A child’s sense of time develops slowly. Before age 3, words like “tomorrow” or “in a little while” remain hazy. Around 3, children begin to understand “before” and “after”, then, around 4, “yesterday”, “today” and “tomorrow”. The days of the week and the seasons come later.
This gap explains many everyday scenes: the child who asks “when is it?” ten times over, who cries because “right now” never seems to arrive, or who tells you that “tomorrow” they went to the park. It isn’t impatience, nor is it a delay. It’s simply the normal way a toddler’s brain gets to grips with an invisible idea.
Why is time so hard for a toddler to understand?
You can’t see time or touch it. A ball, a spoon or a cat can be pointed at. “Yesterday” or “in three days” can’t. Speech and language therapist Marie-Ève Bergeron-Gaudin sums it up in her factsheet for Naître et grandir: notions of time are abstract, unlike objects.
Toddlers live mostly in the present. They first understand what repeats and what follows on: bath, then pyjamas, then a story. Before they can name time, they sense its order. That’s why regular days matter so much, as our article on toddler routines and rituals explains.
Memory plays its part too. A child can only place a memory in the past if they hold on to it long enough. Our feature on baby’s memory describes how these memories last longer as the months go by.
A child’s sense of time: milestones by age
The ages below are average milestones. Differences of several months are common and mean nothing in particular.
Before 3: order before words
According to Naître et grandir, children under 3 struggle to understand “before”, “afternoon” or “tomorrow”. They do, however, recognise the sequence of the day’s moments when it stays the same. They know that going out comes after the afternoon snack if that’s always how it goes. This grasp of order, seen in everyday life, comes before the words that describe it.
At this age, “in a little while” and “in five minutes” don’t match any particular length of time. They simply mean “not now”. A 2-year-old who protests hasn’t misunderstood: they’ve understood that it isn’t happening straight away, and that’s enough to be disappointed.
Around 3: “before” and “after”
These two words are often the first notions of time children acquire. A child can follow a simple instruction such as “we wash our hands, then we eat”. They begin to tell the story of an event in order, even if the details are still rough.
Around 4: “yesterday”, “today”, “tomorrow”
These three words are better understood around 4, but children still use them shakily. A child of this age may say “tomorrow” to talk about yesterday, or call anything in the past “yesterday”, even if it was a month ago. The question “when?” appears later than “where?” or “who?”.
At nursery school: days, months, seasons
The days of the week, the months and the seasons are learnt at nursery school, with no fixed age. Telling the time comes later still. So there’s no point getting a 2-year-old to recite the days: they’ll learn the list, not what it means.
Should I worry if my 3-year-old mixes up yesterday and tomorrow?
No. Mixing up “yesterday” and “tomorrow” is normal at 3, and still common at 4. These words settle gradually until children start primary school. What is worth raising with your doctor is a general language delay: few words, very short sentences or difficulty understanding simple instructions. A one-off mix-up about time isn’t enough.
What research says about the ability to plan ahead
A study published in 2017 in the journal Developmental Psychology, reported by Naître et grandir, looked at 81 children aged 3 to 5 in the United States. Each child spent five minutes talking with a researcher about their past day, their coming day, their present or the distant future. They then took some short planning tests.
Talking about the recent past or the very near future helped the children project themselves forward and better anticipate what would come next. The distant future, on the other hand, remained too abstract. The children related to it less and used “I” and “me” less often when talking about it. This link between time and self-awareness echoes what we describe in our article on the age when children start saying “I”.
The practical lesson is simple: a short chat about what your child did this morning or will do this afternoon helps them more than a speech about next summer’s holidays.
How can you help your child find their way in time?
No exercises are needed. A sense of time grows out of ordinary life, as long as the adults put into words what is happening.
- Use time words from a very young age, even if they aren’t understood yet: “before”, “after”, “this morning”, “this evening”.
- Link time to a concrete marker: “Tomorrow, after your nap, you’ll see Granny” says more than “tomorrow” on its own.
- Count in nights: “three more sleeps” is a unit your child can live through and count.
- Give instructions in order, in short sentences: first this, then that.
- Look at photos after an outing and tell each other what happened before and after.
- Choose books whose story takes place in a single day, from morning to night. Our article on reading to your baby offers pointers for those first picture books.
Simple tools you can make yourself
Naître et grandir suggests a few easy ideas, mostly useful from age 3. Picture cards showing the moments of the day, which your child puts back in order, first with help, then alone. A sand timer to make a short stretch of time visible, such as brushing teeth or a turn in a game. A string of beads for an absence of a few days: you take one off each evening.
These aids turn an invisible length of time into a quantity you can watch shrink. They tie in with the first number concepts described in our article on the age when a child can count.
Situations where time causes trouble
Waiting
Waiting is hard because your child doesn’t know how long they’re waiting. Announcing a concrete step helps: “when the washing machine stops”, “after the song”. An exact length of time in minutes won’t mean anything to them for several years yet.
Separations
When a parent is away, for a trip or a first night at the grandparents’, nights are the best counter. A bead or sticker calendar works well from age 3.
Changes in routine
Bank holidays, school holidays or the clocks going back for winter time scramble a child’s bearings. Your child doesn’t read the clock: they rely on daylight, hunger and the sequence of activities. Our article on the clock change and your baby explains how to ease the transition.
The “why?” and “when?” questions
Around 3, the questions multiply. The “when?” questions come after the “why?”, “where?” and “who?” ones. Answering with a concrete marker rather than a date helps your child build their own reference points. Our tips for getting through the “why” phase apply to these questions too.
What doesn’t help
- Getting a 2-year-old to recite the days of the week.
- Saying “in five minutes” when you mean “in an hour”: your child mostly learns that time words don’t mean anything.
- Getting cross about a mix-up between “yesterday” and “tomorrow”, which is normal up to 4 and beyond.
- Piling on apps or educational clocks before 3: everyday markers are enough.
Key takeaways
- Toddlers understand the order of moments before they understand time words.
- “Before” and “after” arrive around 3, “yesterday” and “tomorrow” around 4.
- Days, months and seasons are learnt at nursery school.
- Concrete markers – nights, meals, naps – work better than hours and dates.
- Talking about the morning or the afternoon helps your child anticipate; the distant future remains abstract.
Sources
- Naître et grandir, “Hier, aujourd'hui, demain : comprendre les notions de temps”, research and writing by Marie-Ève Bergeron-Gaudin, speech and language therapist, updated May 2023.
- Naître et grandir, “Comment aider un tout-petit à prévoir ce qui s'en vient ?”, 10 April 2017, based on a study published in Developmental Psychology (2017).
- Naître et grandir, Catherine Goldschmidt, “Jeux pour aider les enfants avec la notion de temps”, 3 November 2017.
