I first read about the “early bed time” when I read “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Marc Weissbluth. I remember reading one of the examples in the book about a family needing to put their infant to bed at 5:30pm every night for several weeks to help her get caught up on sleep and I thought it was crazy! 5:30pm sounded WAY too early for a baby to be going to bed for the night! Even though I read his book and tended to agree with his explanations and recommendations, in the back of my mind I still believed that a child would sleep later in the morning if put to bed later at night. That’s what makes more sense, right? However, since then I’ve come around to be quite the “Early Bed Time” believer!

We first tried EBT with Little Piñata when he dropped his third nap at 8 months old. Even though he definitely didn’t need that third nap anymore, he didn’t transition perfectly and instead had disastrous night sleeping and horrible early morning wakings. He went from sleeping until about 7am every morning to often waking up before 5am crying and not falling back to sleep until we got in the car to get dropped off before work. Then, of course, this car sleeping messed up his morning nap and the cycle of over-tired continued. It was so exhausting! Thankfully, I was reminded of Weissenbluth’s idea of early bedtime on an online forum for moms (before I was on HB) and we immediately implemented it. Even though I was skeptical, I was desperate for Little P to get back to sleeping through the night to a reasonable wake-up time.

The results weren’t perfect at first. My first mistake was thinking that just moving his bedtime 30 minutes earlier would be early enough. But, it definitely wasn’t! We didn’t see results until we put Little Piñata to bed at 6pm. Even though this seemed crazy to me, it worked like a charm. Within 2-3 nights he was sleeping all the way until 6:30am! Sometimes he still woke around 6, but that was WAY better to me than anything in (or before) the 5 o’clock hour. Plus, after an early bedtime he would wake up happy instead of still tired and crying. This meant that even if he woke up when I was still getting ready for the day, he would play in his crib quietly, not crying and screaming to get picked up.

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We kept up with the 6pm bedtime for several months. I have to admit that it was quite nice! We took this opportunity to go out on dates because he would be sound asleep before we would even leave for dinner, which made it especially easy for the sitters (and a bit cheaper for us). It also allowed Mr. Piñata and I a few hours of time together most evenings. I actually didn’t even start dinner until after Little P went to bed, so that meant I didn’t have to try to multi-task to keep him entertained while I spent time in the kitchen. It was really, really nice to have such long quiet evenings!


Sleeping soundly at the beach last summer

Once Little Piñata got very used to just two naps and got caught up on his sleep, his bedtime slowly got moved later until it landed at 7pm, which is where it tends to be now. Although there are definitely nights that we put him down at 6pm. We’ve never regretted putting him down “too” early, but have definitely regretted putting him down too late! Since we have moved to the earlier bedtime Little P tends to sleep until at least 6:30am (except when he’s sick) and often past 7am! I know that not all babies and toddlers do well with an early bedtime, but I think there are some common mistakes that prevent people from knowing if it really works for their child.

1. Not moving bedtime early enough
A lot of people make the same mistake I did at first and don’t start bedtime quite early enough. Just moving it up 30 minutes, or even an hour may not be enough. If you suspect your child is truly overtired (symptoms being early wakings, night wakings, waking up in the morning or from naps crying), I recommend putting them to bed AT LEAST an hour earlier than you’re used to. From what I’ve read 6pm is a really good place to start, and 5:30 is definitely not unheard of. To this day if Little Piñata is cranky at dinner and seems tired, I put him to bed at 5:30 and he has always slept through the night this way!

2. Giving up too soon
Often, after a night or two of continued poor sleep people give up on early bedtime and think it just doesn’t work for their kids. And it may not. But, I think you really have to give it at least a week before you know for sure if it works for your child. A solid week of consistent early bedtime is key to helping them get caught up on that lost sleep.

3. Trying to move the bedtime too early too quickly
Even though I said earlier that you have to move the bedtime really early to see results, it’s not a good idea to move a baby’s bedtime from 11pm to 6pm in one night. You’ll have to move the bedtime back in increments to get there. And it may also mean waking your baby in the morning in order to get their circadian rhythms back in place. I personally don’t have experience with this since Little Piñata’s bedtime has always been on the earlier side, but there are more step-by-step directions in Weissbluth’s book.

The science behind early bedtime is that it prevents children from getting to the “over-tired” phase. And when we are overtired, we don’t get the deep, restorative sleep that our body needs. This also means that we will get woken up more easily (especially in the early morning) by sounds like cars driving by, dogs barking, or even the air conditioning kicking on. But, if we go to sleep before our brain and body is over-tired, we are more likely to cycle through our deep sleep better. Even though I wasn’t sure it would work for us, it definitely has! We still use various early bedtimes based on Little P’s level of tired and plan to continue in the long run (more on that in another post).


In searching for “sleeping baby” photos I couldn’t resist posting this, even though it was long before early bedtimes (Summer 2012).

Have you tried Early Bed Time? Has it worked for your kids?