Wondering what the best bedtime is for your baby or toddler?
Maybe you’ve got one of each and need to figure out the best way to sync up their bedtime routines.
Getting your little one’s bedtime right is not an exact science, however picking a good time that works for you and them means they are well rested and you get a, hopefully, quiet evening to yourself.
Working out the ideal bedtime for your baby or toddler can be done by looking at:
- The number of hours sleep they need in a 24 hour period
- How much daytime sleep they are getting
- What time you typically get up in the morning
We’re going to take a look at what the ideal bedtime is for your baby and toddler by age.
What time should babies and toddlers go to bed?
As a broad example babies and toddlers will probably go to bed between 6.30pm and 8pm, however their bedtime may change as they grow.
You can work out your child’s ideal bedtime by looking at the guidance on approximate hours of sleep needed by children of different ages given by the NHS, which is also outlined in the table summarising bedtimes later in this article.
Then start by adding up how many hours they are getting of daytime sleep. Now subtract that from the total sleep they need in a 24 hour period. This tells you how long, roughly, your child needs to sleep at night.
Babies and toddlers will tend to get 10 to 12 hours of sleep at night – although with babies this would be interrupted by waking for the odd feed.
So to calculate their bedtime look at what time you ideally want your child to get up for the day in the morning and work backwards. So if you want your child to be up between 6am and 7am then a 7pm bedtime is ideal.
To emphasise again, this is not an exact science and every child is different.
There’s also a huge difference between when a newborn baby can be expected to go to bed and a toddler. A lot changes over the course of the first year to the next year and beyond.
A newborn baby won’t necessarily have a regular, typical bedtime in the same way as an older baby or a toddler. They’re unlikely to be in a rigid routine of any sort for the first six to 12 weeks.
But for your newborn you may have a rough time of night when you turn down the lights to help your baby start to learn the difference between day and night.
My own children both had a 7pm bedtime from when we finally worked out a good daytime routine when they were babies right through their toddler years. This worked well for us as it gave them around 11 to 12 hours of nighttime sleep.
So when figuring out what the best bedtime for your baby or toddler should be think about what time in the morning you tend to get up – it may be earlier than 7am if you need to get everyone out of the house for nursery and work etc. Work back 12 hours from that point and it gives you a rough starting point for when your child’s bedtime should be.
If you have a baby and a toddler then this post featuring a sample routine will help, as will this article about how to juggle a joint bedtime with a baby and toddler.
What time should a baby go to bed?
Once your baby is a little older and sleeping through the night or waking up only once for a feed a typical bedtime is between 7pm and 7.30pm.
But a newborn baby does not necessarily go to bed at a set time, so you should stay flexible in the early weeks.
Newborn babies will be feeding on demand, round the clock for the first few weeks. Their patterns can be unpredictable and they generally need to feed every two to three hours, as their tiny tummies can only take a little milk at a time.
A baby of around eight to 12 weeks may be very fussy in the evenings – this is known as the witching hour and is totally normal by a tricky stage – which can make it difficult to enforce a set bedtime.
Other issues can also crop up in the first year that make your bedtime difficult to set. This can include teething, growth spurts and sleep regressions. So be prepared to go with the flow a little in the first year.
As they grow they will be able to get most of their calories from their daytime milk feeds. Then once they are weaning at six months many babies will be sleeping through the night with the majority sleeping through the night – for 10 to 12 hours – by the time they are one.
Even though your baby will likely wake several times in the night during the first year it’s worth setting a bedtime to help your baby learn the difference between day and night.
Once bedtime arrives any wake-ups that occur during that chunk of time should be dealt with differently to daytime. Keep the room darker, speak in softer tones and don’t start pulling out noisy toys. This helps to set their internal clock so they learn over time that nighttime is for sleeping.
To calculate your baby’s bedtime think about what time you want them to be up in the morning – for many parents between 6am and 7am is a good time for getting up ready for work. Then work backwards roughly 12 hours to find a good bedtime.
You can also watch your baby’s own tired cues – such as rubbing their eyes, staring off into space, disengaging with play, irritability – to figure out what time works best for them. Babies who become overtired will be difficult to settle at nap times and at bedtime.
You may also like: Newborn baby routines
Perfect routine for a 6 month old baby
What time should a 1 year old go to bed?
The best bedtime for a one-year-old is 7pm to 7.30pm.
By age one your baby will be on three solid meals a day and likely be sleeping through the night as well. Of course some little ones may still be waking occasionally in the night at this stage.
They will also be likely taking two daytime naps per day, with their largest chunk of sleep taken at nighttime.
In order to make sure my kids were tired at 7pm so that they would go to sleep without a fuss and also not too tired I would ensure the last nap of the day was over by 3.30pm at the latest.
You may also like: Best routine for a one-year-old
What time should a 2 year old go to bed?
A typical bedtime for a two-year-old is between 7pm and 8pm.
At age two your toddler needs around 11 to 14 hours of sleep in total over a 24 hour period. Roughly one to two hours of that will be taken up by their daytime nap, if they are still having one.
What time should a 3 year old go to bed?
The best bedtime for your three-year-old is between 7pm and 8pm.
Your toddler at age three needs between 10 and 13 hours of sleep per day include naps. It may be that they have already dropped their last daytime nap, so the majority of their rest is taken in their nighttime sleep.
Baby and toddler bedtimes by age
Use this handy chart to show you how baby and toddler bedtimes as your child grows.
The total amount of sleep outlined for your child by day comes from the NHS advice.
I’ve included your child’s average wake window by age as well. This is the typical amount of time your child is awake for between naps or bedtime, and can help you figure out your daily routine.
| Age | Total sleep | Wake window | Bedtime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newborn | 15-18 hours | 30-1 hour | N/A |
| 3-6 months | 12-16 hours | 1 hour – 90 mins | 7pm-7.30pm |
| 6-12 months | 12-16 hours | 2-4 hours | 7pm-7.30pm |
| 1 year | 11-14 hours | 3-5 hours | 7pm-8pm |
| 2 years | 11-14 hours | 6-7 hours | 7pm-8pm |
| 3 years | 10-13 hours | 7-12 hours (if no longer napping) | 7pm-8pm |
