Bedtimes by age
Last reviewed: 14 September 2026
What time a child should go to bed is really a subtraction: take the time they have to be up, and take away the sleep their age needs. Here is that sum, done for every age.
Bedtime calculator by age
Choose an age and the time they have to be up. You get the bedtime range, not a single number, because every age band is a range.
Bedtimes by age chart
These assume a 7:00 AM wake-up and include about 15 minutes to fall asleep. If your morning is earlier, move every bedtime back by the same amount.
| Age | Sleep needed | Bedtime for a 7:00 AM start |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 11–14 hours (with naps) | 6:45–7:45 PM |
| 2 years | 11–14 hours (with a nap) | 6:45–7:45 PM |
| 3 years | 10–13 hours | 6:45–8:00 PM |
| 4 years | 10–13 hours | 6:45–7:45 PM |
| 5 years | 10–13 hours | 7:00–8:00 PM |
| 6 years | 9–12 hours | 7:00–8:15 PM |
| 7 years | 9–12 hours | 7:15–8:30 PM |
| 8 years | 9–12 hours | 7:30–8:45 PM |
| 9 years | 9–12 hours | 7:30–9:00 PM |
| 10 years | 9–12 hours | 7:45–9:00 PM |
| 11 years | 9–12 hours | 7:45–9:15 PM |
| 12 years | 9–12 hours | 8:00–9:30 PM |
| 13 years | 8–10 hours | 8:45–9:45 PM |
| 14 years | 8–10 hours | 8:45–9:45 PM |
| 15 years | 8–10 hours | 8:45–10:15 PM |
| 16–17 years | 8–10 hours | 9:15–10:45 PM |
| 18–64 years | 7–9 hours | 9:45–11:45 PM |
| 65+ years | 7–8 hours | 10:45–11:45 PM |
Bedtime guide for each age
Each of these has the full chart for that age, what changes developmentally, and the problems that are specific to it.
- 1-year-olds
- 2-year-olds
- 3-year-olds
- 4-year-olds
- 5-year-olds
- 6-year-olds
- 7-year-olds
- 8-year-olds
- 9-year-olds
- 10-year-olds
- 11-year-olds
- 12-year-olds
- 13-year-olds
- 14-year-olds
- 15-year-olds
- 16-year-olds
- Teenagers (overview)
How much sleep each age needs
| Age | Recommended sleep | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Newborn (0–3 months) | 14–17 hours | Spread across the whole 24 hours, in short stretches. |
| Infant (4–11 months) | 12–15 hours | Including naps. Night sleep starts consolidating from around 4 months. |
| Toddler (1–2 years) | 11–14 hours | Including naps. Two naps usually become one during this period. |
| Preschool (3–5 years) | 10–13 hours | Including naps, which most children drop somewhere in this band. |
| School age (6–13 years) | 9–12 hours | The AASM gives 9–12; the National Sleep Foundation gives 9–11. |
| Teenager (14–17 years) | 8–10 hours | More than adults need. The body clock shifts later during puberty. |
| Adult (18–64 years) | 7–9 hours | The AASM advises 7 or more hours on a regular basis. |
| Older adult (65+) | 7–8 hours | The need barely drops; sleep becomes lighter and more broken. |
How to use a bedtime that is a range
Every figure above is a range, and the range is wide on purpose: two healthy 8-year-olds can genuinely differ by two hours in what they need. Rather than picking the midpoint, use the morning as your evidence.
- Wakes on their own, roughly on time, in a reasonable mood. The bedtime is right. Leave it alone.
- Has to be woken every day, and is difficult for the first half-hour. Too late. Move it 15 minutes earlier every three or four nights until the mornings change.
- Wakes very early — before 5:30 AM — and is grumpy by mid-morning. Counter-intuitively, this is more often a sign of an over-late bedtime than an over-early one. Overtiredness fragments the last hours of sleep.
- Lies awake for 45 minutes or more after lights out. Bedtime is genuinely too early for their body clock, or the wind-down is not working. Move it 15 minutes later and see.
- Sleeps two or more hours longer at weekends. A weekday deficit. The weekend is repayment, and it is the weekday bedtime that needs to change.
Moving a bedtime that has drifted
Bedtimes drift later over holidays and across a school year, and the fix is the same at every age:
- Fix the wake-up time first. A consistent morning anchors the body clock far more strongly than a consistent evening. Hold it seven days a week for a week before you touch bedtime.
- Then move bedtime in 15-minute steps, every three or four nights. The body clock will follow that pace; it will resist an hour.
- Get daylight into the morning. Curtains open on waking, and ten to fifteen minutes outside if you can. Morning light pulls the clock earlier; evening light pushes it later.
- Give it a fortnight before judging it.
Sources. Age-based recommendations are from the National Sleep Foundation’s sleep duration recommendations and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s consensus statements on sleep for healthy children and for adults. Sleep stage figures are from published polysomnography data. This page is general wellbeing information, not medical advice — speak to a GP or doctor about persistent sleep problems.
Common questions
What time should children go to bed?
It depends on age and on when they have to be up. For a 7:00 AM wake-up: preschoolers around 7:00–8:00 PM, primary-age children 7:15–9:00 PM, and teenagers 8:45–10:45 PM. Work backwards from the wake-up time rather than starting from the clock.
What are normal bedtimes by age?
Roughly: 1–2 years 6:30–7:45 PM, 3–5 years 6:45–8:00 PM, 6–9 years 7:00–9:00 PM, 10–12 years 7:45–9:30 PM, 13–17 years 8:45–10:45 PM, all assuming a 7:00 AM start.
Does bedtime need to be the same every night?
Consistency helps a great deal, because a regular schedule lets the body clock line the hormonal cycle up with it. Within about half an hour is a realistic target. The wake-up time is the more important of the two to keep fixed.
How do I know if my child's bedtime is right?
Judge it by the morning. A child on the right bedtime wakes close to on time without being called and is reasonably civil within twenty minutes. Needing to be woken every day means the bedtime is too late, whatever the chart says.