3 year old bedtime struggles

Look at the awake window between nap and bedtime

3 year olds can be really challenging at bedtime, can’t they?  One of the biggest causes of bedtime struggles for 3 year olds is when parents expect that their toddler still has the same need for an early bedtime that she may have had as a baby. At 3 years old, there can be an approximately 6 hour window between when your child wakes up from a nap and is ready to go to sleep at bedtime.  If you are attempting to put your child to bed too early, you are likely to end up in a longer power struggle.  

Late nap can lead to an even later bedtime

If your child is napping late, this is automatically going to push bedtime back even later.  For a 3 year old, I typically recommend having her up by 3/3:30pm at the latest.  Even then, this means that you might be looking at a 9pm bedtime.  I realize that seems very late, but it isn’t an unusual bedtime for a 3 year old who still naps.

Is your child napping too long?

I would also look at how long your child’s nap is.  The average nap length at 3 years old is an hour and a half.  Sleeping longer then that can cut into the time your child needs to sleep at night.  A 3 year old needs 12 hours of sleep over a 24 hour period so if she is napping longer then an hour and a half, then she needs even less sleep at night. On average, most 3 year olds who still nap need about 10.5 hours of sleep at night.

If your child doesn’t nap anymore, bedtime will need to be significantly earlier

Conversely, if your child doesn’t nap anymore, she could probably go to bed as early as 6:30 or 7pm and if bedtime is much later, a struggle at bedtime could be the result of an extremely overtired toddler.   A 3 year old without a nap can sleep 12 hours at night.

Are you using a sleep crutch to get your toddler to sleep at bedtime?

Beyond the timing, a struggle at bedtime can be due to your toddler needing endless amount of interaction and attention at bedtime.  This is where setting limits come in.  Unfortunately, when falling sleep at bedtime is a result of something you do to your child, this becomes a sleep crutch which, at this age, requires that your child be completely exhausted in order to pass out from this crutch (which can take a long time for a 3 year old).  The answer here is that this is where your child can learn how to fall asleep without needing that interaction and move to falling asleep independently, which ultimately will start to take less time. This is going to require some work on your part to help your child learn to fall asleep without needing all of the engagement that is currently taking place. If you are struggling with your toddler’s sleep, contact me to schedule an initial call to discuss how we can get your toddler’s sleep back on track. Be sure to check out what other parents of toddlers have had to say about the incredible sleep skills that their toddlers have learned once we’ve worked together!