Toddler bedtimes are closer to parent bedtimes in cultures of the global majority

Toddler bedtimes are closer to parent bedtimes in cultures of the global majority

In many countries and cultures around the world, small children don’t go to sleep in the evening until quite close to parents’ bedtime. Or everyone goes to bed together at the same time!

In Western societies, a toddler often spends evenings alone with two exhausted parents, or one exhausted parent, perhaps with some older children in the house too. One parent may be trying to prepare a meal, while another tries to keep the toddler dialled down or meet the childrens' varying homework and bath-time needs. Both may be watching the clock and desperately hoping for early bedtimes! Wanting to put your toddler to bed early in the evenings is a normal response to exhaustion. We long for quiet time, for time alone, for time together.

Toddler bedtimes can vary by almost three hours, depending on the country you live in and your cultural background. In advanced economies, health authorities tend to consider late bedtimes for toddlers a bad thing, but this is a specific cultural approach which doesn't work for many families actually, and accidentally causes a great deal of sleep distress amongst families with babies and small children in the West.

In most human cultures, evenings are a time when families and friends get together over a meal. This communal social enjoyment means that the babies and toddlers are surrounded by rich sensory motor nourishment, even inside the house after sunset. There might be other children playing and making a rucus, doting adults paying attention and interacting with the child, lots to watch and listen to. This keeps toddlers dialled down through the evenings until their sleep pressure is very high and sleep comes easily with a breastfeed, or bottle feed – or the little one simply drops off to sleep in the midst of everything.

Often (thought not always) a toddler will take a bigger block of uninterrupted sleep immediately after going down for the Big Sleep at night.

Life and sleep is usually easiest and most relaxed when you know how to work with your toddler's body clock, so that his bedtime is closer to your own.

An important piece of research which examined normal sleep patterns of infants and children showed that little ones up until two years of age take on average 19 minutes to fall asleep in the evenings after going to bed, and children between the ages of three and 12 years take on average 17 minutes to fall asleep at bedtime. This is very reassuring for parents to know! Once we have our child's sleep regulators working in a healthy way, bedtime stories and cuddles actually don't go on forever ...

Putting your toddler to bed too early might cause excessive night waking a few weeks later

The problem with an early bedtime is that after a few weeks it might result in excessive night waking. This is because toddlers often need less sleep than we think. If you are accidentally asking your toddler to be in a sleep situation for longer than she needs, for example by an early bedtime, her body clock settings might gradually become disrupted. After a period of time, your little one may

• Begin to wake excessively at nights

• Begin to be very restless, wake up altogether, or breastfeed excessively from the early hours of the morning, when it's still dark, so that you have trouble sleeping

• Start the day unmanageably early.

You can find out about resetting your toddler's body clock, and bringing her bedtime in better alignment with your own here. The importance of sensory motor nourishment for your little one in the evening is discussed here.

Of course, if everything is going well for you and your toddler with sleep, then there's no need to change anything at all!

Selected references

Dias CC, Figueriedo B, Rocha M, Field T. Reference values and changes in infant sleep-wake behaviour during the first 12 months of life: a systematic review. Journal of Sleep Research. 2018:doi:10.111/jsr.12654.

Galland BC, Taylor BJ, Elder DE, Herbison P. Normal sleep patterns in infants and children: a systematic review of observational studies. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2012;16:213-222.

Matricciani LA, Olds TS, Blunden SL, Rigney G, Williams MT. Never enough sleep: a brief history of sleep recommendations for children. Pediatrics. 2012;129:548.

Mindell J, Sadeh A, Wiegand BH, T, Daniel YG. Cross-cultural differences in infant and toddler sleep. Sleep Medicine. 2010;11(3):274-280.

Price A, Brown JE, Bittman M, Wake M, Quach J, Hiscock H. Children's sleep patterns from 0-9 years: Australian population longitudinal study. Archives of Disease in Childhood. 2014;99:119-125.

Santos IS, Eschevarria P, Tovo-Rodrigues L. Are nocturnal awakenings at age 1 predictive of sleep duration and efficiency at age 6: results from two birth cohorts. Sleep Medicine. 2024:100105.