No matter how old your children are, there is a good chance that, as a parent, you wonder if they are getting enough sleep. From the early days of multiple naps and nighttime wakings to the late nights of teen years, you debate how much sleep is needed. And, once your child can communicate with you, he may debate whether he wants a nap or wants to go to bed at the scheduled time.
According to the Mayo Clinic web site, there are general guidelines for the amount of sleep required, based on age. Dr. Kenneth Berge recommends the following, “Infants typically sleep at least 16 hours a day. Most preschoolers need at least 11 hours of sleep a night, and most school-age children need at least 10 hours of sleep a night. By the teenage years, nine hours of sleep a night is usually adequate.”
So, if you put your 3 year old to bed at 7:30 pm, you should expect her to sleep until about 6:30 am. Of course, different households have different schedules, so for some houses 7:30 is the perfect bedtime, while at another it may be 9:00 pm. As long as your child is able to sleep late enough to get the required amount of sleep, the exact bedtime doesn’t matter.
Once school begins, then bedtime becomes more important. A first grader can’t go to bed at 10:00 pm on a school night, get ten hours of sleep, and be on time for school. When your child reaches school-age (or needs to go to daycare), bedtime can be established by working backward. Determine what time your child needs to wake and count back the appropriate amount of hours.
A last, but important, note on this topic is that every child is not the same. So, even though teenagers typically require nine hours of sleep, that doesn’t mean that your 16 year old son does. He may need ten hours and has to go to bed at 8:00 pm in order to be up at 6:00 am. Conversely, your 14 year old daughter may need eight hours of sleep and can go to bed at 10:00 pm and wake at 6:00 am without a problem.
While many kids will tell you they’re not tired and don’t need to go to bed at whatever time you have chosen, as a parent, you can determine if your child is right quite easily. Let your daughter go to bed half an hour later than you have recommended. Does she wake up on time in the morning, or does she sleep through her alarm? Is she tired later in the day? If so, she needs more sleep. However, if you make your daughter’s bedtime later, and she awakes on time and doesn’t appear drowsy later in the day, a later bedtime may be acceptable.
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