When & Why to Use an Early Bedtime

I bet you’ve heard me say this before….

“early bedtimes are KEY when you’ve had short naps or longer than normal wake times.”

But why? And how early do you put them to bed?!

Why: we are actively trying to avoid overtiredness. When children are overtired, they often have a hard time going to sleep and staying asleep (ie false starts, frequent wakings, and early wake ups).

How early: this is relative! We don’t always just pick a time on the clock and call it good. There’s an equation 🤪

First, if you’re following wake times AND you have short naps, you just follow your wake times to bedtime. This naturally moves bedtime earlier without YOU physically moving it. See example below:

Normal schedule:
7:00am wake up
9:45-11:15am nap 1
2:15-3:45pm nap 3
7:00pm bedtime

Off day schedule:
7:00am wake up
9:45-10:45am nap 1
1:45-3:00pm nap 2
6:15pm bedtime

I just followed the same wake times and that made bedtime earlier. Another example using the same timing/total awake time as above:

7:00am wake up:
10:15-11:15am nap 1 (WT is 30 mins longer than normal)
2:30pm-4:00pm nap 2 (WT is 15 mins longer than normal)

(45 minutes of awake time over normal, SOOOO in order to help curb some overtiredness and let them make up sleep, I’m going to shorten the last awake time before bed - because sleep pressure is cumulative through the day, not just from the individual awake time before bed)

6:30ish bedtime

Things I hear about early bedtimes when I suggest them:

  • but if I keep them up longer they will go to sleep faster (ie they’ll just crash!)

  • if I put them to bed early, they’ll be up early

  • maybe they’ll sleep in if I put them down later

Unfortunately, for the majority of kids, pushing them past their ideal amount of awake time/individual awake times, will usually result in LESS sleep and poor sleep at that. You sleep better when you are rested, not when your body is strung out by pushing it.  Which means offering the opportunity for more sleep and to make up for lost sleep is ideal.

Let’s talk about the science of early bedtimes:

The hormone that helps is sleep = melatonin

The hormone that wakes you and keeps you awake = cortisol

If you child becomes overtired their cortisol increases to try and help keep them awake (giving them a second wind)— by doing so it increases their heart rate, body temperature and makes it hard to relax to fall asleep and transition sleep cycles. 

Read more about overtiredness in these blogs:

Reasons you may need an early bedtime:

  1. if they’re short on day time sleep (ie took short naps, took less naps, etc)

  2. had more than their usual amount of awake time between naps

  3. if their last nap (or only nap) ends earlier than usual

  4. skipping their only or last nap

Remember, try to consider their total sleep needs and how much sleep they usually have in 24 hours. Our goal is to help them achieve that by adding it onto their night of sleep.

When you don’t need an early bedtime?

  • if they had a normal day of naps/day sleep

  • chronically using an early bedtime (this just means you’re likely in an early bed/early wake cycle). 

Remember, we are doing this to help avoid an overtired child! 9 times out of 10 if used correctly your child should sleep very close to their normal wake up time and you can aim to get right back into your normal schedule for the day!

And I’ll leave you with this: “Infants who fell asleep earlier also slept longer at night. Keeping infants up later in hopes of them sleeping in longer may be counterproductive.” (source)

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