Infant Sleep: What’s an Ideal Bedtime for Baby?
The more families I support around infant sleep and in postpartum, the more questions I get around what’s considered the ‘ideal’ scenario to improve their little one’s sleep.
How long is baby supposed to sleep in a day?
When should they get up for the day?
What’s an ideal bedtime for the best possible nighttime sleep?
And do babies really have to go to bed at around 7pm?
In this blog article, I’ll draw from my personal experience and learning around baby sleep to provide guidance around the infamous ‘ideal’ bedtime of 7:00 pm.
Disclaimer: This article is meant for general guidance only and does not replace a comprehensive sleep consult. If you have any questions around baby sleep or would like to have 1:1 sleep coaching, please contact me.
Which bedtime is best for baby?
As we know, bedtimes vary greatly from one family to another. And there’s a good reason for it.
Some babies are fast asleep by 7:00pm and others prefer to doze off to sleep closer to 9:30pm. This can be because a certain bedtime is common in your culture, or because you just have a preference for putting baby down early vs. later in the evening.
And guess what? All times are perfectly fine as long as they work for your family.
Some families are naturally early risers vs. others who are big night owls. Chances are, your baby is naturally leaning towards one side as well.
Only few babies are actually able to ‘sleep through the night’, let alone go down for the night at around 7:00pm. This can be the case because your baby has generally lower sleep needs, needs more support to shift into relaxation mode (more on that below), is going through illness, developmental leaps or periods of change, has a more sensitive temperament, has feeding struggles, digestive discomfort, oral ties and the list goes on…
If we look at the graph below, we quickly understand that babies actually have wildly different sleep needs from the newborn stage until they get older. Some babies need A LOT of sleep, and others may do just fine with a little less. Some babies love to cosleep, others are just fine sleeping in their own space.
Sleep Duration Recommendations. (Source: The National Sleep Foundation)
Knowing that all babies are unique in their needs and in how much sleep they actually need in a day (with sleep totals ranging from 11 to 19 hours for newborns between 0-3 months!) can take a lot of pressure off you and lower your expectations when it comes to baby sleep.
What can help improve bedtime for baby?
Although babies tend to follow similar patterns as they grow older and develop their circadian rhythm (their capacity to differentiate between night and day), a strictly enforced bedtime is often not realistic.
Instead, what usually helps babies sleep better is a combination of 3 things:
Watching their unique sleepy cues to determine if they’re actually sleepy.
Watch out for slowed movements, apathetic staring, fussiness or yawning. As you get to know your baby, you will start noticing how they will act if they’re getting sleepy and take that as your cue to begin another important piece of the puzzle…
Observing their usual wake windows to understand how much sleep/ awake time they need.
Try writing down how long baby is awake for before needing a nap/ nighttime sleep for a couple of days. The goal here is to observe baby’s natural wake windows and establish patterns and rhythms that you can then use as a guideline for putting baby to bed (not as a solid, predictable outcome that’s set in stone).
Developing a solid and predictable bedtime/ nap time routine.
Based on what works for you and your family, start building a routine that’s always similar. It certainly doesn’t have to be complicated or very long, but should include a similar mix of things that tend to calm your baby down (pyjamas, bath time, books, white noise/ music, dimmed lights, singing, nursing).
Important: Remember that each baby is unique, and what’s calming for one baby (e.g. bath time) may not be calming for another. Try out a couple of different strategies to figure out what’s most relaxing for your little one.
The role of the nervous system
After a full day of learning, stimulation and just life, babies thrive in predictable routines to cue them that it’s time to sleep.
Also, a solid routine will help their nervous system to move from a sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state:
When we are in a sympathetic state, we are in 'fight or flight' mode, we are more active and alert, or tend to be stressed. In a sympathetic state, we cannot ever relax or properly prepare our body for sleep.
In a parasympathetic state, we are much more relaxed, calm and feel safe in our environment and with our caregivers - a prerequisite for falling asleep.
“Activation of the parasympathetic nervous system is required for QUALITY sleep, which is really the depth with which we can fall into sleep. (…) We not only need sleep hormones to help us sleep, but we need a sense of SAFETY above all else. (…) One of the sleep hormones - melatonin - is only released when the parasympathetics are working properly.”
- Dr. Carrie Rigoni, The vagus nerve and your child’s sleep (Source)
Similar to adults, babies also need time and feeling safe in order for their little bodies to be ready for sleep. In other words, the more you can work towards activating their parasympathetic nervous system, the easier it will be for your little one to find sleep.
A little personal anecdote…
For my daughter, who’s always had lower sleep needs than other babies her age, bedtime has always been on the later side.
And I will admit, I used to try to put her down by 7pm and spent countless hours in her nursery trying to get her to sleep.
Until I realized that I am wasting a lot of my energy trying to enforce something that just wasn’t realistic for her.
Instead, I started observing her natural flow between awake and sleepy, following her cues and building a routine that’s always the same: pyjamas, dimming the lights, saying goodnight to her treasured objects, 2 books, breastfeeding to sleep (when she was smaller) or holding her hand (now that she’s older).
And bedtime because so much smoother and more enjoyable for both of us.
♡♡♡