ADEQUATE sleep is crucial for a child’s mental, physical, social and emotional development.
However, establishing a consistent night routine can be challenging for many parents – especially given not everyone knows the exact bedtime and length of sleep their kids need.
There is some consensus that a regular bedtime routine should be established when your babies are as young as four months old.
Their sleep needs will of course change as they grow, but that’s not the only thing that should inform how much shut eye you encourage them to get.
Sleep.org has outlined this schedule for babies, all the way up to teenagers:
- Newborns (up to three months): 14 to 17 hours
- Infants (four to 11 months): 12 to 15 hours
- Toddlers (one to two): 11 to 14 hours
- Preschoolers (three to five): 10 to 13 hours
- School-age (six to 13): 9 to 11 hours
- Tweens and Teens (14 to 17): 8 to 10 hours
What time should my child be going to bed?
Another question that many parents may ask themselves is what time should they be putting their little ones to bed – or telling their older ones to put down the screens.
Fortunately, the child sleep consultants at The Sleep Sisters published their thoughts in a handy guide:
- Newborn babies (up to three months): Babies at this age don’t need a bedtime, and instead generally sleep in short bursts of two hours, day and night
- 1–4 months: 8–11pm – As young babies are still feeding regularly, this is the recommended time frame to put them down
- 4–8 months: 5.30–7.30pm – Along with regular daytime naps, an earlier bedtime can help babies get all the sleep they need
- 8–10 months: 5.30–7pm – The Sleep Sisters recommend that for babies at this age, bedtime should be no later than 3.5 hours after their second nap. The time frame is shorter as they’re likely to have cut out their third nap.
- 10–15 months: 6–7.30pm – As you may well be cutting down on your baby’s naps, it’s important to bring bedtime forward — but not more than 4 hours after your baby’s last nap.
- 15 months –3 years: 6–7.30pm – Again, once naps have stopped totally, bedtime should be brought forward to
- 3–6 years: 6–8pm – With children no longer napping, they’ll need an extra hour of sleep every night
- 7–12 years: 7.30–9pm – Now your child is in school, it’s very important to keep to a schedule to make sure they’re getting the sleep they need.
- Teenagers: It’s a different story with teens, and experts say you should count backwards from the time they need to wake up to ensure they’re getting enough sleep
Your child’s bed time should also be informed by the time they tend to wake up, or need to wake up for school.
So for example, the above chart suggests that children aged five should go to bed from 6.45pm to 8.15pm, depending on bedtime.
If your five-year-old will be getting up at 6.30am, they’ll need to be going to sleep at 7.15pm.
But if they were up slightly later, at 7am, they’ll be ready for bed at 7.30pm.
Whereas an eight-year-old getting up at 6.45am in the morning will be ready to go to sleep at 8.15pm.
But the same-aged child who woke later, at 7.30am, will be ready for bed at 9pm.
Kids aged 11 and 12 should be asleep anytime from 8.15pm to 9.45pm.
Co-founder of the Holistic Sleep Coaching Program, sleep expert Lyndsey Hookway says: “If a child is taking more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, consider whether the bedtime is unrealistically early.”
Why do children need lots of sleep?
The Sleep Foundation say: “Sleep plays a crucial role in the development of young minds”.
Sleep also has a “direct effect on happiness” for children, and research shows that sleep impacts cognitive performance, alertness and attention, mood, resilience, vocabulary learning, and memory.
Frequent naps are necessary for toddlers to support “memory consolidation, executive attention, and motor skill development”.
Quality and length of sleep also have an impact on physical growth, particularly in early infancy.
Lucy Askew, sleep expert at Hillarys, shared five tips to help kids get into a solid sleep routine, including banning technology at least an hour before bed to help them relax and fall into deep sleep.
