What Time Should Your Kids Actually Be in Bed?

A no-nonsense NZ parent's guide to bedtimes that work

Ask five parents what time their kids go to bed and you'll get five completely different answers. Followed by at least one person saying "whenever they finally stop bouncing off the walls." Sound familiar?

Here's the thing though. Getting bedtime right is one of those parenting wins that quietly fixes a bunch of other problems. The morning meltdowns, the after-school grumpiness, the mysterious inability to find shoes at 8:15am. A lot of it traces back to sleep.

Why Timing Matters (Not Just Total Hours)

Most of us know roughly how much sleep kids need. But the bit that catches parents out is when that sleep happens. Kids have natural sleep pressure that builds during the day, and if you miss the window, you end up with an overtired child who is somehow wired and exhausted at the same time. Every parent knows that kid. That kid who runs laps of the lounge at 9pm looking like they've had three flat whites. They're not "not tired." They've gone past tired and come out the other side.

So What Are the Right Bedtimes?

Every child is different, obviously. But sleep researchers have landed on some pretty consistent ranges that work for most kids. Here's what the guidelines suggest for New Zealand families.

Babies (4 to 12 months) need roughly 12 to 16 hours of sleep including naps, and do best with a bedtime somewhere between 6:00pm and 7:30pm. Early feels counterintuitive, but babies are genuinely wired for early nights. Fighting it usually backfires.

Toddlers (1 to 2 years) need 11 to 14 hours, with bedtime landing around 6:30pm to 7:30pm. Toddlers are creatures of habit and even shifting bedtime by 20 minutes can show up as a cranky monster the next morning.

Preschoolers (3 to 5 years) need 10 to 13 hours and a bedtime between 7:00pm and 8:00pm. This is the age where bedtime negotiations really kick in. "One more story" becomes five more stories, a glass of water, a trip to check the front door is locked, and an existential question about why dogs don't wear shoes.

School-age kids (6 to 12 years) need 9 to 12 hours, with bedtime ranging from 7:30pm to 9:00pm depending on age and what time they need to be up. After-school activities, homework, and screen time all start pushing bedtime later here.

Teenagers (13 to 18 years) need 8 to 10 hours and a bedtime between 9:00pm and 10:30pm. Their body clocks genuinely shift later during puberty, which is a biological reality and not just stubbornness. But with early school starts, they still need guardrails.

Working Out Your Child's Sweet Spot

The simplest approach is to work backwards from when they need to wake up. If your seven-year-old has to be up at 7:00am and needs about 11 hours of sleep, you're looking at an 8:00pm bedtime. Not 8:00pm "start getting ready for bed." 8:00pm lights out.

Red Flags That Bedtime Is Too Late

Not sure if your current setup is working? Keep an eye out for these:

Struggling to wake up in the morning is the obvious one. If you're dragging them out of bed every day, something needs to shift. Frequent meltdowns and irritability during the day are another clue, especially if they used to be pretty even-keeled. And then there's the classic overtired hyperactivity at night. The bouncing-off-walls behaviour that looks like excess energy is usually the exact opposite.