Toddler, 12 to 24 months

Bedtime starts to include opinions. You may hear requests for one more book, one more song, and one more drink of water, and you may meet real resistance to lying down at all.

Somewhere in here, often around fifteen to eighteen months, the two nap day usually becomes a one nap day, and the transition can be bumpy. First nightmares can also begin to appear as your toddler's imagination grows.

Your toddler is discovering that they are their own person with their own will, and bedtime is a natural place to test where the edges are.

This pushing is not defiance for its own sake. It is exactly how a young child learns that limits are steady and that they are safe inside them.

The nap change adds to it, because during the shift from two naps to one, toddlers often end the day overtired, which ironically makes settling harder rather than easier.

Keep bedtime predictable and unhurried, since a rushed routine tends to raise the resistance rather than lower it.

Offer a small number of real choices inside the routine, such as which pajamas or which two books, so your toddler feels some control without controlling the outcome.

Hold your limits warmly and consistently, because a boundary that holds is what allows a child to relax. During the nap transition, watch for overtiredness and move bedtime earlier on the harder days.

This is where sleep becomes a boundaries and connection question, and it is why the tools you already have on holding limits with love work so well here.