What Time Should My Child Go to Bed?
Here’s my bedtime breakdown with ZERO fluff!
It’s important to adjust your child’s bedtime according to their sleep needs. Nap transitions and skipped naps can affect when your child needs to go to bed at night.
Newborns- Newborns tend to want a late “bedtime”, usually sometime between 9-10pm. They are still regulating their sleep and their circadian rhythm has not developed yet! As they get older, bedtime will move earlier.
Around 3 months- move bedtime up to 7-8pm. See my blog post dream feeding here to determine if dream feeding is right for your baby! At this age babies can usually only stay awake 1-1.5 hours, so follow their sleep cues and place them down when tired!
4 months+ - expect bedtime to fall between 6-8pm. It will remain this way likely until your child is over 3 years old, and is going through the 1-0 nap transition.
At 4 months, bedtime will be 2 hours after waking from their last nap.
At 5 months, it’ll be around 2hr 15m to 2.5 hours after waking from their last nap.
At 6 months, 2.5-3 hours.
At 7-9 months, 3-3.5 hours.
10-15 months, 3.5-4 hours
14-18 months- babies typically drop down to 1 nap at this age, waketime before bed will be around 4-5 hours after waking from their nap. At the beginning of this transition, it’ll like be around 4 hours.
3-3.5- Usually around 3-3.5 years old, kiddos are able to handle a 7:30-8pm bedtime when they’ve napped. However, if you start to notice that your toddler is taking a LONG time to fall asleep at bedtime, I would cap their nap at 45 minutes. In this scenario, you’d have to move bedtime back UP to 7-7:30pm until their body adjusts! Consolidated nighttime sleep is more important for your child's development than an unnecessary daytime nap at this point. Hold onto that nap until your kiddo is at least 3.5 years old. It’s typical to flip flop between a short nap and no nap for months before completely dropping the nap.
If you need help with bedtime battles or your kiddo is struggling with night waking or early wakes, please head to my sleep services here!
Sweet dreams,
Lexi