Recommended hours by age
| Age | Recommended | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 4-12 months | 12-16 hours | Including naps |
| 1-2 years | 11-14 hours | Including naps |
| 3-5 years | 10-13 hours | Naps are usually dropped in this window |
| 6-12 years | 9-12 hours | Work bedtime backwards from the school start |
| 13-18 years | 8-10 hours | The body clock naturally shifts later |
How to tell whether it's enough
- Can they get up without an alarm, or on a single call?
- Do they sleep more than two hours longer at weekends? (If so, there's a weekday deficit.)
- Are there late-afternoon collapses — big reactions to small things?
- Do they fall asleep within five minutes in the car?
- Has the teacher mentioned anything about attention or activity levels?
When do naps stop
Most children drop the daytime nap between three and five; the transition can take months, and napping on some days and not others is normal. A useful halfway house is 'quiet time': 30-40 minutes in bed or on the floor with a book, with no requirement to sleep. Napping late — after four in the afternoon — makes falling asleep at night harder.
Working out bedtime
Bedtime is calculated backwards from wake time. For a seven-year-old getting up at 7am with a 10-hour target, sleep onset needs to be around 9pm — which means being in bed around 8.30, since falling asleep takes 15-20 minutes on average. The routine starts 30 minutes before that.
Common questions
My child sleeps less than recommended but seems fine. Is that a problem?
The ranges are population-level; some children genuinely need less. If daytime function is good — waking easily, no issues at school, no late-afternoon collapse — the amount is probably enough. A long weekend catch-up still suggests a deficit, though.
Is a late bedtime at weekends harmful?
An hour or two is tolerable; more than that makes Monday morning noticeably harder. Shifting the rhythm by two hours once a week has an effect similar to a small time-zone change.
Do screens before bed really matter?
They matter in two ways: light delays sleep onset, and content raises arousal. The second is usually the bigger factor. Screens off an hour before bed and devices charging outside the bedroom is the most commonly recommended arrangement.
Does sleep training apply to older children?
Not the infant methods, but behavioural approaches work well at school age too: a fixed sleep and wake time, a consistent routine, and associating the bed with sleep rather than with lying awake. Changes hold better when made gradually, in 15-minute steps.