What is meant by the dial on your toddler's sympathetic nervous system?

Why does our toddler's sleep matter so much to us as parents?

Sleep matters so much to us when we're caring for a toddler because

• It's often the only time we get a break, either during the day or in the evening.

• It's hard work caring for a dialled up toddler, who is tired and grumpy. We worry about the affects of this on the toddler's wellbeing.

• We might have received messages that a good parent makes sure their toddler gets lots of sleep, to optimise brain development. We feel like bad parents if this doesn't seem to be happening.

Let's start by looking at what I mean by 'dialled up'.

What happens when your toddler's sympathetic nervous system dials up?

The dial is a shorthand way of referring to the sympathetic nervous system, which is part of the involuntary nervous system.

• If I'm dialling up as an adult, my heart rate and blood pressure increase. I might develop a fine tremor and have unpleasant, anxious feelings in my chest or belly. I might become flushed. My mind is likely to become very busy with upset thoughts, too, many of which can be very unhelpful!

• When your toddler's sympathetic nervous system dials up, she might start making an upset face, and cry. She might show some agitated physical behaviour. Sometimes if her dial is turned up very high, she might scream very loudly or wail in distress with the whole of her little body, taking big shuddering breaths at the end of each cry. Or she might yell or plop down onto the ground and thrash about, terribly upset and maybe furious, too!

There are many reasons why your toddler dials up. Sometimes you'll have no idea why. Life can seem tumultuous to a little person at this age.

Toddlers will also often dial up because they are testing out their exciting new capacities to interact with the world around them, and don't like anything to get in the way. Your toddlers' loud, dialled up protests are normal, and to be expected. This doesn't stop you from showing her what's right or safe. She needs you to do this because you're the grownup, who knows what's right or safe!

But as parents, you'll be aiming for a life with your toddler where the times that the dial is turned up high are much less frequent, as a pattern over time, than the times when your little one is dialled down and happily engaged with loving people or playing in and exploring the world around her.

Your loving responses when your toddler finds herself in an emotional storm are her anchor. By helping her dial down as you cuddle her (with physical contact) and offer her steady words and sounds of comfort (empathy), she will gradually, over the years of her childhood, learn how to downregulate herself. (Bear in mind that regulating our emotions remains a life-time project for all of us, though.) Even when we're having to get in the way of what our busy little toddler wants to do, toddlers do best if we are able to acknowledge their emotional experience and respond with emotional warmth.

Emotional connection is the foundation upon which The Possums Toddler Sleep Program has been built.

Recommended resources

How to nurture the flourishing of your baby's or toddler's brain

I recommend the program Tuning into Toddlers Online (TOTOL), by Professor Sophie Havighurst and her team at Mindful, The University of Melbourne, Australia, if you're interested in learning more about shaping your toddler's behaviours in a way that keeps emotional connection strong. You can find out more here.

Selected references

Gottman JM, Katz IF, Hooven C. Parental meta-emotion philosophy and the emotional life of families: theoretical models and preliminary data. Journal of Family Psychology. 1996;10:243-268.

Havighurst SS, Kehoe CE, Harley AE. Tuning in to Toddlers: Research protocol and recruitment for evaluation of an emotion socialization program for parents of toddlers. Frontiers in Psychology. 2019;10(1054):doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01054.

Havighurst SS, Kehoe CE, Harley AE, Thomas R. A randomized controlled trial of an emotion socialization parenting program and its impact on parenting, children’s behavior and parent and child stress cortisol: Tuning in to Toddlers. Behavior Research and Therapy. 2022;149:104016.

Johnson AM, Hawes DJ, Eisenberg N. Emotion socialization and child conduct problems: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review. 2017;54:65-80.