Nanostructured rare-earth-ion-doped materials are increasingly being investigated for on-chip implementations of quantum information processing protocols as well as commercial applications such as fluorescent lighting. However, achieving high-quality and optimized materials at the nanoscale is still challenging. Here we present a detailed study into the restriction of phonon processes in the transition from bulk crystals to small (≤40-nm) nanocrystals by observing the relaxation dynamics between crystal-field levels of Tb3+:Y3Al5O12. We find that the population relaxation dynamics are modified as the particle size is reduced, consistent with our simulations of inhibited relaxation through a modified vibrational density of states and hence modified phonon emission. However, our experiments also indicate that nonradiative processes not driven by phonons are also present in the smaller particles, causing transitions and rapid thermalization between the levels on a time scale of <100ns.@en