How long can a toddler stay awake?

For a toddler of 13 to 18 months, the day revolves around where that one nap falls and how much awake time is left after it before bedtime.

The transition from two naps to one

Kyra covers this transition in the lesson for this age: many children go from two naps to one between 13 and 18 months. Total sleep need is then 13 to 14 hours per 24 hours.

The transition rarely happens all at once. There are days when two naps still work and days when it has to be one. Expect a transition period and don't force it.

The usual bedtime is between 7:00 and 7:30 pm, with the bedtime routine from 6:30. If a day in the middle of the transition gets hard, thirty to sixty minutes earlier to bed is fine, so your toddler doesn't get overtired, because then going to sleep gets harder still. See moving bedtime earlier.

What Kyra did with her own daughter

Kyra is in the middle of it herself. Her daughter Celeste is 16 months, and around 13 months things got stuck: early waking, and bedtime got harder.

Celeste had always slept well on two naps and suddenly started waking at five regularly. She slept well, ate well and didn't go to bed too late, so Kyra first started tracking her naps. She brought daytime sleep back to three hours and above all adjusted the timing: the morning nap a bit earlier and the afternoon nap a bit earlier, so Celeste ended up with four hours of wake time before bed.

That slightly longer wake window helped. Kyra kept it up consistently for a week, and the effect was immediate: Celeste then slept until 6:30, 6:45.

She wasn't ready for one nap yet, Kyra knew, because she had to wake her from her naps every time and falling asleep was very easy. So to fix the early waking, the timing of the naps mattered more for her than starting a switch to one nap.

The signs that one nap is coming

Look for, among other things: refusing the morning nap, bedtime becoming a problem, suddenly waking early, or handling a longer morning wake window well.

You recognize the refusing by the clock: your toddler really doesn't want to sleep around 9:30 anymore. Bedtime becomes a problem because your toddler slept too late in the day, so the wake window until bedtime is just too short. And early waking can mean too much daytime sleep and that a somewhat longer morning wake window works much better.

Sometimes you start the transition too soon, because you think your toddler is ready while it was just a bit too early.

The morning wake window stretches

The morning nap moves later step by step, until one afternoon nap remains. What you want with that one nap is enough, but not too much, wake time afterwards before bed. The four steps of the transition are written out in the 15 month old sleep schedule.

The two rhythms side by side

If two naps still go well and the nights are calm, there's no reason to force anything. Waking around 6:30 am, morning nap around 9:15 to 9:30, lunch at 12:00, afternoon nap at 1:00 pm, dinner at 5:30, and then the bedtime routine.

With one nap, the morning nap drops, and lunch and the nap move earlier. Waking around 6:30 or 7:00 am, then an earlier lunch around 11:45, and the nap around 12:30 pm, so your toddler can get a good nap. Dinner at 5:30, and the bedtime routine at 6:30.

Why sleep can get more restless

In this phase there's walking, climbing, running and discovering. That's no accident but exactly what a toddler is supposed to do. Everything your toddler sees, feels and hears has to be processed at night, and that's why sleep can get more restless in this phase.

Separation anxiety is still very much in play too, and that makes letting go at bedtime harder. See separation anxiety and sleep.

Track first, then change

Early waking at this age often comes from overtiredness, a bedtime that's too late, naps that no longer fit well, or the switch to one nap. See why your baby wakes at 5 am.

Kyra sets the order: track carefully first, and only once you've tracked well do you start adjusting. Look at the whole picture and don't switch too quickly from one thing to another.

The ranges by age, toddlers included, are together in the overview of wake windows by age.