Finding the Right Time for Bedtime

We share a simple plan to set a workable bedtime by starting from wake time, matching age-based sleep needs, and making small, steady shifts. We explain how naps, growth, and morning behavior signal when to adjust.

• age-based sleep ranges and how to use them
• working backward from wake time to set bedtime
• checking wake-up ease as a key signal
• moving bedtime 15–30 minutes earlier when needed
• adjusting gradually during time changes
• handling nap drops and consolidating night sleep

Please reach out to me on Instagram, be their parent, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

American Academy of Pediatrics Sleep Chart: https://tinyurl.com/mtkt5xym

Transcript

Tempo: 120.0

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, I'm Sheila. I'm here to help you be their parent. Last time we chatted about routines and how our kids will thrive and grow in their independence with solid routines in their lives. Today we will start working on creating a workable bedtime routine. I'm a huge advocate for them getting enough sleep each night. It truly affects their ability to self-regulate, get along with others, focus, and learn. We're doing our kids a disservice if we let them go to bed whenever they feel like it, and then we have to drag them out of bed to get them to school, daycare, or whatever outing we have that day. The place to start is to determine how many hours of sleep that your kid or kids need each night. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a chart giving us the hours our kids need. For babies, 4 to 12 months, they need 12 to 16 hours, including naps. 1 to 2 year olds need 11 to 14 hours, also including naps. 3 to 5 year olds need 10 to 13 hours, also including naps, if they're still taking them. And then of course we have our six to 12 year olds, they need 9 to 12 hours, and 13 to 18 year olds need eight to 10. Now, I know teenagers are going to say that they don't need that much, but in all actuality, they really do. So let's notice the first thing. You will see that they give a range. Some seven-year-olds need all 12 hours that they suggest. Some thrive on barely nine. You know your kid best, but I would work toward them getting the bare minimum suggested for their age range. So to get started to see if there's any adjustments you need to make to the time they go to bed, we will start backwards. What time do you need them to get up most mornings? Then think about how easy they are to get up or not each morning and what time they go to bed. So if you have a seven-year-old and they go to bed at eight, you get them up at six and they're easy to get up, then you probably have a decent bedtime for them. If they go to bed at nine and you have a really hard time waking them at six, they will need an earlier bedtime. They need more than nine hours. So think about currently. What time do you need them to get up? Are they easy to get up or are they dead to the world? If they are easy to wake up and their current bedtime puts them in the range for sleep, awesome. You're good to go. You can leave and come back to our next podcast. But if they're not so easy to wake up, I would suggest moving their bedtime back 15 to 30 minutes until they're at a point that they are easy to wake up with the right number of hours. If you're looking at the chart and you realize, wow, my kid is way below the range of the right amount of sleep, please don't rush to fix it. With so many things with our kids, we need to make changes and bite-sized pieces. When our kids were little, and it was the week before fallback or the week before spring ahead, and if we didn't have very much going on, I would start to adjust bedtimes on Thursday so that by Sunday that spring ahead or that fall back wasn't as rough on all of us. Small changes work better and are easier for everyone to adjust to. Also, consider that as they grow and change, you will have to adjust bedtimes. For example, say your four-year-old needs 11 hours in total. They take an hour nap each afternoon and they go to bed at 9 and get up at 7. Perfect. They've got just what they need. But then they drop the nap. You may need to make some adjustments. Now, it could be that they're getting to a point where they only need 10 hours total, and so they drop the nap, and that puts them right there with the 10 hours of sleep. However, if they are extra grumpy and or they are really difficult to wake in the morning, you may need to move their bedtime up. Now for me, I'd split the difference and I'd move them their bedtime to 8:30, see how they are when they wake up in the morning, and then make adjustments from there. So I hope that with some of this information, you can start to see some adjustments that you might need to make so that you can help your kids get the amount of rest that they need. If you need some input, please reach out to me on Instagram, be their parent, and I'm happy to answer any questions. On our next episode, we will work on the routine that you need leading up to tucking them in at bedtime. So I look forward to chatting with you then.