What time should your baby go to bed?

If your baby’s bedtime has drifted to 9 or 10 p.m., you’re not alone. It happens easily: a late nap, a parent who gets home late, an evening that just runs long. And a later bedtime can seem like it should mean a later morning.

Often it doesn’t work that way. For babies 4–12 months, an earlier bedtime tends to make the whole night easier. Here’s how to find the right time and get there without a fight.

The short answer: 6:30–8:00 p.m.

For every age in the Seven Nights plan, bedtime lands somewhere between 6:30 and 8:00 p.m. That’s a window, not a single magic time. Where your baby lands in it depends on their naps, their wake-up time and your family’s evening.

Why so early? Babies this age need a lot of night sleep, and their body clocks tend to settle early in the evening. When bedtime runs well past that, many babies get overtired. Overtired babies often fight sleep harder, wake more often and can start the day earlier, not later.

Use the last wake window to find your time

The easiest way to pick a bedtime is to count forward from the end of the last nap, using your baby’s wake window. Here are the typical ranges:

4–5 months: about 1½–2½ hours
6–8 months: about 2–3 hours
9–12 months: about 2½–4 hours

These are ranges, not deadlines. Start near the middle. So if your 7-month-old wakes from their last nap at 4:30 p.m., a bedtime around 7:00 p.m. is a good place to start. Remember to count the 20-minute routine inside that window, so the routine starts around 6:40.

Then watch and adjust. If your baby is wide awake and chatty when you lay them down, try a little later. If they’re fussy and wired by the end of the routine, try a little earlier. For more detail, see wake windows by age.

Signs bedtime might be too late

Your baby gets a second wind: suddenly bright, giggly or hyper in the evening.
They cry hard during the routine or fall asleep during the feed every night.
Frequent wakings in the first few hours after bedtime.
Waking for the day very early, before 6 a.m.

None of these prove bedtime is the problem, but they’re worth noticing. A too-late bedtime is one of the common contributors to early morning waking.

Signs bedtime might be too early

Your baby lies awake happily in the crib for a long time before dozing off.
They take a long time to settle even though the routine went smoothly.
The last nap ended only an hour or so before bedtime.

If this sounds familiar, push bedtime later in small steps, 15 minutes at a time.

How to move bedtime earlier

If your baby naturally falls asleep at 9:30 p.m. right now, jumping straight to 7:00 usually means a lot of lying awake and protest. A gentler way is to start where they are and move in steps.

Start the routine so your baby is in the crib around the time they naturally get sleepy now.
Once they’re falling asleep easily at that time, move bedtime 15 minutes earlier.
Keep stepping earlier, 15 minutes at a time, until you reach your target between 6:30 and 8:00 p.m.

This is the idea behind bedtime fading, the gentlest of the three Seven Nights approaches. Keep the routine and the way you respond exactly the same as you go. Only the clock changes.

A couple of things help the new time stick. Keep morning wake-up roughly the same each day, so the whole day has an anchor. And keep naps in a steady rhythm, so that last wake window before bed isn’t suddenly much longer or shorter.

What about working parents and busy evenings?

A 7:00 p.m. bedtime can feel impossible if you get home at 6:30. It’s okay to aim for the later end of the window, around 7:30–8:00 p.m., and let the last nap run a little later to match. The routine itself only needs about 20 minutes. Consistency matters more than hitting one exact time.

If the whole household is on board, bedtime gets much easier to protect. Our guide to getting both parents on the same sleep plan has ideas for sharing the evening.

If you want a plan for tonight

Seven Nights helps you pick a bedtime that fits your baby’s age and naps, then walks you through each evening in Bedtime Mode on your phone, adjusting as you go with a short morning check-in. See how the 7-night plan works.