Bedtime by Age Chart: Toddlers to Teens

Most bedtime-by-age charts hand you a clock time with no wake time attached, or a range with no way to fit it to your morning. A "bedtime of 8:00 PM" means ten and a half hours of sleep if school starts at 6:30 and twelve if it starts at 8:00. Those are different children's mornings. So the chart below flips it: the sleep need is the fixed input, the alarm is the other fixed input, and the bedtime is just subtraction.

This is general information from published guidance, not medical advice. If you're worried about how your child sleeps, that's a conversation for their pediatrician, and the last section covers when.

How much sleep does each age need?

The numbers most charts use trace back to one document: the AASM consensus statement on pediatric sleep, published in 2016 and endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Sleep Research Society and the American Association of Sleep Technologists. A 13-member expert panel reviewed 864 scientific articles and voted its way to these ranges, each measured per 24 hours and "on a regular basis":

Age	Recommended sleep per 24 hours
4 to 12 months	12 to 16 hours, including naps
1 to 2 years	11 to 14 hours, including naps
3 to 5 years	10 to 13 hours, including naps
6 to 12 years	9 to 12 hours
13 to 18 years	8 to 10 hours

Two details are worth knowing before you use them. First, the panel left out babies under four months because normal sleep varies too much at that age to set a range. Second, the statement says individual need is shaped by genetics, behavior, medical factors and environment. A range is a range. Your child sitting at the low end or the high end of it is not a problem on its face.

For adults the equivalent guidance is seven or more hours, and our guide to what time you should go to bed uses the same counting-back method for grown-ups.

What bedtime does that mean for a school morning?

Here is the conversion table. Each cell is the time your child should be asleep by to hit the low and high end of their range, given the wake-up time in the column header. These are asleep times, not lights-out times, so add however long your child usually takes to drift off. I use 15 minutes as a planning number for older kids. That's my assumption, not a published figure, so replace it with what you actually see.

Age band	Sleep range	Wake 6:30 AM	Wake 7:00 AM	Wake 7:30 AM
3 to 5 years	10 to 13 hours	5:30 to 8:30 PM	6:00 to 9:00 PM	6:30 to 9:30 PM
6 to 12 years	9 to 12 hours	6:30 to 9:30 PM	7:00 to 10:00 PM	7:30 to 10:30 PM
13 to 18 years	8 to 10 hours	8:30 to 10:30 PM	9:00 to 11:00 PM	9:30 to 11:30 PM

The preschool row assumes the 10 to 13 hours happen at night. If your child still naps, that nap counts toward the total, so night sleep needs fewer hours and the real bedtime lands later than the early end shown. The left side of each range (the early time) is the bedtime that gives the most sleep; the right side is the latest bedtime that still hits the minimum.

If you'd rather work from hours than ages, this is the same arithmetic in its most portable form:

Hours you want	Asleep by (6:30 AM wake)	Asleep by (7:00 AM wake)	Asleep by (7:30 AM wake)
8 hours	10:30 PM	11:00 PM	11:30 PM
9 hours	9:30 PM	10:00 PM	10:30 PM
10 hours	8:30 PM	9:00 PM	9:30 PM
11 hours	7:30 PM	8:00 PM	8:30 PM
12 hours	6:30 PM	7:00 PM	7:30 PM

A worked example

A 10-year-old wakes at 6:45 for a 7:40 school start. The 6 to 12 range is 9 to 12 hours. Picking the middle, 10.5 hours, means asleep at 8:15 PM. Add 15 minutes to fall asleep and lights go out at 8:00 PM. Even the minimum, 9 hours, puts them asleep by 9:45 PM. So a 9:00 PM lights-out sits comfortably inside the range for this child, and 8:00 PM gives them the middle of it.

The middle is a starting point, not a prescription. Watch how your child wakes. If you have to drag them out of bed every morning at the middle of the range, move the bedtime earlier by 15 minutes for a week and see what changes.

You can run any wake time through the sleep calculator for the same subtraction with sleep cycles shown, and our 6 AM bedtime breakdown shows how the arithmetic shifts when the alarm is early.

Why do teenagers struggle with early bedtimes?

Because their body clocks run later than a parent's, and a 9 PM bedtime that works at age 8 can simply fail at 15. The Sleep Foundation describes teens as natural night owls and attributes it to a shift in the circadian rhythm: the sleep drive builds more slowly, so they don't feel tired until later in the evening, and the body starts producing melatonin later in the day. It also notes that light from phones can suppress melatonin on top of that.

Now look at the table. A teen who needs 8 to 10 hours and wakes at 6:30 for school needs to be asleep between 8:30 and 10:30 PM. If their body isn't ready for sleep until 11, that math fails before the evening starts. That's the honest reason a nagging 9 PM bedtime backfires: the teen lies awake, gets frustrated, and the alarm still goes off at the same time.

The CDC's school sleep page says the same collision shows up at scale. It notes that late bedtimes and early school start times mean most adolescents don't get enough sleep, and it reports that in 2025 data, 75% of students weren't getting adequate sleep. It also points out that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended in 2014 that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 AM.

You probably can't move the school bell, but you can work the other side:

• Treat the wake time as the fixed point and move bedtime earlier in 15 to 20 minute steps, not a one-night jump.
• Dim screens and bright light in the last hour before the target bedtime, since the Sleep Foundation flags light as a melatonin suppressor.
• Put the charger outside the bedroom. A teen's phone is the most common reason a 10:30 bedtime becomes midnight.
• Use a plain clock like the night clock at the bedside so the phone doesn't need to be the clock.

How much should weekend bedtimes change?

As little as you can stand. The CDC's general advice is to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, and the reasoning is straightforward: sleeping in until noon on Saturday shifts the body clock later, and Sunday night then becomes a battle against a clock that is now running later than your alarm.

A realistic version for families: keep the wake time within about an hour of the school-day wake time, and let the bedtime float a little later on Friday and Saturday. That is a rule of thumb I use, not a published threshold. The point is to keep both ends of the sleep window close enough to the weekday ones that Monday doesn't feel like a time zone change. Kids who really are short on sleep during the week will sleep in anyway, and a modest lie-in is normal. The warning sign is when weekend sleep runs several hours longer than weekday sleep every single week, which suggests weekday bedtimes are too late.

How long should a bedtime routine take?

I couldn't find a number I'd trust from a fetched medical source, so here's how I'd think about it instead of quoting one. A routine is a sequence the child can predict: bath or wash, pajamas, teeth, a book or quiet talk, lights out. It should be short enough that you actually repeat it on a tired Tuesday and long enough that the child's body registers "this is the wind-down."

For planning, build it backward from the table. Say your 7-year-old needs to be asleep by 8:30. Lights out at 8:15, routine starts at 7:45, and the 30-minute block before that is dinner cleanup, not screens. Write the times down once, then set a recurring alarm on the online alarm clock labeled "routine starts" so you aren't the one watching the time. For teens, the routine is mostly their own: a fixed "phone down" alarm replaces the parental bedtime story.

When should you talk to a pediatrician?

The AASM statement is direct about this: parents who are concerned that their child is sleeping too little or too much should consult their healthcare provider about a possible sleep disorder. A bedtime chart can't diagnose anything, and no schedule fixes a problem that isn't about scheduling.

Reasons to make the call:

• Your child is sleeping the full recommended hours and still seems exhausted, or is falling asleep during the day.
• Bedtime takes more than an hour of lying awake most nights despite a consistent schedule.
• Snoring, restless sleep, frequent night waking or other disturbances show up regularly.
• A teen's sleep is shifted so late that mornings are consistently unworkable.
• Your child is regularly getting well over or well under their age range with no obvious reason.

The statement also notes that sleeping fewer hours than recommended is associated with attention, behavior and learning problems, and for teens with mood and mental-health concerns. That's a reason to take persistent short sleep seriously and to ask for help early, not a reason to panic over one late night.

How do you put the chart to work this week?

1. Find your child's age band and the wake time that matches your school morning.
2. Read the "asleep by" window, pick a spot in the range, and add time to fall asleep.
3. Set a bedtime alarm and a routine-start alarm. Open the sleep calculator with your actual wake time and the bedtimes will already be waiting for you.
4. Hold the schedule for a full week, including the weekend, before judging it. Move in 15 minute steps.

If you're setting a wake alarm for a morning like the ones in the table, there are ready-made pages for 6:30 AM, 7:00 AM and 7:30 AM.

FAQ

What time should a 10-year-old go to bed?

A 10-year-old falls in the 6 to 12 band, which the AASM puts at 9 to 12 hours. With a 7:00 AM wake-up, that means asleep somewhere between 7:00 and 10:00 PM. A typical landing spot is lights out around 8:30 to 9:00 PM, which gives roughly 10 to 10.5 hours with time to fall asleep. Adjust by how they wake up.

Is 9 PM too late for a 7-year-old?

Not by the numbers. A 7-year-old needs 9 to 12 hours. Asleep at 9:00 PM with a 6:30 AM wake-up is 9.5 hours, and with a 7:30 AM wake-up it is 10.5 hours. Both are inside the range. If your child is hard to wake and cranky by late afternoon, an earlier bedtime would move them toward the middle of the range.

What time should a teenager go to sleep on a school night?

A teen needs 8 to 10 hours. With a 6:30 AM alarm that means asleep between 8:30 and 10:30 PM; with a 7:30 AM alarm, between 9:30 and 11:30 PM. Because teen body clocks run later, most land in the later half of that window, so the practical lever is usually the wake time and the evening light, not nagging about an earlier hour.

Should kids have the same bedtime on weekends?

Close to the same is best. The CDC advises going to bed and getting up at the same time every day. A bedtime that slides a little later on Friday and Saturday is common and usually fine, as long as the wake time doesn't swing by several hours, which is what makes Sunday night hard.

Sources

• Paruthi et al., Recommended Amount of Sleep for Pediatric Populations: A Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2016: age ranges, endorsements, guidance to consult a healthcare provider
• Sleep Foundation, Teens and Sleep: later sleep drive and melatonin timing in teens
• CDC, Sleep and Health, Healthy Schools: school-age and teen ranges, AAP 8:30 AM school start recommendation, 2025 student sleep data