Ah, sleep regression—a tiny yet ferocious storm that rolls in your toddler’s sleep routine.

Drawn out bed time routines, late night and early morning wake ups. When your little one refuses to lay down you usually find they’ll scream for hours, shouting your names, or worse, they climb out the cot and come to find you to put them back to bed.

I don’t know about you, but in the newborn stage you expect a lack of sleep. Then, when you get through to the other side and they are in routine and sleeping more (or if you’re really lucky sleeping through), you expect them to be like this for the foreseeable.

Unfortunately not.

Once they turn into a toddler, they can then go through another sleep regression.

It’s a shock, I know. And it’s hard work.

But do you know what? You can do this!

I’m no medical professional or psychologist, but toddler sleep regression came in our household, and we conquered.

And you will too!

Toddler sleep regression, why does it happen?

Around this age, usually between 18 months and 3 years old, toddlers can hit a phase where their sleep suddenly goes haywire. It’s like they’ve unlocked a new level of nighttime adventures!

This regression often happens due to various reasons—a growth spurt, teething, newfound independence, or simply developmental leaps.

Developmental milestones: Toddlers are growing and learning at lightning speed. When they’re mastering new skills—like walking, talking, or potty training—it can disrupt their sleep. Their brains are buzzing with excitement about all these new abilities, making it hard to settle down.

Teething: Ah, those little teeth making their debut can wreak havoc on sleep. The discomfort can lead to fussiness and wakeful nights.

Separation anxiety: Around this age, toddlers start to grasp the concept of being away from their caregivers. So when it’s bedtime, they might suddenly feel anxious about being apart from you, leading to more frequent wake-ups.

Changes in routine or environment: Anything from a vacation to a move or even a change in caregivers can throw off their sleep routine. Toddlers thrive on consistency, so disruptions can hit their sleep patterns.

Illness or discomfort: Being unwell, from a simple cold to tummy troubles, can disrupt their sleep. They might wake up more frequently seeking comfort.

Overstimulation or overtiredness: Too much excitement or not enough downtime during the day can make it harder for them to wind down at night.

Personal experience – masterful procrastination: You might find your toddler will have gained some new procrastination skills. They may ask for a hug, a drink or for their nappy to be changed. Not once, not twice, many, many times!

The reality here is this can all be cause by one of the above issues.

But hey, here’s the good news—it’s usually temporary.

You can help ease through this phase by sticking to a consistent bedtime routine, making sure they’re getting enough daytime activities and exercise, and offering comfort and reassurance when they wake up.

What technique worked for us and our little boy

Way back when in the newborn stage, we took the sleep training approach, ‘The Disappearing Chair Technique’. The self soothe approach for your baby’s bedtime and naps.

If you’ve ended up here and you do in fact have a newborn or under 6 month old struggling to sleep, you may want to read up on the ‘The Disappearing Chair Technique‘ from the NHS – it worked for us 🙂

Building up to sitting by our baby’s side when they were going to sleep and moving the seat further away from the cot each night. To the point where we were outside the door. It worked within a week.

Toddler sleep regression – different ball game. The Disappearing Chair technique didn’t work.

We did sleep training, but it was slightly different.

Think about it, your toddler’s brain is way more advanced since they were newborn – 6 months old. They understand a lot more now. But you can use that to your advantage.

Here’s how we beat our toddler’s sleep regression

1. Spend more time with your toddler before bed – this helped with that separation anxiety at bed time.
   
   Think about it, you work and they’re at nursery all day. So it’s no wonder that if you pick them up after work and they go to bed at 7pm that’s not much time with you.
   
2. No screen time for your toddler or you guys before bed – we found that screen time has its pros and cons. Sometimes it helps to chill them out or distract them, but a lot of the time, it can spur them on and make them hyper.
   
   And linked with point 1, you can’t have quality time with your toddler before bed if you’re scrolling through your socials. Put your phone away and make sure you or both you and your partner spend quality time before bed and at bedtime.
   
3. Create a routine and stick to it – Our routine was simple:
   
   – Quality time with both Mummy and Daddy till about 18:30.
   – Bath time at 18:30
   – Clean teeth
   – Into their room for storytime – we let our boy pick what book he wanted to read. He always wants two!
   – After you read the book, into bed for ‘Twinkle Little Star’ (sang awfully out of tune, but sing as in tune as you can manage!).
   – After the song ends, hug and kiss them goodnight, and say something along the lines of, “Night Night, have a good sleep. It’s bedtime so you must stay in bed“.
   – Put the whitenoise machine on, leave the room, shut the door and leave.
   – Stay nearby as they may get up a few times.
   
4. Stay consistent if you need to enter back into their room once you have said ‘Goodnight’ and told them to ‘stay in bed’ – After leaving the room and telling them its bedtime, you can use this expression should you have to go back in to try and settle them to lay in bed and go to sleep. This can take a few minutes to a few hours on the first night, and a few days after this. But be consistent and they will eventually settle and go to sleep fast!
   
   – Go back into the room – stay calm and don’t say too much. Your aim is to be as boring as possible when you go back into the room.
   – Walk in on the first time and say “Back into bed, it’s bedtime”. Guide them to bed. Either lift them into their cot or let them climb into their bed. Once in, tell them “It’s bedtime, you must stay in bed”. Then leave the room again.
   – On the second time, guide them back to bed. Once they’re in bed tell them “Bedtime”.
   – After this, any other times they get out of bed, do not say a word, guide them back to bed or lift them back in and leave the room. Do not say a word. Repeat this until they go to sleep!

I will say, this wasn’t the first approach we took. We tried all sorts of things that didn’t work. We gave in a lot and my wife especially was flavour of the month so that’s who my little boy would settle with. She ended up co-sleeping with him a lot.

Co-sleeping settled him quickly, but it’s not the solution for my wife, or me! My wife would have a bad quality sleep and I would never see her as she’d be sleeping from 7pm. So don’t do that.

I took over the bedtime routines as my boy was super clingy to my wife. He was to me too, but not as much. It made it easier for me to take the bed time routine alone (with my wife helping and saying goodnight at the step of story time).

And hey presto, by staying consistent with the steps above, my little boy’s sleep became much better. Over a couple of weeks, there were some nights he want straight down to sleep, and others where he took a couple of visits to calm.

I think it took about 2 weeks for him to get back to his normal routine – where I could leave and not have to go back in continously.

The key to it all

Stay patient and consistent. It might take some time, but eventually, your little night owl will find their way back to snooze town.

FAQs on toddler sleep regression

Can sleep regression last months?

Unfortunately so. We battled against sleep regression for weeks in a row.

There were not so bad weeks and really bad weeks. My biggest takeaway from it was we were trying different tricks

How long do 2 year old sleep regressions last?

Same answer as above. Sleep regression in 2 years olds can last days, weeks or months.

How many sleep regressions do toddlers have

This is hard to answer. Every child is different – some are angels and others… well, have multiple regressions.

We’re not doctors or medically trained so we can’t provide an answer. However, online resources from medical sites estimate sleep regressions can occur at 12 months, 15 months and 18 months, as well as at the 2-year and 3-year marks.

Will sleep regressions end?

The most important question and the most important answer – YES!