Baby sleep schedule at 21 months: one nap, longer days and bedtime
Lulla TeamPublished Updated
At 21 months your toddler needs 11 to 14 hours of sleep a day, with 10 to 12 hours at night and a single nap. Wake windows have stepped up again to 5 to 6 hours, which means a long morning, a nap in the early afternoon and a long second stretch before bedtime.
Five to six hours awake is a big block for a toddler, and it changes how the day feels. Mornings can carry a whole outing; afternoons need pacing. Most of the sleep questions at 21 months are no longer about the schedule but about the things happening around it.
See the full wake-window table, from newborn to 2 years→How many naps by age — the full table→When your newborn won't sleep: what to check, in order→
Does this 21 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.
This is a common age for big changes — a new sibling, a move to a shared room, a new daycare. Sleep tends to wobble for a couple of weeks around any of them, which is normal. Where you can, make the change and the sleep change separately: do not move a toddler out of the crib in the same couple of weeks a baby arrives, and give the routine extra consistency while everything else is new.
A comfort object earns its keep now. A specific stuffed animal or small blanket that goes to bed every night gives your toddler something of their own to hold at the moments you are not there. Keep a duplicate if you can. If you are considering a toddler bed, there's rarely a reason to rush — a child who is not climbing out is usually better off in the crib for now, and your pediatrician can help you think it through.
A sample day
Below is a one-nap day at 21 months, with wake windows of 5 to 6 hours on either side of an early-afternoon nap. Treat it as one plausible day, not a target; the shape is what matters, and a big day out will bend it.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 7:00 | Wake-up and first feed |
| 13:15 | Nap 1 · approx. 90 min |
| 20:15 | 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.
Your baby's sleep schedule, by age
One table with everything that matters: total sleep per 24h, wake windows and number of naps, from newborn to age 3. Total sleep follows the National Sleep Foundation recommendations.
Tips for this age
- Separate big transitions: a new sibling, a room move and a bed change should not land in the same few weeks.
- Front-load the day with physical activity and keep the last hour genuinely quiet, because 5 to 6 hours of awake time needs shaping.
- During an unsettled couple of weeks, Lulla's history tells you whether the nights are actually getting worse or simply feel that way.
- Give the comfort object a fixed place in the routine, and buy a spare if you can find one.
- If your toddler seems tired all the time despite a full night, or snores most nights, bring it up with your pediatrician.
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Common questions
Track your baby's sleep with Lulla
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Keep reading
- Baby tiredness signs: how to read them before the crying starts
- How to build the perfect sleep routine for your baby
- How much do newborns sleep? What's normal by age and when it's too much
Sources
Total sleep per 24 hours follows the National Sleep Foundation's ranges (2015); at 3 months we smooth the step between two of them to 13 to 16 hours. Night sleep, wake windows and the number of naps are Lulla's own reference points, not recommendations from the organizations below. This information is educational and does not replace advice from your pediatrician.
- Hirshkowitz M, Whiton K, Albert SM, Alessi C, Bruni O, DonCarlos L, et al. National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health. 2015;1(1):40–43.
- American Academy of Pediatrics — Safe Sleep
- NHS — Helping your baby to sleep
- World Health Organization — Guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 years of age