3 Surprising Things That May Interrupt Your Toddler’s Sleep

There is no doubt that interrupting toddler’s sleep is hard HARD work for parents – especially when combined with having to care for other children.

However, it is important to understand that night-waking is a normal part of early childhood and not a problem to be fixed. Families need to accept that it is natural for children to wake during the night and it is also normal for children to need their parents support to return to sleep.

See below however, 3 things that might be causing your child to wake up, but they’re absolutely normal.

1: “Sleep Regressions”

“Sleep regression” is a period of time when a baby or toddler’s sleep patterns change. These periods are commonly seen around 4, 9, 13 and 18 months, because they clash with major milestones like rolling, crawling and walking. Toddlers tend to stay awake more when approaching new milestones. Rather than regressing, toddlers are actually progressing. You should see these periods of sleep disturbance as signs of normal development rather than a problem. They are just a temporary change and responding gently and reassuringly to help your child fall back to sleep is all that is needed. In addition to these “sleep regressions”, other developmental factors will disturb sleep in the second and third year of life.

2:  Mobility and Sleep Disturbance

It makes sense that learning to move would disturb sleep and science is now proving this is the case. A study showed that babies not only have sleep disturbance in the month before they reach the crawling milestone, but up to three months afterwards! It is very possible that other achievements like sitting, standing, walking, climbing and running would challenge toddlers in the same way.

3: Exploding Vocabulary

Around 18 – 24 months toddlers typically go through what professionals refer to as a “language explosion”. They have a sudden burst of words they use. Moving from learning a single words at a time, in a slow but steady, predictable pattern, toddlers around this age become capable of learning multiple new words at once and make great advances in communication. Some children may have disrupted sleep during this developmental period or be busy chatting when you try to help them back to sleep, its very normal as their brains are expanding and growing.