Hellobee

I once read that 7 o’ clock is the ideal bedtime for children up to the age of 7. For most of his life, Charlie’s bedtime has been 7:30pm. His bath would start at 7, and he would be in his crib by 7:30pm at the latest every night. If he woke up early from his nap, we would put him to bed earlier. This routine worked wonderfully until he was 27 months. But with Charlie’s sleep troubles the past couple of months, his bedtime has been inching later and later, with him going to sleep after 9pm some nights!

I’m a big believer in early bedtimes for children because neither Charlie nor Olive has ever slept in when we put them to bed later. Early bedtimes are great for kids because they usually sleep better and longer with earlier bedtimes, but they’re great for parents too so they have some time to themselves in the evenings!

Olive, who’s currently 9 months old, has a bedtime of 6:30pm. She always gets at least 12 hours of sleep every night, sometimes more. We’re ok with having two separate bedtimes now, as it’s hard for Olive to stay up past 6:30, and it’s easier to put her down first and focus on Charlie’s more challenging mealtime and bedtime routines. But eventually I’d love to have Charlie and Olive bathe together and go to bed at the same time around 7:00 – 7:30pm. That means moving Charlie’s bedtime back to what it used to be, and moving Olive’s bedtime a little later. Since Charlie’s sleep has improved a little this past week (he’s been falling asleep by himself again instead of having us stay with him until he’s asleep), I hope to implement a plan to get him back to a 7:30 bedtime soon.

I thought it would be interesting to hear real bedtimes from mamas of kids of all different ages and why it works for their families. So I asked some friends, the Hellobee bloggers, and Hellobee contributors about bedtimes for their little ones! These are their answers below arranged according to age and number of children:

Mrs. Hopscotch
Child’s Age: 11 Weeks
Bedtime: Start the routine at 8pm, asleep between 8:30 and 9:00pm
We used to put her to bed later, but realized that since she was getting incredibly fussy at 8pm every night. Obviously she was tired! So we started the routine at 8pm and most nights she falls asleep quite easily – obviously all of her fussiness was her telling us she needed to go to bed!

Mrs. Tic Tac Toe
Child’s Age: 3 months
Bedtime: We shoot for an 8:00pm bedtime, but it’s different each day. Sometimes he’s asleep by 7:15 and sometimes not until 10.
My husband doesn’t usually get home from work until 7:30, so I try to wait until he gets a bit of time with Baby TTT before I put him to bed.

Mrs. Stroller
Child’s Age: 7 months
Bedtime: 6:30/7pm
We start bath whenever he starts to show his “I’m exhausted” signs. After his bath, he nurses then it’s straight to bed. Bath time started around 9:30 pm when he was a newborn, and by 8 weeks it was 8pm. Two weeks later we were at 7:30 and it’s just slowly crept back from there. A big jump to 6pm came when he dropped his third nap. But now he’s barely making it to 5:30 before he’s ready for his bath!  When he was only a couple weeks old, I desperately wanted to know when early bedtimes would start. Two girlfriends told me that I’d “just know.” It was so frustrating to hear, but so true.

Mrs. Jump Rope
Child’s Age: 8.5 Months
Bedtime: Anywhere between 9:30-10:30
She’s always fallen asleep between 9:30 and 10:30, even as an infant.  We start our bedtime routine around 8pm, but she fights through the exhaustion and stays up for a while.  We can always count on her being asleep by 10:30, but never before 9:30.

Mrs. Hula Hoop
Child’s age: 9 months
Bedtime: The “bedtime process” (bathing, feeding, changing) begins around 6:30/6:45pm and takes about 30 minutes. He’s usually in the crib by 7:00/7:15pm.
Ever since he began sleeping through the night at 2 months, his bedtime has always been at this time (well, we used to begin the process at 6:15 actually because he would get so mad and tired!). I tried keeping him up until at least 6:45 whenever I could so that Dad could get home from work and feed him a bottle and put him to bed. I guess Maxwell has since fallen into his routine and likes it––I can’t complain! I get the night off!

Mrs. Yo-yo
Child’s Age: 12 months
Bedtime: Varies, but is generally between 7 and 8 p.m.
Baby Y’s bedtime depends on when he gets up from his afternoon nap. From that point, I try to have him down for the night no more than 4 hours later, which is a good window of awake time for him right now. Anything more than that, and he may become overtired, which makes it harder for him to fall and stay asleep. All the same, we like to keep the bit of flexibility that we do have regarding his bedtime, which makes it a bit easier for us not to have to rush home super early if we want to run errands or go to dinner in the evening.

Mrs. Marbles
Child’s Age: 16.5  months
Bedtime: 7:30 – 8:00 PM
It’s when she naturally gets tired. We used to keep her up until 9:00 – 10:00pm, worried if we put her to bed too early, she’d get up earlier. She sleeps through the night and gets up at 6:30 – 7:00 AM. Now that we’ve successfully got her sleeping in the crib (we were previously cosleeping), it’s still the same schedule.

Susie
Child Age: 18 Months
Bedtime: 8:00pm
Up until she was about 14 months old, her bedtime was 7:30. I’d start reading to her at 7:30, and by the time she was in bed it was about 7:50-8pm. Now that she’s gotten a little older, her bedtime moved back a bit to about 8-8:30pm. One reason is that since she’s gotten older, she’s able to stay up longer and has been doing well with this new time. Also, the later bedtime means that her dad can put her to bed after he gets home from work, and it gives him a little time to spend with her before he starts reading her bedtime books. Another reason is that her naps at daycare at 18 months now start at about 12:30-1pm and end around 3, so she will start to fight bedtime if it’s any earlier than 8 pm. But because we have to get her to daycare by 7:30 – 8 AM, I dont like pushing her bedtime too late because she will in turn get up later. She used to get up at 6-6:30 every morning, and now it’s at about 7 am or later. Sometimes we wake her up so that her dad can continue to get her and do her morning routine with her before he goes to work (he leaves around 7:20), but we do try to let her sleep as much as we can in the AM.

Mrs. Cowgirl
Child’s Age: 2 years 10 months
Bedtime: 7:45pm
7:45 gives us enough time to eat dinner at 6-6:30ish and do bathtime or playtime before starting our bedtime routine. During the school year, we need to be out the door at 7:20, so that gives Lil’ CB about 10.5-11 hours of sleep. However, with the great Nap Saga of 2012, this has not been consistent! While we have continued to be consistent with the 7:45 bedtime, Lil’ CB is now falling asleep anywhere between 8:45 and 10pm. We are rethinking our current schedule and will be playing around with a shorter nap or no nap and an earlier bedtime (perhaps 6:45 or 7).

Mrs. Jacks
Child’s Age: Maisie – 4 months
Bedtime: 7:30.  You could set a watch to her.  She starts rubbing her eyes at 7 and finishes her bottle by 7:30.  Then she’s out like a light right then.  It’s really nice to have a good sleeper!
Child’s Age: Lala – 26 months
Bedtime: We start her routine to try to get her down by no later than 9.  She can resist until anywhere between 9:30 and 11.  Last night we both fell asleep before her :(. She’s a challenge regarding sleep and always has been.  It keeps me very grounded in the fact that sleep is probably one of the most challenging baby/toddler issues out there and if there was an easy answer, there wouldn’t be so many sleep help books or different ways to approach sleep!

Mrs. Superhero
Child’s Age: Wonder Baby, 5 months
Bedtime: between 7-9pm depending on her naps and general sleepiness.  She’s just starting to fall into a pattern and should have a solid bedtime in the next month or so.
Child’s Age: Toddler Girl, 29 months
Bedtime: 8:00pm
It used to be 7, but got adjusted when she was having so much trouble falling asleep.  I’ll probably bump it back to 7 in the fall because she sleeps in pretty late (8:30-9).

Mrs. Hide and Seek
Child’s Age: Noah, 6 months
Bedtime: 8:00pm
Noah usually goes to sleep within 2 hours since his last nap, and it usually ends up being around this time. Sometimes it’s closer to 7:00. He’s currently taking 3 naps per day, so his bedtime is affected by this.
Child’s Age: Paige, 3
Bedtime: 7:00pm
I’d heard from a sleep expert that a child should go to bed no more than 4 hours from the end of their last nap. This keeps them from waking too early in the morning. Ever since we started this rule of thumb Paige has been sleeping at least an hour later, sometimes more.

Brandy of Baby Blackbird
Children’s age: 2 Years and 3.5 Years Old
Bedtime: 7 PM
We started the bedtime routine at 3 months old, and 7pm was the time that both kids showed the night time tired signs. Now a couple years later, both kids are usually exhausted from the day and beyond ready for 7PM bed.

Andi
Children’s Age: 2 & 4
Bedtime: 10:30pm
My kids go to bed pretty late for their age.  I think over the years it’s gotten later, especially when my second child came along. I pick up the kids from daycare at 6pm, then they play or we run errands for 30 to 40 minutes. When I get home, I start cooking dinner. My husband doesn’t get home usually until about 7:30 at night, so we eat around 7:30 or 7:45.  By the time we are done cleaning and tidying up the house after dinner, it’s 9pm.  We do baths for both boys every night as part of their bedtime routine. After bath, lotion, pj’s, brush teeth and floss… it’s already almost 10.  By the time they fall asleep, it’s closer to 1030.  My younger son Max falls asleep faster, and my older son Logan can go almost to 11pm at times. But Logan is starting to drop his daytime naps at school.  On the days that he doesn’t nap, he falls asleep very quickly. They get up around 8am, give or take 30 minutes.  So they still sleep almost 10 hours a night plus an afternoon nap.

On the days when we are working late, one of us still tries to get home by 7:30 to relieve the sitter so that we can stick to our schedule.  It’s very rare that neither of us are home after 8pm. Of course on the weekends, we shift the schedule by another 30 minutes or so.  Bath doesn’t start until about 9:30 or 9:45 (if we have been out to a restaurant for dinner or something), and bedtime is closer to 11pm.

Jenny of Hank + Hunt
Children’s Age: 4 & 6
Bedtime: Their bedtime is at 8, but we start getting ready at 7.
We have that as the set time because it works well to have enough time after dinner to play and relax as a family.

Jennifer of Ambrosia Creative
Children’s Age: 8 mos, 4 years, and 6 years
Bedtime: 8:30 pm
They start turning into pumpkins around 7:30! And Dad gets home close to 7, so dinner, washing up, and storytime for all three kids needs to be checked off between then and bedtime.

Caroline of Armelle Blog
Children’s Ages: 1, 3, and 5
Bedtime: 8 o’clock (during the school year)
We try to get them in bed by 8. During the summer, it’s more like 10 (sad, but true). I try to make it 8 the goal, so we usually have to start the process at least a half hour before bedtime.  Getting in to pj’s, brushing teeth, saying prayers, and reading books can take a lot of time, so the actual lights out may not happen until 8:30 sometimes 9.  It’s nice to have them in bed at that time, so my husband and I can finally have some one on one time.  Then many nights that is when I have the chance to head down to my office to get my work done.

Mrs. Bicycle
Child’s Age: Olivia, 9 months
Bedtime: 8:00pm
Children’s Ages: Dylan, 9; Denali, 10
Bedtime: 8:30pm (reads till about 9:00pm)
My first two went to bed much earlier (like 7pm) when they were babies.  Mostly because I was a stay-at-home mom, and was exhausted by then.  But Olivia likes to play with the other kids in the evening and therefore is entertained longer.  Plus, I really don’t want our house to have to be silent from 7pm on, just for her. So we keep her up till 8pm.  She is definitely ready by 8pm and goes down easily without a fuss usually.

How old is your LO and what is their bedtime? What do you wish were their bedtime?