Toddlers who go to bed too early in the evening might end up with excessive night waking a few weeks later

Does your toddler have one of the following sleep patterns? Your little one

• Wakes every hour or more from some time after midnight, with wakes becoming more and more frequent

• Makes unhappy sounds and tosses around restlessly, even with eyes closed, from the small hours of the morning so that no-one really sleeps

• Is wide awake for a long period in the night

• Breastfeeds for very long periods during the night, without going back into deep sleep

• Wakes well before dawn, unable to go back to sleep. Your little one might wake so early that you decide you need to get up (perhaps in despair!) to start the day well before the sun does.

These disrupted sleep patterns, which I refer to as excessive night waking, often arise if your toddler is going down too early in the evening.

Toddler sleep needs are highly variable, and our little ones often need a lot less sleep than we might think. Also, around the world, toddlers tend to go to bed much closer to parent bedtime than in Western societies.

If you have a low sleep need toddler, you might be putting him down mid-evening, at what seems a sensible time, but your little one’s body clock is still ready to start the day from well before dawn. Often a low sleep need toddler gives you the best possible sleep if you put him down quite late in the evening, closer to your own bedtime. You’re best experimenting to see what works for you and your toddler over time.

Sometimes when a toddler wakes upset and is unable to go back to sleep for a long period of time in the night, or is otherwise waking excessively, parents might worry that their little one is in pain. But actually, your child’s body clock settings have become disrupted. Her sleep pressure is not particularly high and her body clock is not in sync with yours.

Because she no longer has high enough pressure to sleep, her sympathetic nervous system starts dialling up, as if she is wanting a lot of sensory motor nourishment even though it's the middle of the night, or as if she's wanting to breastfeed, if she is breastfed. You can find out more about this exhausting night-time phenomenon here. Parents usually find it a great relief to learn that their toddler isn't waking a lot or having trouble settling during the night because of gut pain.

But a reset of your toddler's body clock is required! You can find out more here.