Timing of Bedtime Routines
I would say there are only 3 things to focus on as a new parent:
1- Mum’s healing and wellbeing
2- Establishing feeds
3- Establish a bedtime routine
As you’ll notice the only sleep related point there is a bedtime routine and that’s for good reason!
A bedtime routine is important for all of us actually, but especially children. The predictability and
consistency is comforting before bed and signals a wind-down period. This helps with not only the
child falling asleep, but staying asleep too.
So we’ve been told in general, bedtime routines are helpful but what does the research say?
A recent 2021 study done by Tsai et al., wanted to see if a consistent bedtime routine would
help with falling asleep and/or staying asleep. This study was done in Taiwan.
They had 320 six month olds participate for 1 week. Then the infants wore a sleep tracking device
called an actigraph on their ankle and the parents reported on the child’s bedtime routine and sleep logs.
(Now keeping in mind that the parents reporting themselves does open a door for some variable error.)
The results?!
→ 62% of parents started their bedtime routine after 9pm
→ 51% of those parents didn’t start their bedtime routine at the same time each night
→ Infants slept longer at night and there weren’t as many changes night to night when parents started
a bedtime routine at least 5/7 days a week, no later than 9pm.
So interesting!
You will hear that most bedtimes should be around 7pm and there are a few different
reasons for that (click here to see my blog post on the 7pm bedtime).
However we don’t talk much about what the maximum lateness is for a bedtime!
This study helps us understand that yes, an earlier bedtime helps a child sleep better, however
9pm seems to be where the line is drawn. It really gives us an interesting insight into infant sleep.
Now the next question I have is why 9pm? Perhaps the infant’s sleep pressure from the day is
completely gone by that point and causes major over-tiredness.
Perhaps there is some melatonin/cortisol switch at that point that makes it more difficult for the child to fall and stay asleep.
That is the exciting part of research where we ask more questions and we get closer and closer to the answers.
I know not everyone is interested in the science-y aspect to all this😛 – however it is at least interesting
to know what scientists out there are finding out and how that could possibly impact our own daily bedtime routines.
I hope you found this at least a little intriguing and please let me know if you would like to
discuss this further as I would love to hear your thoughts.
It might be fun next time to take a look at the content of the bedtime routine and see if that changes sleep.
As always, please reach out if you have any questions and I hope you have a great rest of your week!
-Marina
Your Sleep Consultant
Tsai, S., Lee, C., Tsai, H., & Tung, Y. (2022). Bedtime routines and objectively assessed sleep in infants. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 78(1), 154–164. https://doi-org.ezproxy.tru.ca/10.1111/jan.14968
