Get Your Toddler to Sleep Through the Night

Do you have a toddler that won’t sleep through the night? Who crawls into your bed in the wee hours of the morning? I do! Or I should say, I did!

If you’re fighting your toddler in sleeping through the night or staying in bed all night long, here are 10 tips to get your kiddo to stay in their bed until morning. This post contains affiliate links.

Be sure to check out even more of my helpful parenting tips, too!

Get Your Toddler to Sleep Through the Night

Set a firm bedtime.

Put your child to sleep at the same time every night.

It may be tempting to let your kids stay up later on weekends, but this is sabotaging your chances of having them sleep through the night.

We also found that even if we kept the kids up, they also didn’t sleep in later – leaving us with extremely grumpy children.

Create a soothing bedtime routine.

By setting a bedtime routine that winds down the day, you’ll ensure your little one is ready for bed when lights go out.

Nighttime routines that encourage your toddler to sleep often include a bath, reading stories and singing lullabies.

We read so many stories at night I began to create our own themed book reading lists!

Turn off any bright lights.

It’s okay for your child to have a night light in her room.

But anything brighter may trigger a wake-up response and have them crawling into bed with you.

Some great nightlights:

Exercise.

Yep, even kids need exercise.

If your child hasn’t blown off enough steam during the day, he may not sleep as hard at night.

If we didn’t wear out our own toddler, he was practically climbing the walls by the time nighttime came around.

Keep the house quiet.

Once your child is down for the night, keep the house quiet.

Loud noises, like televisions, radios or even conversations can wake them up.

And honestly, we found this meant we read a lot more books (a win for us!).

Wake them up at the same time every morning.

If your child oversleeps at night, she will have an even harder time sleeping the next night.

Keep that wake up time consistent!

Reconsider the nap.

This one can be a hard to give up.

We certainly struggled with it.

But if your preschooler wakes up at 5am or is active at night, he may be getting too much sleep from the nap.

Drop the nap.

He may be tired for the first week, but it may produce better sleep at night.

Review your child’s room.

Is there light coming in through the curtains?

Consider room-darkening shades.

If noise travels to your child’s room, consider a white noise machine. Is the room too hot or too cold for good sleeping?

Adjust the temperature.

Have your toddler fall asleep alone. 

This will help the toddler learn how to make himself fall asleep.

So if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he will know how to self-sooth himself back to bed.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for your child to learn to self sooth themselves.

We actually kept books by my sons’ beds – so if they woke up in the middle of the night, they could look at the books and fall asleep.

Return your child to her bed.

Children love snuggling.

They also learn the routine of crawling into your bed and staying.

It may initially be tough on you, but if your preschooler gets into your bed in the middle of the night, take them back.

They will learn that joining you at midnight will not be rewarded.

According to the National Sleep Foundation:

• Preschoolers ages 3-5 years old need 11-13 hours of sleep per night
• School-aged children ages 5-10 years old need 10-11 hours of sleep per night
• Preteens and teens ages 10-17 need 8.5-9.25 hours of sleep per night
• Adults need 7-9 hours of sleep per night

Setting the Fall Schedule

With long, lazy summer days, kids are used to staying up and sleeping in later — as are their parents.

Here are some tips that can help smooth the transition into fall.

Start early to get your toddler to sleep.

Don’t wait until the weekend before school starts to move up bedtime.

Start two weeks early to ease everyone into the routine.

I know it’s tempting to wait right up until school starts, but do yourself a favor and begin earlier.

Tell the summer sun goodnight.

At the beginning of the school year, the days are still long: To counter this, create cozy sleeping spaces for the whole family using blackout shades.

White noise in the form of fans can also help encourage rest by blocking distractions and keeping warm rooms closer to the ideal sleeping temperature of 65-72 degrees.

Set and enforce a bedtime ritual for everyone.

Universally turn off screens an hour before bedtime — that means you, too, Mom and Dad — and establish wind-down plans that work.

Which tips work for you getting your toddler to sleep?