Baby and child sleep schedule
How much should your child sleep in 24 hours, and when should bedtime be? Calculate it from official guidance and compare it with your own log.
Recommended sleep per 24 hours
12–16 hours
Including naps · 4–12 months
Bedtime window
At this age the recommendation includes naps. Select the total nap time to work out the bedtime.
Ranges come from the 2016 consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), which the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also supports. Open the statement
Recommended sleep by age
| Age | Sleep per 24 hours | Naps included |
|---|---|---|
| 4–12 months | 12–16 hours | Yes |
| 1–2 years | 11–14 hours | Yes |
| 3–5 years | 10–13 hours | Yes |
| 6–12 years | 9–12 hours | No |
| 13–18 years | 8–10 hours | No |
| 0–4 months | The consensus gives no range for this age | |
This tool is for information only. It is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace a medical examination.
About this tool
What does this tool do?
How much sleep children need in 24 hours changes with age. This tool uses the ranges in the 2016 consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), a statement the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also supports. Enter the age and the wake-up time and it shows the recommended total sleep and the bedtime window that reaches it. Signed-in parents can log that day's sleep and see the average of the last seven days next to the recommended range.
How do I use it?
Start with the child's age; if you are signed in and the profile has a date of birth, the age fills in by itself. Then choose whether to calculate from the wake-up time or the bedtime, and enter that time. Under six years the recommendation includes naps, so you also need to select the total nap time, otherwise night sleep cannot be worked out. The result cards update as you type.
How should I read the result?
The duration is a range, not a single number: any value inside the range counts as normal. The bedtime is a range too; the earliest time corresponds to the longest sleep and the latest time to the shortest. Falling outside the range on one day is not a problem on its own, but if it happens regularly it is worth asking your pediatrician.
What this tool does not do
The consensus statement gives no range for infants under 4 months, because normal variation is very wide at that age, so the tool produces no number either. How many naps a child should take and how long wake windows should be are not part of the official consensus, and the tool does not invent them. Nap time is the value you enter; it is never estimated.
