Bedtime should be around 6:30-8:30pm and should occur about 1-2 hours after the last nap ends.ģ months: babies this age should be on a solid 4 nap schedule with the last nap of the day ending by 5:30pm. By 2 months, baby's last nap should be ending by 6:30pm. Bedtime in newborns is naturally late, usually around 9:00pm or later, but it is important to start moving the bedtime earlier around 6/8 weeks. Keep in mind as well, that if the last nap was very short, you may need to shorten the awake time even more.Ġ-2 months: babies this age sleep around the clock and have 4 or more naps every day. Below, I will outline how long that last stretch should be, and as well, how many naps on average that babies need at each age.
So how do I know when I should put my baby to bed for the night?Īs I mentioned in the first paragraph, it is of utmost importance that the stretch from the last nap to bedtime is not too long as this will cause fragmented nightsleep. Therefore, bedtime can vary by as much as two hours, especially during nap transitions. Bedtime should vary depending on the day's naps, activity level of the day, and the previous nightsleep. So while it is important to have consistency with older children, babies need more flexibility with bedtime.
Inconsistent (and especially too late) bedtimes have been shown to have long-term effects on behavior - and none of them good. This consistent bedtime has been shown to help children regulate themselves, develop positive behaviors, and function successfully at home and in the community. It is very important that once our children drop their last nap that they have a consistent bedtime every single night. While there are many studies out there that prove that a consistent, or 'set', bedtime is important for children, these studies are for children much older - those who no longer nap during the day.
Should I use a 'set' bedtime for my child? A true natural wake-up time is only evident once the child is well-rested and sleeping through the night. Many parents may think that their baby just naturally rises later in the morning, but if baby is up several times a night, the 'sleeping in' is baby trying to catch up on lost sleep. While it's true that a small percentage of babies, about 10%, do well with a later bedtime, if your child has multiple nightwakings and rarely does longer than a 3 hour stretch at night, then this late bedtime is in fact not working for your child. Parents may think that because their baby is still clocking 11-12 hours of nightsleep with a 9pm-9am schedule that this is working well for them.
In order to help our babies to consistently sleep through the night (and I mean an age-appropriate length of time, see my blog here for what sleeping through the night means at different ages) our children's needs must be in sync with their natural sleep rhythms.
#Bedtime chart by age and wake up time how to
Just because a child knows how to sleep, doesn't mean they will sleep through the night. Sleep coaching helps teach baby how to fall asleep independently. Below, I hope to help you figure out what your baby's ideal bedtime is and whether a too-late bedtime is the cause of your sleep problems. What time would you put an 8 year old to bed? Likely not at 10:00pm, right? Then why should a little baby, only months old, have a bedtime that late? It should be the exact opposite - babies should be going to bed much earlier than older children as their sleep needs are exponentially more than a school-aged child. Therefore, it is vital that we are really 'nailing' bedtime and that we aren't keeping baby up too late. What I mean by this is that if we are putting baby down too late, stretching baby out too long, it is a recipe for nightwakings, a restless sleep, and an early morning wake-up. The awake time between the last nap of the day and bedtime is the most sensitive. A vast number of the sleep issues I encounter are products of a bedtime that is too late.
0 kommentar(er)
