Is it ok if your toddler takes a late afternoon nap?

Try not to let your toddler nap close to sunset

It's usually best if babies and little children don't nap close to when the sun is going down. This helps the body clock know the difference between daytime (which is for living) and night-time (which is for the Big Sleep). A toddler's late afternoon nap can cause disruptions, from the point of view of your family's sleep health! Both late afternoon and evening naps can result, over time, in extremely late bedtimes or excessive waking at nights.

It's trickier if you live in a place where evening light continues until very late, of course. If your summer brings you very long evenings, you might plan to make sure your toddler is awake from after a set time late afternoon. For example, you might decide there are no naps from after five or five-thirty p.m. in the afternoon.

It's best to keep late afternoon naps brief

Parents often ask me what's the latest they should let their small child sleep in the afternoon. Sometimes, for example, an older sibling has to be picked up from soccer practice at six o'clock in the evening and this always sends the toddler to sleep in the car. Or the primary carer has found that a late afternoon superdose of sensory nourishment down at the local park makes that time of day much easier - but the little one always falls asleep during the walk home, as the sun is setting.

I explain to these parents that there are no rights or wrongs, just their own knowledge of their unique little child, and what they find as they experiment with her body clock settings and sleep pressure.

Any late afternoon naps are best kept short, especially if they are happening as a pattern over time. Keeping late afternoon naps short will help protect from body clock disruption. For example, you might make naps after four thirty or five o'clock in the afternoon no more than 20 or 30 minutes long. Otherwise you might find your toddler goes to sleep very late in the evenings.

You might find it takes quite an effort to wake your child up at that time of day, too! We definitely want to avoid your little one entering into the Big Night-time Sleep too early, as the sun sets. That's a recipe for excessive night waking, if it becomes a pattern, or the misery of frequent waking from the small hours of the morning.

An occasional occurence of a late long afternoon sleep is usually ok (though you might find bed-time becomes very late that night). What matters is that you avoid setting up unhelpful patterns over time, which make the whole toddler sleep thing too miserable or too hard.

When are late afternoon naps helpful?

Here are examples of situations where a short late afternoon nap, from which you actively wake your toddler, can help make the evenings more manageable.

• You're doing a reset and pushing your toddler's bed-time back incrementally later. A short late afternoon nap helps your baby go to bed later in the evening, closer to your own bedtime.

• Your toddler is sometimes dropping a daytime nap but the sleep pressure becomes very high by late afternoon.

• Many parents like to take a late afternoon walk with their child, perhaps to a local park, as a way of storing up rich sensory motor adventures prior to the evening. Sometimes if the sun is setting early (especially if you're on your own with your child or children) enjoying the local park even beyond sunset can be a great way to deal with the high sensory needs that our little people have at that time of day. Of course, this may not be practical, either, if you're managing homework and dinner for older children. If the little one falls asleep on the way home as the sun is setting, the important thing is to keep it short.