What is the ideal bedtime for your child?
Sleep plays an integral role in physical and mental health! Unfortunately, many children do not get enough sleep each night. I truly think that many parents just aren’t aware of how much sleep their child needs. If you don’t know how much sleep your child needs you won’t know what time they should go to bed. The ideal bedtime for your child is the one that allows them to get the amount of sleep they need. Often, that means a child’s bedtime is determined by their age, morning wake time, and naps. Keep in mind that I consider bedtime to be the time a child is in bed. It’s not the time when you are starting the bedtime routine. It’s also not the time your child is asleep (unless they are a newborn.)
Newborns and young infants
Bedtime for newborns between the ages of 0-3 months might be anywhere between 7-10 pm. There really are two types of newborns. There are newborns who are ready for bed right at 7:00 pm each night. And there are newborns who prefer catnaps in the late evening and going to bed closer to 10 pm. This is because the body clock isn’t quite developed yet. So both bedtimes are okay! Do what works best for your baby and your family!
Melatonin starts to rise in the evening for babies between 4-5 months, so the ideal bedtime is typically between 7-8 pm. I discuss all the details about bedtime and many other topics for babies 0-5 months in my online course Happy Baby Sleep School.
6 – 23 month olds
Bedtime for this age range should be based on the wake window between the last (or only) nap and bedtime. That window for this age range is typically four hours maximum. The younger they are, the shorter the window they can typically handle. So remember, four hours is maximum. Many 6-8 month olds may be taking a third catnap as well. With a third catnap, we often have a set bedtime instead of watching the last wake window.
Although the focus of this blog is on the timing of bedtime, by the time your baby is six months old you should have a consistent bedtime routine.
2 – 10 year olds
Bedtime for this age range should be based on a child’s typical morning wake time. What you need to do is know exactly how much sleep your child needs and work backwards from the morning wake time to tell you what time your child should be ASLEEP. Bedtime should be about 15-30 minutes before that time.
Here is an example for a two-year-old:
A two-year-old needs approximately 13 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Most children this age will take a two hour nap and sleep around 11 hours during the night. A long wake window before bedtime isn’t really an issue anymore at this age. You want to build bedtime based on the morning wake time so let’s say this two-year-old wakes around 7:30 am. That would mean that if this child takes a two-hour nap, they would need to be asleep by 8:30 pm in order to get their 11 hours at night. The child would ideally be in bed with lights out around 8:00 pm or so to allow time to fall asleep.
So, as you can see, the ideal bedtime for your child might be different than the ideal bedtime for another child. Again, you want to take into account your child’s age, naps and morning wake time. But the best bedtime for your child will always be the time that allows them to get the right amount of sleep at each age. If you are struggling to figure out the appropriate bedtime, have other schedule issues or need help getting a full night’s sleep, find out more about how to work with Tara HERE.