Is Your Toddler Under-tired?
Is Your Toddler Under Tired?
If bedtime has started to feel like a battle, your toddler is waking in the night, or those mornings are creeping earlier and earlier, there’s a good chance under -tiredness could be part of the picture.
It sounds a bit backwards, doesn’t it? We often think sleep problems mean our child is overtired. But there are actually different types of tiredness, and being under tired can be just as disruptive to sleep as being overtired.
Let’s look at what under-tiredness really means, what it can look like, and how to gently bring things back into balance.
What Is Under-tiredness?
Under-tiredness doesn’t mean your child isn’t tired at all. It means that when bedtime arrives, they haven’t built up enough sleep pressure to fall asleep easily and stay asleep well.
This often happens when day sleep is too long, too late, or too restorative. If your child hasn’t been awake long enough before bedtime, or their nap is still quite long for their age, their body simply isn’t ready for a long, consolidated night of sleep.
What Does It Look Like?
Over the years, I’ve worked with many families who’ve been completely caught off guard by undertiredness. Their child might:
Take a long time to fall asleep at bedtime
Get out of bed repeatedly or seem full of energy in the evening
Wake during the night, often ready to play
Wake very early in the morning, sometimes for the day
Often, parents tell me, “But they seem so tired during the day,” which can make this even more confusing.
What Causes It?
The most common cause is too much day sleep.
With toddlers, especially around the age of two and beyond, sleep needs can change quite suddenly. One week your child might happily have a long nap and still sleep well at night. The next week, that same nap can start to interfere with bedtime and overnight sleep.
Between around two and two and a half, many children go through a transition where they need less day sleep to protect their night sleep. This change can sneak up on you and feel like it happens almost overnight.
If bedtime is drifting later and later, your child is taking a long time to fall asleep, or you’re seeing more night waking and early mornings, under- tiredness is often the reason.
The tricky part is that this can quickly turn into a cycle. If your child falls asleep late but still wakes at their usual time, they end up short on night sleep. Then they seem exhausted during the day, so the nap gets longer again, which sets you up for another difficult night.
What Can You Do?
It’s very tempting to think, “They’re tired, so they need more sleep,” and to let them have a long nap to catch up. In the short term, that can make them feel better during the day. But in the longer term, it often keeps the cycle going.
That longer nap is usually making up for the sleep they missed at night. Over time, your child’s body clock can start to expect more sleep in the day and less at night, which leads to later bedtimes, more night waking, and early starts.
For many children around two and a half years, a good guide is around 45 minutes to an hour of day sleep, with the nap often dropping altogether somewhere closer to three years. Every child is different, but this gives you a rough framework.
If you decide to reduce or cap the nap, give it at least 7 to 10 days for your child’s body clock to adjust. Things don’t always change overnight, and a short settling-in period is very normal.
What If My Child Sleeps Well at Night?
If your child is in this age range, has a longer nap, and is still falling asleep easily and sleeping well overnight, there’s no need to change anything. In that case, undertiredness isn’t an issue for your child right now.
This information is really for families who’ve noticed sleep starting to unravel, whether that’s at bedtime, overnight, or in the early morning, and can’t quite work out why.
Finding the right balance between day sleep and night sleep can take a bit of trial and error. And just like adults, toddlers are much happier and more settled when they’re getting the right amount of rest.
If you’re unsure how to adjust naps or you’re finding the transition tricky, our comprehensive toddler nap guide has all the answers. Sometimes a few small, well-timed changes can make a big difference.