Toddlers are 18 months through 2 years old. Ideal bedtime hour: 7:00-8:00 PM (do you see a pattern here?) Toddler Bedtime You might need to shift bedtime back a little later if your little one is almost ready for one nap a day but not quite there yet. We are still aiming for a bedtime 10-12 hours before your start time of day. Most will drop to one nap a day sometime between 14-18 months old. Pretoddlers will start out with two naps a day. Pretoddler BedtimeĪ pretoddler is in the age range of 12-18 months old. You might have reasons to have a later bedtime and that is perfectly fine as long as your baby can handle it. I always like to aim for bedtime being in the 7 PM hour. Sometimes that might be as simple as baby doesn’t wake up for a night feed anymore so 30 minutes of sleep is added in during night sleep and can be shifted from a nap. After baby has adjusted, you might be able to move back to a 7:30 bedtime.Īs naps are dropped, I always caution parents to think of a nap as rearranging total sleep time in a 24 hour period rather than dropping sleep time. So if bedtime is 7:30 when baby has four naps, you might need to move bedtime to 7:00 when baby moves to three naps a day. This might be a permanent shift or a shift that is temporary until your little one can either handle less daytime sleep or can shift sleep to naps. Some babies might even sleep 12.5-13 hours at night.īedtime can often shift as naps are dropped. As your baby gets older, you will find the ideal bedtime for your little one.
If that doesn’t work, slowly shift it until you find the ideal bedtime. Until your little one is sleeping through the night, stick with aiming for 12 hours. Read: Sleep Routine Ideas to Get Your Baby Sleeping Wellīedtime for your baby ages 4-12 months old should be 10-12 hours before your morning wakeup time.
Newborns eat a lot and will eat at least two times between bedtime and morning wakeup time, but still treat that 12 time before your start of day as bedtime.
Some sleepier newborns might even have bedtime a little more than 12 hours before bedtime. So if you want to start your day at 7 AM, bedtime needs to be at 7 PM. Your newborn should have bedtime 12 hours before your ideal morning wakeup time. Newborns sleep more than any other age range (yes, even teenagers! haha). Read: Strategies for Making Bedtime SmootherĪs much as schedules change over the years, it is interesting to me that one thing that changes very little is bedtime. It is okay to have disruptions to your typical schedule. It is okay if you put your little one down for bedtime late one day because you were out and about. It is okay to have an early bedtime for whatever reason every once in a while. You want most days to be consistent, but it is okay to have some off days. With all of this talk about consistency, I don’t want to send you into a panic every time there is a disruption or change in your daily routine. You have an entire day to work toward getting back on track for that consistent bedtime. If you get a little behind schedule, move something up in the day to get back on schedule. I have a post to help you accomplish this in Getting a Consistent Schedule.Īs you go through your day, if your child wakes early from one nap, let your baby sleep longer for another nap to get back on track. The second step is to work to be consistent in your days. You want it to be within a 30 minute window just like bedtime. So start this process with a consistent morning wake up time. You need to start your schedule at the same time each morning if you want to increase your chances of ending at the same time each day. This brings up the importance of a consistent start time to each day. Bedtime can naturally vary quite a lot if your daily schedule is not the same from day to day. You are probably wondering how on earth you can be consistent with bedtime when it is the last event of the day.