Blog Posts 1–5, based on the United States of America Department of the Army Field Manual: Holistic Healing and Fitness, describe what really matters for your child’s sleep. If sleep is an important enough topic for national defense than surely sleep should be considered a serious topic for parenting!
Parents often ask me when they should put their child to sleep at night. Usually, they have already seen a list, organized by age, of bedtimes for children.
However, because biologic bedtimes for children vary a lot at any given age (Blog Post 14), it is always better to look at your child, and not look at some published list of bedtimes by age
In the late afternoon or very early evening, if you see ‘drowsy signs’ (Blog Post 83), consider an earlier bedtime.
Near the end of the day, if there is a ‘witching hour’ (Blog Posts 171–173), consider an earlier bedtime.
Anytime, if your child develops a ‘second wind’ (Blog Posts 171–173), consider an earlier bedtime.
Sometimes, a bedtime that is only 10-20 minutes earlier makes a huge difference; Blog Posts 23 and 174 tell you how to move the sleep schedule earlier.
However, if there are issues with naps or fragmented night sleep (Blog Post 11), to help fix these problems, a temporary super-early bedtime might be needed.
Sadly, an early bedtime as a health habit is not widely appreciated by parents (Blog Posts 38 and 70) and some children’s sleep researchers (Blog Posts 129 and 130), so expect to be criticized by family and friends if you practice an early bedtime for your child.
To disarm your critics and better appreciate the importance of a healthy bedtime for your child, see Blog Posts 99A and 123.
Or just tell your critics that you don’t want your child to become brain damaged (Blog Posts 135, 136, 148–151)!
A Healthy Child Needs a Healthy Brain,
A Healthy Brain Needs Healthy Sleep.
Love the last response lol!
Thanks Doctor for the great book. Our daughter is 21 months old and we’ve found your book and guidance to be spot on and very helpful. Currently a little confused, though, as she is taking longer and longer recently to fall asleep despite our continuation of an early bedtime. For context, we went through potty training about 6 weeks ago, and her sleep was shortened as a result (typically waking up earlier in the morning and shorter naps). We knew this was a likely byproduct of potty training, but our understanding was that things would soon go back to normal as her bladder learned to consolidate. At this point she still wakes up 1-2 times at night to pee, but is back to waking up at or close to her previously normal 6:00 am. Her single day nap is still shortened – around 1 hour instead of her previously normal 90 minutes. As we were aware of the risk of cumulative sleeplessness, we were careful to keep her bedtime on the earlier side throughout this process, but lately she seems to be falling asleep later and later. The last few nights we have put her in the crib at 6:00 pm and she hasn’t fallen asleep until close to 8:00 pm. She doesn’t cry or get upset while she lays there, but does seem to be sleepy. We are seeing drowsy signs before she goes in, but aren’t seeing signs of the ‘witching hour’ or ‘second winds’. With only about 10 hours night sleep and a 1 hour nap we’re concerned that she isn’t getting enough sleep – we understand 12-14 hours is normal for her age group. Is it possible she just doesn’t need more sleep and we should adjust her bedtime later, say 7:00, unless she starts showing signs of being overtired?
Currently, when does “We are seeing drowsy signs before she goes in” begin? And please describe what you notice.
Thanks for the quick response. Drowsy signs usually entail yawning and rubbing the eyes, but its not long before bedtime – maybe 30 minutes to an hour maximum, and typically in the car ride on the way home from daycare
Please read Blog Posts 9, 83, and 115X to understand why you are confusing fatigue signs for drowsy signs.
Is she in day care 5 days a week, how does she nap at day care, when do you walk in the house with her after pick-up from day care?
What do you think my recommendation to you will be?
Question about long sleep latency in my 24 month old. Most nights she’s taking 1 to 1 1/2 hours to fall asleep.
We sleep trained her successfully as per your book, and she has been falling asleep independently and sleeping through the night since 9 months.
She goes into her crib 7:30 every night, after 30-45 min bedtime routine. Usually she’s happy to get in there or asks to go to bed, occasionally there’s a few short lived protest cries. The thing is that for the last few months it’s taking her ages to fall asleep. She’s quite content in there, she rolls around, babbles to herself and eventually falls asleep. She wakes around 6:30 ish.
She has a single nap (falls asleep quickly) at 12 which is usually 2 hours, sometimes 3 if she’s had a very active and stimulating morning.
I feel like you’ll say put her to bed earlier, but the thing is in the afternoon and evening she’s happy and energetic, rarely irritable. So I’m struggling to believe she’s overtired.
On the one hand, if she’s content in her crib what does it matter if she’s awake a while, on the other hand it seems a shame.
Should she go down for her midday nap closer to 11/11:30 to generate more evening sleep pressure? What would you do?
With best wishes and thanks,
Laura
The fact that she sometimes takes a 3 hour nap suggests that her falling asleep time is too late, but she appears fine, “rarely irritable”.
When she does appear irritable, what is the approximate clock time when this occurs? How often does this occur?
Please place her alone with toys (no screens, no parental nor sibling interaction) for 15-20 minutes between 6-7pm for 2-3 nights and watch her mood and behavior and report back.