How many hours should an 18-month-old sleep?

Eleven to 14 hours over 24 hours: 10 to 12 at night plus a single nap, with wake windows of 4 to 5.5 hours. Those needs don't change during the regression, even when the nights do — what changes is how easily the sleep is reached. If your toddler is sleeping far less than this for weeks and is visibly worn out during the day, raise it with your pediatrician.

What is the 18-month sleep regression?

A stretch of disrupted sleep driven by a developmental leap in independence rather than by a change in sleep itself. Around 18 months toddlers start asserting preferences, testing limits and separating from you more consciously, and bedtime is where all three collide. Expect protests, stalling and extra night waking for a few weeks. Steady limits and an unchanged routine shorten it.

My toddler climbs out of the crib. What should I do?

Deal with safety first: lower the mattress to its lowest setting and move anything climbable away from the crib. Many toddlers stop once climbing becomes harder. If it continues, a floor bed or toddler bed may be safer than repeated falls, though moving early brings its own difficulties, since an 18-month-old cannot yet reason about staying in bed. Your pediatrician can help you weigh it up.

My 18-month-old suddenly refuses the nap. Should I drop it?

Almost certainly not. Nap refusal at 18 months is a classic feature of this regression, not a sign that napping is over — most children keep napping well into their third year. Keep offering the nap at the same time, and if your toddler does not sleep, hold a quiet period in the room anyway. Bring bedtime forward on the days the nap is genuinely lost.

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Baby sleep schedule at 18 months: the 18-month regression and one nap

At 18 months your toddler needs 11 to 14 hours of sleep a day: 10 to 12 hours at night and one nap. Wake windows now reach 4 to 5.5 hours. The structure of the day is stable — and this is exactly the month when many families find that sleep stops behaving anyway.

The 18-month regression isn't about sleep architecture the way the 4-month one was. It's about a toddler who has discovered that they are a separate person with opinions, and that bedtime is a very good place to test what happens when those opinions are voiced.

11–14 h

Total sleep / 24 h

10–12 h

Night sleep

Naps per day

4 h–5½ h

Wake window

Autonomy is the theme of 18 months. Your toddler wants to choose, to do things themselves, and to find out where the edges are. At bedtime that shows up as refusing pajamas, climbing out of the crib, demanding the routine happen in a different order, and calling out long after lights out. It's developmental, it's not defiance in the adult sense, and it passes over a few weeks.

What helps is giving real choices inside fixed limits: which pajamas, which two books, which stuffed animal — but not whether bedtime happens. Where a toddler can climb out of the crib, safety comes first: drop the mattress to its lowest position, remove anything that can be used as a step, and if climbing continues, talk to your pediatrician about whether a floor bed or toddler bed is the right move for your child.

A sample day

Below is a one-nap day at 18 months, with a nap in the early afternoon and wake windows of 4 to 5.5 hours. The sequence is what matters, not the minutes — during a regression the times matter less than keeping the sequence identical every night.

Time	What happens
7:00	Wake-up and first feed
13:00	Nap 1 · approx. 100 min
20:00	Bedtime routine and lights out

A sample day to give you a rough idea — every baby is different. Adjust the times to your child's sleep cues, and talk to your pediatrician about anything that worries you.

Does this 18 months schedule match your day?

Lulla times the naps and tells you when the wake window is closing, so you do not have to keep count in your head.

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Tips for this age

Offer choices that do not change the outcome: which pajamas, which book, which order to brush and read — but bedtime itself is not on the table.
Cut the routine down rather than extending it, because a shorter, firmer sequence gives less surface area for negotiation.
Logging in Lulla through a regression is useful mostly for perspective; seeing that the total has barely moved takes some of the panic out of a bad week.
If your toddler climbs out of the crib, lower the mattress fully and clear anything climbable nearby before you consider a bed.
Ask your pediatrician about the timing of a toddler bed, and about any night waking that comes with pain, fever or breathing that worries you.

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Common questions

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Sources

The figures on this page follow the guidance of these organizations. This information is educational and does not replace advice from your pediatrician.