain!
In wrapping up, the whole goal here is to let you in on how we, as sleep coaches, think through your toddler’s night wakings. And the goal is for you to now have a plan for how you might be able to tackle them!
So for the parents who are DIYers, that’s why we have our online toddler and big kid sleep course, Big Kid Sleep from A to Z. We put all of the info you need to successfully sleep train your toddler into 60 minutes of video and a printable guide so you don’t have to piece-meal everything you find online or on social media.
OR, if listening to this makes you even more overwhelmed, or you don’t have a clue where to start, or you think you know the issue but you just don’t have the bandwidth or confidence to tackle it on your own, that’s where the grace comes in. You’re not expected to be your child’s pediatrician, and PT, and speech therapist, and sleep consultant! That’s what we’re here for!
We work one-on-one with families, not just delivering the step-by-step sleep training plan they’ll work through, but setting the right schedule, helping parents remain consistent even when it’s hard, tracking your child’s sleep over time to see what needs to be adjusted…because it’s not always super straightforward!
So if that kind of hands-on support sounds like something you might be looking for, we’re so glad you’re here, and would love to chat with you. Sign up for a free discovery call and we can chat more about what it would look like to work together!
With Grace,
Lauren
