How long should your 2 year old toddler nap?

Emerson
Emerson Member
edited February 14 in Sleep Training

How long should your 2 year old toddler nap? Also, should you wake them up once they’ve been asleep for a certain amount of time?

Comments

  • Natalie_Barnett_PhD
    Natalie_Barnett_PhD Member, Nanit Team, Expert

    @Emerson These are great questions! Sleep needs at age 2 vary significantly. Some babies have already dropped their nap at this age and others still need to sleep three hours in the middle of the day. For most babies at this age, 1-2 hours is usually what they need. The thing to watch for is evening bedtime resistance. If you see that your toddler is starting to resist bedtime in the evening, its often because they are not tired enough due to the nap being too late or too long. If your toddler is taking a great three hour nap and still falling asleep at 7pm in ten minutes, then great! Keep doing that! But if you start to see that the bedtime is getting later and later (and the morning wake up is getting earlier....), it might be time to cut back the nap. And its usually not a one for one trade... cutting back the nap by one hour can buy you two hours of night sleep.

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