Healthy Sleep Habits for Toddlers

Creating a calm and comforting bedtime routine and heading off protests at the pass can help make a good sleeper out of any child — even yours!
Toddler Sleep Habits

Now that your child is a toddler, he's finally settling into his bed, nodding off on his own, and sleeping through the night (phew!). But before you can even stop to pat yourself on the back for making it through the endless, floor-pacing nights of babyhood (and dream about all the sleep you'll finally be getting), you run smack into the fussy, fearful, "But-I'm-not-tired!" typical toddler behaviors…and your nightmare continues.

Toddlers are notorious sleep resisters, and bedtime can become a battlefield for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the cause is nighttime fears ("It's too dark!"). Other times there are physical reasons like sleep apnea, teething (those pesky molars!), or ear infections. Still other times it's simply a toddler's growing fondness for the word "no" (as in, "No, I won't go to bed!") and general resistance to everything, especially the notion of missing out on all the fun while he's stuck in his boring bed. As their little minds and bodies continue to grow at warp speed, toddlers are doing their best to hang on and exert some control over their world, and fighting off sleep is part of it.

Whatever your child's reason for fending off the sandman, don't give up hope. Helping your toddler develop healthy sleep habits just calls for a little ingenuity and a whole lot of patience (and maybe a few checks for monsters under the bed). Here's a road map of the rough terrain ahead with tips on how to get your toddler to bed (and stay there) so the whole family can sleep happily ever after.