Does morning wake up and bedtime have to be at the same time every day?

If you’re trying to set your child up for the most optimal sleep habits, having a consistent morning wake up time and bedtime can make a big difference in the quality of their sleep. But does morning wake up and bedtime have to be at the same time every day? It doesn’t have to be down to the minute, but a window of variability is fine! 

How does setting a child’s morning wake up time help their circadian rhythm?

Setting a morning wake up time is my first suggestion when someone is trying to improve sleep for their child. For example, if you have a desired wake up time of 7 am, then you could allow a wake up window between 6:30 am and 7:30 am. You can even tighten that window up further to 6:45 am-7:15 am. This is reinforcing your child’s circadian rhythm, and also allowing for a bit of flexibility for sleeping in on the weekends or if your child is feeling under the weather. This also ensures that their naps are occurring at generally the same time every day which can improve nap length and quality as well. 

A child’s circadian rhythm is wired to get their best sleep between 6-8pm to 6-8am. Sleep outside of that time is outside of their circadian rhythm and doesn’t result in the best, most restorative sleep. (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) If sleep happens outside of those times, this actually works against the body’s natural rhythm, and goes against the flow of hormones so their sleep quality may be not the best it could be. That leads to day time sleepiness even when they may be getting the exact same amount of hours overnight.

Does bedtime have to happen at the same time every night?

Bedtime should be happening around 6-8/8:30 pm. But even bedtime should have some flex to it. Depending the number of naps they are on, or how well they napped that day, bedtime could shift up to an hour. Some days your baby only may take one 30 minute nap, and in that case you wouldn’t want to push them to stay up to a set bedtime when their body has different needs for that day. This ability to be flexible respects the child’s fluctuating sleep needs while also keeping things somewhat regular for the child.

As your baby gets older, their wake windows will start to stretch. They can tolerate more awake time so the bedtime will get pushed later and later. As they get closer to a nap transition, the last nap may be consistently pushing bedtime too late, so you’ll have the choice to forgo that last nap for an earlier bedtime.  For a while, your baby will have an earlier bedtime than you may be used to, but the cycle starts again and the baby’s wake windows will slowly push bedtime later again. This is the ebb and flow of wake windows and nap transitions.  If you want to keep bedtime no later than 8 pm to stay in line with their natural rhythm you can cap, or limit, your child’s last nap to preserve that bedtime. We have data showing that consistent bedtimes for older kiddos helps to reduce unwanted behaviors. However if that set bedtime is consistently too late for their age, those benefits are negated, or the unwanted behavior increased. 

In summary, if you are worried about it, bedtime won’t be 7:00 pm forever and always when you have small kids! There is a degree of flexibility to it. But keeping that bedtime or wake up time within a set range can really do wonders for the quality of your child’s sleep!

If you are in need of help during a nap transition or have schedule questions, set up a discovery call with me here!