Most children transition out of a crib between 18 months and 2½ years, typically when a toddler reaches the height of 35 inches. The reason for this is primarily safety. Depending on how active and restless your child is, he/she may begin exploring ways to climb out of the crib at any point in those months, so the decision about when to transition to a big-kid bed should be made when it is no longer safe to leave the toddler in the crib unattended. Parents should never use crib tents or other restraints, since children risk getting caught and suffocating. Instead, many parents move their child to a toddler bed, which uses the same size mattress as a crib.

Many toddlers just aren’t great sleepers: they may find it hard to fall asleep, or they may not be great at sleeping through the night. Since getting enough sleep is essential to a toddler’s physical and mental health (not to mention that of their parents!), there are a number of toddler sleep aids that parents can try. Ultimately, the goal is to help toddlers learn to independently soothe themselves and put themselves to sleep. However, it is very common for toddlers to experience sleep regression from time to time, where formerly good sleepers go back to fighting their bedtime and middle of the night wake-ups. Experts say this is often due to short-term factors like illness, teething, interruptions in their routine, or milestone transitions (such as moving to a new bed, the birth of a sibling, or potty training). Generally these kinds of regressions are temporary and resolve themselves in a few weeks, so they usually require a lot of short-term patience, rather than a long-term change to the sleep routine.

By the time a child is two years old, he/she will typically be sleeping 11-13 hours per night, in addition to an afternoon nap. However, every child is different, and you should check with your pediatrician about what a healthy sleep schedule is for your own child. It is is very common for toddlers to start resisting naps at the two year mark, now that they start to become social—after all, who wants to nap when there is fun to be had? But toddlers are also learning to exert their independence, and oftentimes this manifests in their not wanting to take a nap, even when they are exhausted and clearly need one. That’s why experts say that parents should avoid giving up the afternoon nap at this age. In fact, many toddlers will keep their nap until 4 & 5 years old.