Is it best to sleep your toddler in a cot during the day?

If your toddler is happy to go down for a nap in a cot during the day, then we don't need to make any changes! But many or even most families find their toddler doesn't like the cot.

Because your toddler has a powerful biological drive for rich and diverse sensory motor exploration, she will often dial up in response to the restraints imposed by a cot. This is not a sign that she is overtired or overstimulated, though you might hear that said. You can find out more here.

Many parents have heard that their small child needs to sleep in the cot to develop good sleep habits, which isn't true. They may have been told to put him in the cot drowsy but awake. These recommendations come out of sleep training approaches. You can find out more here.

Worse, it's quite common for our little ones, who learn so quickly, to develop a conditioned dialling up with the cot. That is, they learn that the cot is a place of low sensory motor input, and cry as soon as you go into the bedroom or they see the cot. No matter how many interesting pictures you put on the wall, or comforters or soft toys you give her, or mobiles you dangle above the cot, she knows it is a low motor sensory environment, and has associated it with being miserable.

Since being dialled up interferes with easy sleep, use of the cot often results in terrible sleep battles between mothers or primary carers and their little one, which distresses and exhausts everybody.

So the answer is, no, it's not best to sleep your toddler in a cot during the day - although if it works for you and your little one then there's no reason to change! Your toddler will take sleep wherever you are, as long as the sleep pressure is high enough. We can let toddler sleep be easy!