Toddlers with a pattern of long naps during the day might have very late bedtimes or wake excessively in the night

Long toddler naps might not be good for night-time sleep

It's tempting to encourage your child to have at least one long nap during the day, if not more, because this gives you, as primary carer, some time out. It's normal to look forward to your toddler's daytime nap! And if nights are going well, then you don't need to worry about the length of your toddler's daytime sleeps. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Parents are often advised to make sure their toddler has a long nap or naps in a predictable routine during the day, often in a quiet dim bedroom. You might have noticed that your toddler wakes whenever you put her down during the day, so you keep her close to your body to make sure she has that long block of sleep.

You might even have heard that you need to do this so that your toddler's brain develops in the best possible way, which is not true. You might have been told: "First tired signs, get her down to sleep! Don't miss the wave!" These phrases, too, come out of the sleep training approaches to toddler sleep.

But long daytime naps can disrupt your toddler's body clock, and result in

• Increasingly fragmented sleep at night

• Unmanageably late bedtimes.

It takes a couple of weeks to change the settings of the body clock, so you won't experience excessive night waking until a few weeks after your small child

• Either starts to have longer daytime naps, maybe because you've been told this would be good for her, or

• Changes developmentally, so that she needs less sleep but is still in a sleep situation for the same amount of time.

Long daytime naps are more likely to become a problem if you have a moderate to low sleep need toddler (which is, in fact, the majority of toddlers on the bell curve of toddler sleep needs). You can find out about living with a low sleep need toddler here.

Four common daytime sleep situations which might result in unmanageably late bedtimes or excessive night waking in a few weeks time (or both)

In the following four situations, encouraging your toddler to nap for longer during the day might result in excessive night waking two or three weeks down the track.

1. You've received advice to link your toddler's sleep cycles during the day. You might have concerns that your toddler wakes up crying because she needs more sleep, and feel that you should encourage your toddler to go back to sleep when she wakes.

2. Your child starts day care. He may now be in a situation where the other little ones are napping for long periods during the day, sometimes in a quiet dimmed room together. I discuss what to do about naps when your little one is at daycare here.

3. You're trying to deliver on paid work (often in front of your computer or laptop) throughout the week, with little support during the day as you care for your toddler. You hope to get your toddler into a regular sleep routine, with a long block of sleep at nap time, because then you'll have predictable free time each day to do your paid work. You feed or cuddle your toddler back to sleep when she wakes.

4. You find late afternoons particularly challenging, whether it's because you're juggling other children, or your toddler is fussy, or you don't have support and are exhausted. It's such a relief when your toddler drops off to sleep, even though it's late afternoon! You can find out about this here.

If this page describes your family's sleep situation, a reset of your toddler's body clock is likely to make sleep much more manageable.

Of course, you're likely to have a lot of questions about this. How can you cope with the days as primary carer if you can't rely upon your toddler's daytime naps for a break? What's the impact on your toddler's development if she only catnaps during the day? Is she dialling up because of overtiredness?

These are important questions for those of us caring for the little people who are our planet's future, and I will continue to answer them as carefully as I can in The Possums Sleep Program.