What Time Should My Baby Go To Bed?

This is a great question, and there’s really no one right answer. It’s first really important to understand the social/cultural context of baby sleep that we’re living in and the nature of our baby sleep obsession. After learning all that I have in this area, I do believe that the baby sleep industry has really set parents up for failure.

The pace of living these days is much more fast paced than the natural pace of a newborn baby. We are pressured beyond belief to ‘get the body back,’ get back to work, and get back to being productive as soon as possible after having a baby.

I remember returning to work after having a baby and I literally felt invisible. My heart was completely broken. I was pumping twice a day, crying in the bathroom longing to be with my baby. I was only sleeping 2-3 hours at a time and still walking around with him in the dark house to get him back to sleep. I was taking naps in the car (don’t tell). Meanwhile, work was business as usual, and no one really asked how I was doing really. How I was adjusting to motherhood. If I had a comfortable place to pump. Even though I was surrounded by people at work, it was a really lonely time.

We live in a culture that values independence over meeting the emotional needs of our babies. It's as if we join a race to ‘get’ our babies as independent as possible so that we cannot be bothered and return to the hustle bustle that our lives were before having a baby. But the thing is, our lives are never the same after having a baby. Motherhood changes us to our core. It makes us question everything. It stretches us. It opens our eyes and our hearts because these amazing beings that come into our life, demand that we slow down and live life in harmony with the pace of nature, the pace of them. And that pace is not aligned with our current reality. What is more slow and precious and natural than a newborn baby completely dependent on its caregivers for the simplest yet most profound of biological functions, feeding and sleeping? Not much.

This time of caring for the emotional and attachment needs of a newborn is a true gift that can challenge our perspective about life.     

The other thing is that we have minimal support. We were never meant to raise our babies alone, or even with two of us. The extended family (the village), an ESSENTIAL component of raising a child, has been destroyed by industrialization and globalization. Even if parents understand that broken sleep and nighttime parenting are part of the first year, without any support, we find it hard to cope. I believe that parents really do want to follow their baby’s lead and attune to them, but because of so many errands to run and the need to schedule so many activities and play dates, they’re just not able to slow down enough to really do this, and they look to anything possible that they can control.

Psychotherapist, Sarah Patterson, who specializes in supporting women with maternal mental health, says, “Whenever anyone loses this control, we look to find control. One way many women feel that they can find it is through their infant sleep…for many women they feel like they are being a great mom if they are following these so-called rules of infant sleep. For a lot of women that really harsh transition from predictability and structure to none often gets put on infant’s sleep…I noticed there was a connection between women who were feeling really anxious, overwhelmed and low and the need for their baby to sleep in a certain way.” Sarah goes on to mention that, “A lot of people have had a lot of predictability and structure in their day before becoming a mom. If you are already a bit of a worrier, or perfectionist, or hard on yourself, people use structure, predictability and being successful as a way to manage that inner ‘stuff’. Then baby comes along and BOOM!… out goes predictability and structure and there are no tangible successes.”

We may find ourselves looking to google to learn about baby sleep, such as the perfect bedtime, the perfect crib, the perfect temperature and the perfect schedule, but we forget about the 90% of the World’s population who don’t have air conditioning to keep their babies sleeping between 64-72 degrees Fahrenheit, or who can’t afford a separate room or sleep surface, or who have to go back to work one week postpartum. These are cultural learnings. We cannot apply these ‘shoulds’ to the majority of parents around the world because they are simply not attainable. And their babies sleep just fine.    

I will always encourage you to tune into your unique baby and trust your own instincts in what you think is best, because it probably is. Here are a few things to consider when figuring out what a good bedtime is for your baby and your family.

Morning Wake Time

The time your baby wakes up in the morning is a very powerful regulator for the entire day, and can help establish the circadian rhythm. So depending on your preference and how your baby responds, you can consider waking your baby up at roughly the same time every morning. Personally I’ve always struggled waking my baby up anytime, so for me, I let him sleep in sometimes and just know that’s going to likely set the whole day back a bit. But honestly, he’s fairly consistent with a 7 am wake time, which works well for our family. 

A general guideline for bedtime is roughly 12-13 hours from the morning wake-up time. So for example, if your baby wakes up at 7 am, then you may try a bedtime between 7-8 pm. But remember, this is a guideline, and you may have a low sleep total needs baby! Read on.

24 Hour Sleep Totals

Sleep science has shown that sleep needs range from anywhere between 9-20 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period (Possums Institute). That’s a HUGE range! Some babies simply have lower total sleep needs, and some babies have more. So please keep that in mind and tune into your baby to get to know their unique sleep needs. You can log their sleep for a few days to one week to get to know their rhythm. Consider the ENTIRE 24 hours of sleep. This can be insightful in seeing that maybe your child has a day of short naps, and maybe they make up for it at night. Or maybe they have A LOT of daytime sleep. This will affect how much sleep your child will then need overnight. Remember, sleep is a biological function. If you can sit back a little and watch it with curiosity, you may find just how fascinating it is when it naturally balances out.   

Here's a free 24-hour sleep log if you need one!

For babies 0-6 months

For the first several months, your baby’s circadian rhythm is still being established. Your baby is likely sleeping a lot during the day and may be awake for a while at night. It can take 3-4 months for your baby’s circadian rhythm to be established. For the first 6 months, I would advise expecting sleep to be erratic. You may start to see some patterns emerge with the morning naptime. If you notice some consistent wake windows, you can go off of those (just expect them to change in a few weeks!). It’s typical for newborns to have a later bedtime. Your newborn may go to bed as late as 11 pm, for example, and then slowly creep up to 10 pm, 9 pm and then 8 pm over several months.  

For babies 6+ months

As naps become more established and you start noticing more patterns within your baby’s sleep, you want to consider the last nap of the day and shoot for a slightly longer wake window before bed than the other wake windows earlier in the day. This gives sleep pressure a chance to really build and will help your child prepare for the longer stretch of night sleep.

So for example, if you have a 6 month old baby and their wake windows are somewhere between 1.5-2 hours, then you may try for a 2-2.5 hour wake window before bed. If you have a 9 month old baby and their wake windows are 2.5 to 3 hours, then you may try for a 3-3.5 hour wake window before bed.

As your child drops down to one nap, you can typically have more of a consistent bedtime.  

Other considerations:

The length of the last nap- If your baby has a short afternoon cat nap, they may be more tired and need a bit of an earlier bedtime vs. if they had a longer afternoon nap.

Stimulation- What kind of stimulation has your baby had? Have they had a lot of time to practice new skills? If they’ve had a very active day, of course they may be more tired. If it’s been a day of running errands and so they’ve spent a lot of time in strollers and car seats, they may not be as tired, and you may see a later bedtime. Your baby’s temperament also has a lot to do with how they sleep. 

Connection- Bedtime can be a BIG time of separation for children. It’s 10+ hours of time that they may feel they need to be away from you, depending on your expectations. See if you can really amp up the connection time before bed, so your little one feels safe and loved before drifting off into sleep. Some little ones really need close proximity. Educate yourself on safe bedsharing practices if you’re interested, and you can see if when bedsharing you notice a difference. An excellent resource is the book, Safe Infant Sleep, by James McKenna. Or more of a quick reference here and here.  

What your family prefers- For our family we like to do things together as a family after dinner, such as go for walks or bike rides or to the park. My husband and I both work, so this is really precious time for us, so for example, a 7 pm bedtime feels too restrictive and doesn’t give us enough time together as a family. My son has always had a later bedtime, somewhere between 8-9:30 these days (his afternoon nap keeps getting later!). Do what works for your family.